Drawing Flames in the GIMP (or Photoshop)

[HappyCockroach]

Hello! This tutorial is about drawing Flames in the GIMP, or Photoshop.
Note that I do not recommend you to use these flames as the main object in your drawing scene, but as a background.

Difficulty: 3/10 - Easy

1. Start a new drawing. It will look better with smaller dimensions. (This one is 64x64) Add an alpha channel and erase all.




2. Draw a red rectangle from around the middle to the bottom of the image. (A bit below the middle)




3. Now from about the middle of the red rectangle to the bottom, draw a yellow one.




4. Now draw a short white rectangle on the bottom of the image.




5. Now use the Smudge tool and a small brush to drag the white part upwards, crossing the other rectangles in smoothy zig-zags. (I recommend 50-60 smudging factor, but if your image is bigger, you should raise it)




6. Repeat the step number 5 many times, avoiding to cross your fire lines after you entered the erased areas, so there won't be holes in the flame lines.




7. Finish the Smudging and be sure that you didn't left any plain red or plain yellow hole in the picture.




8. Finished! Dark backgrounds are recommended to appreciate the result better.

Extra

Extra: Instead of using White/Yellow/Red, you can try using White/Magenta/Blue:



Or White/Teal/Green:



The possibilities are many. I recommend this:

• The bottom color should have three '255' RGB values (white)
• The middle color should have two '255' RGB values and another '0'
• The upper one should have one of the two below it to '255' and the rest to '0'
• Then the last color is '0, 0, 0' (black)

You can try many other color picks!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Pyritie]

Does the whole tutorial have to be in

? Fix that.

Other than that there's not much wrong with this.

 

[HappyCockroach]

Updated! Thanks for reviewing.

 

[Pyritie]

Okay approved then.

Note: I normally don't approve tutorials which rely heavily on smudge, but this one shows an example where smudge is useful.

 

[PsychoNerdial]

Thanks for this tut, really helped me

 

[Spet]

Very useful thanks

 

[adrianwho]

good for keal and his burning ability.

thx 4.5/5

 

[RaijinSpark]

I love the output when I followed this tutorial, Good job!

 

[ubran]

I'm not very great with testuring, but I know for a fact that flames are not a consistent temperature throughout and you should dodge (can't remember what the equivalent in gimp is) and burn (also called burn in gimp. I think it looks like a pen with a smudge at the end.) some of the tendrils to have more variety, but if it's the backround of a signature or loading screen it probably isn't as important as putting it in a skin to oh say replace the effect of raise dead to look like an eruption.

 

[Arisato]

nice tut

 

[frozen290]

Good tutorial.

 

[light bolt30]

Thanks for the tutorial! Really helps.

 

[Tamerleine]

thanks....+rep

 

[gaby-boy]

Thanks a lot!
I made my signature with that method.
+Rep

 

[zheavy]

Hello,

Good tutorial although not a fan of smudge tool but this is actually inspiring.

And nice signature gaby-boy.

Regards.
- zheavy -

 

[Blood Raven]

actually, i cant find the smudge tool in adobe photoshop... can someone help? (send a screenshot where it is)

 

[zheavy]

Hello,

Picture

Regards.
- zheavy -

 

[johnbriner]

Wow! Thanks for the step by step info. I really appreciate it, the effect looks good. Big help. Thanks for sharing!

 

[clockwork2]

i like it!

 

[starwolfff]

Really nice tut, and helpful! +rep