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I'll try to educate you as much as possible here. I've tried to explain things as much as possible, so that people who are new to GIMP might be able to follow. Remember, the point of this is not to replicate my result exactly, but rather to show you some effects that might be of use to you.
Before you start, download these brushes. I didn't make them, so full credit to Patriot for these awesome brushes.
Anyway, let's get on with the tutorial. First, you need to find a nice render -- I chose a good image of Dark Samus, and saved it to a folder (I recommend making a GIMP folder, if you're new to it) on my computer.
Make a new image, whatever size, just not too big. I chose 350x120.
Once you've cut out your render, go to File>Open as Layers, and then find your render wherever you saved it.
Now your render is opened on a new layer, transparent and all.
Press 'M', or choose the Move tool from the toolbar (the four arrows). Position your render, making sure to scale it if necessary (Layer>Scale Layer). If you want to flip the render, go to Layer>Transform>Flip Horizontally. I went ahead and rotated it to get the hand in the image.
Once you are happy with your placement, go to Layer>Layer to Image Size to set the boundaries of the layer. This does delete whatever is outside of it, but you can always undo it if you decide you want something different (Ctrl+Z, Edit>Undo).
If you haven't already, I recommend making a permanent dock. Do this by going to Dialogs>Create New Dock, and choosing Layers, Channels, and Paths. Click on the Channels dock (red, green, blue icon), and go to the arrow below the word Auto. Click 'Close Tab', and add a 'Brushes' tab to this dock.
Choose the 'Color Picker Tool', and select a light and dark color from your render. Make sure that the dark is set as the foreground, and the light as the background.
Now go to the Layers dialog, and select the 'Background' layer. Click on the gradient tool ('L'), and drag a gradient from the right to the left, or whatever looks best following the lighting on the render.
Duplicate the render layer, and get out your smudge tool ('S'). In the dock you created earlier, choose the Vine brush at the very bottom, and drag 'Spacing' to 1.0. Smudge the heck out of the render, but only in short, outward strokes. Drag this layer below the other render layer, and set the 'Mode' to Darken only (or Lighten only, if your render is lighter) at 80% opacity.
Duplicate the original render layer again, and go to Filters>Noise>Pick. Use these settings:
I set this layer to Darken only at 50% opacity, and erased where it looked bad (mostly over the render).
Make a new transparent layer, and brush with the Sparks brush around the render. Make sure not to over-do it, and keep the focal unbrushed.
Hide the Sparks brush layer, and duplicate the original render layer again. Bring this to the top of the stack. Run a Filters>Map>Displace, and displace the layer by the Sparks brush layer. I changed the X displacement to 50, and the Y to 5. Set the layer to Darken only (or Lighten only, whatever looks best).
I think it needs more contrast, so duplicate the original render layer AGAIN, drag it to the top of the layer stack, and run a gradient map (Colors>Map>Gradient Map) on it using the colors you selected at the beginning (which you should still have selected). Set this layer to 'Overlay'.
Now make a new transparent layer, and use one of the brushes you downloaded on it. Just click once in the background area , don't drag. The color doesn't matter, so just use whatever is set for the foreground.
Hide the brushed layer, and go to Edit>Copy Visible on a new layer. Now go to Layer>Transparency>Alpha to Selection on the brushes layer.
Move the Copy Visible layer over to fill the selection with something else other than the background, and go to Select>Invert, Edit>Clear. What you've done here is made a clipping mask. =) If the brushed layer isn't hidden, go ahead and hide it.
Repeat the clipping mask step until your background is nice and filled, just don't over-do it.
By this time, my render was pretty obscured, but don't worry about that right now. Make another Copy Visible layer. Displace this (Filters>Map>Displace) layer by itself, using the same settings as before. I set this to Normal, 65% opacity.
If yours turned out anything like mine, it's kind of ugly. XD To fix this, go back to your original render layer, duplicate it, and bring it to the top. Set it to Normal at 50%, and duplicate it one more time. Set this to Darken only at 100%. Erase some parts that stand out too much, but not the focal.
Add in a C4D (I'll include the one I used at the bottom of the post) with good flow. Set it to Lighten only at 65%, desaturate it, and Colors>Colorize it something fitting.
Make a new Copy Visible layer, and go to Filters>Enhance>Sharpen. I set it to 45, but just use what looks best. Erase the background with a soft brush, leaving just the render sharpened.
Do another Copy Visible (the last one!), and Gaussian Blur it by 2.0. Erase where the focal is, just leaving the background blurred. Set this to Normal at 50%.
We need lighting, so select the Circle (19) brush. Set the 'Scale' to 10, and brush in white where the lighting looks like it should go. Gaussian blur this by 90, and lower the opacity to 75%.
Now add text and a border, and you're finished (finally)! But I won't just leave you there, so here's what I do.
For the text, I chose Tahoma at size 11, and 10 for my username. Merge the layers down, and set them to Grain merge. Duplicate the text layer, Gaussian blur it by 6, and set it to Normal, 100%.
The border is easy, so make a new layer. We'll be making a 1 pixel thick black border. Go to Select>All, make sure the foreground color is black, and Edit>Stroke. Change the Line width to 1, and you're done!
When you save your work, go to File>Save As, and add .xcf to the end of the filename. Example: 'darksamus.xcf' Then save it as a .png afterward. This is so that if you need to make changes, you can do so easily.
Here's the C4D I used:
http://i35.tinypic.com/29g2oi.png
Once again, I didn't make this, so thanks to whoever did. =)
That about wraps it up, so thanks for reading!
