Welcome to the second installation of The open palette. Last time, we focused on creating orbs and 3D text using Inkscape’s new blur filter. This month, we’ll be focusing on creating brushes for the Gimp using Inkscape.

Gimp brushes can be used as ’stamps’ to rapidly create multiple copies of the brush shape; they can be smeared across the canvas; they can be tiled across the entire canvas to create unique textures. You can generate new artwork from the ground up or manipulate photos (think sparkle brushes applied to a photo of a person’s eyes) and other graphics using Gimp brushes. They are also very versatile tools because of the ease with which they can be created and customized.

The Inkscape techniques introduced in this tutorial are especially useful for creating shapes for Gimp brushes, but these techniques can also be used in creating unique shapes for other applications as well. Conversely, the kinds of shapes we’ll be generating for the ‘Grungy’ brushes we create in this tutorial are, of course, not the only kinds of shapes you can use to create Gimp brushes. At the end of this tutorial, you’ll find a list of suggestions with some examples of other types of Gimp brushes you can create using some of the basic techniques outlined in this article.

Full Story.