Gimpdome

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create text (or any other thing you might choose) that looks as if it's being written by hand.  This way is so easy, I can't believe I didn't think of it before.



Let's start the tutorial!

Step 1:

A)  Open GIMP and add a background.  I just picked a blue color.  Anything will.  You can even use one of your unfinished sigs or avatars.
B)  Add new image and add some text.  I'm using the "Asenine" font, which you can get at dafont Click Me!
C)  Right-click on the text layer and choose "Alpha to Selection" 



Your image should now look something like this:



The red outline represents the selection area.  Your selection area will look like it's surrounded by "marching ants."

D)  Now, with the selection still there make the background image active. 



You'll notice that my image only has one layer now.  Yours probably has 2 (background and text).  I've already deleted my text layer.  You can either delete it now or keep it there and turn it off (Click "eye" button next to it).  If you're afraid you might make a mistake, just leave it there.  Ultimately, you'll need to delete the layer.   If you delete your text layer now, you may want to save the selection as a channel (Select > Save to Channel) just in case you inadvertently delete the selection.  That way you can go to the Channels tab and recall the selection.

Step 2:

A)  Set your foreground color to any color you want.  This will be what your final color will look like.
B)  Grab a brush.  I'm using a standard GIMP Circle 15 X15 brush.  Font size will dictate your choice here.  You may have to periodically adjust your brush size to accomodate width changes, bends, proximity to adjacent letters, etc.
C)  With the selection still activated, add a dab of color with your brush by clicking in the first letter wherever you would normally begin writing.



D)  Click on the Duplicate layer button at the bottom of the Layer Dialog Window to make a duplicate of the layer you just added your first bit of color to.
E)  Repeat Step 2B - 2D until you have covered your entire bit of text.

If you make any mistakes (like overlapping areas you didn't mean to), use your eraser tool to fix those spots.  You may need to adjust the brush sizes accordingly.

Here are two images showing mine partway and the final non-animated result:




Step 3:

A)  Delete your text layer
B)  Play your animation to see if you missed any spots (Filters > Animation > Playback)

If everything looks good, save it.  You're finished!

Step 4:

A)  File > Save or File > Save as....
B)  Assign a name with the gif extension (ie....animation.gif)

The following windows will open.  Change the setting as follows:





I've chosen the speed of 100ms (1/10th of a sec).  You can adjust yours as you see fit.  The higher the number, the slower the movement between frames.

If you get this error message, just click OK.



Here's the final product:



Later on, I'll present Method #2.  Enjoy!

Art

It looks like you only used simple letters in that animation
you seemed to leave out how to do the more difficult letters (ones with cross points)
Like:

K(k),B(b),d,Q(q),A(a),U(u),N(n),M(m),F(f),X(x),G(g),H(h),W(w),I,Z(z),L,E(e) and number 3,4,6,8,9

I would like to see you animate the sentence exactly as detailed above:

WARNING
QUAIL CROSSING
next 48 miles


~~~~~~~

You just need to say that for certain letters and fonts you may need to go back and use the background color or the erase tool to touch up on the intersections to make it looks better

if follow your method exactly while animating A (diagramed /-\) you might start to unitentionally color the - while going up the / or down the \

just mentioning it

I didn't leave out anything.  Where's your sense of adventure in learning?  I don't feel the need to explain every step and spoonfeed people.  Why should I?  I took the time and effort to do what I did.  Noone else has or will.  But people continually point out the error of everyone else's work when they refuse to try themselves.  I won't accept your challenge to do that sentence, nor will I modify the tutorial to accommodate your requests.  It was well-written. 

Unfortunately, the comments on tutorials are starting to become all too familiar, which is why, a couple of days ago, I said to myself and a few others that I wasn't gonna prepare them for awhile.  Maybe I shouldn't have prepared this one.  IT'S JUST NEVER GOOD ENOUGH!  PERIOD!  And then when it is, it gets ripped!

By the way...your method of layer masks doesn't address your own questions either.  I know that for a fact because I know how it's done with layer masks.

Additionally, this was part of the tutorial.  It was written in red so it wouldn't be missed, but evidently you did:

If you make any mistakes (like overlapping areas you didn't mean to), use your eraser tool to fix those spots.  You may need to adjust the brush sizes accordingly.


Here's a difficult one for you, since you think I chose just simple ones:



Sorry. Talk to the hand!

thank you for the tutorial
Posted on: July 21, 2006, 05:52:32 PM

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i made this also



thought it was cool to try text? try a border

 
Great job Fence. I love your turn out nice border sponge.
Kenny is right well in the one i did I used a t,o,m,y,b,u,c,k.

I was looking at this and thinking.. "hey this would be cool with a symbol font!" So this is what I came up with... ready? Oh and I put the transliteration at the end for you.