Hello there in special recoloring tutorial made by Tomaxko
We will use program called GIMP – it is free and very powerful software. For some it may be chaotic, but you can find many tutorials to learn few tricks. (I will also explain some in here)
first of all you take some nooby picture :)
for example some from game
so lets open the picture in the gimp. The gimps opens often in 2 windows, -tools and the picture.
Press CTRL+L to open layer window as well. (or in menu MENU:WINDOWS->layers)
now click somewhere in picture and press F (or pick manually the free select tool) and select just the picture. You dont have to be to accurate since it is small low detailed picture.
still it is good to do the selection slowly
After you have done the selection, press CTRL+C and then CTRL+V to copy the picture. Now you have created just some kind of temporary layer – you have 2 options now: either you click somewhere in picture (somewere where will anchor icon be = you will glue that part of the picture to previous layer, in this case it is not a good idea) or you click the bottom icon in layer window – create new layer – do this.
at the bottom of layer window is layer control panel, new layer is the first icon
now we have 2 layers. The second one is not needed anymore so you can delete it, select it and click delete at bottom of layers. Should be looking like this:
they gray boxes mean transparent color
now we need a good looking background (try google, or learn how to draw nebula - google nebula tutorial)
find good picture copy it to clipboard and paste it in our picture.(the new picture will be probably as temporary layer again, so again click the create new layer.
or use this one now
Now our background might be too big, we can scale it down by hitting SHIFT+T (if it does not work try to click in picture, you might be in other window where the shortcuts do not work)
(zoom out to see whole picture CTRL+mousewheel) change the size of the picture by draging the corners (hold CTRL if you want the ratio be untouched) and then hit button SCALE in that new scale tool window. Now we still see just the nebula... (to move the nebula choose move tool (key: M) and move it how you want)
hit the down arrow at bottom of the layer window, to move the layer down – behind our ship.
the arrows change the layer depth position
Cool now it should look like this:
galaxy is behind the ship
the colors arent that good matched but we will solve that thing later.
Click the ship layer (in layer window) and resize it as well to something smaller (you will most probably have to click the “anchor layer” (5th icon in bottom of layer window)
now the picture is blured, damn :) lucky for us there is sharpen tool: Menu>FILTERS>ENHANCE>SHARPEN, then choose value to 10 and press ok. It will look like nothing happened, but try it more times (CTRL+F to reaper last filter) try it 5 times. It should look ok
now press M(move tool) and move the ship to center. You should see a yellow rectangular border around the ship, this is layer border, you cant draw outside of it (I dont understand what is this good for...). To “remove” the border go in menu>LAYER>LAYER TO IMAGE SIZE.
Now with the FREE select tool (F) select just front half of the ship. And then copy and move it, and anchor every copied layer, it can look like this for example
copy tool is powerful :)
now we will change the color a bit, lets say something green, first select the background layer, then in menu COLORS>HUE SATURATION and there change the HUE (ignore the top colors, just down there is hue,light and saturation, change the hue, and try also lower the saturation if you want)
then select the ship layer and change the hue saturation as well to fit the the color of background
example...
looks good but lets make it much better.
now duplicate the ship layer (again one of the icons in bottom of layers)
now menu>COLORS>COLORIZE – and change the color to green, the whole new object will be green
then change (in top menu for layers) the opacity to about 75% and the mode to addition and also move that layer below the ship layer, and move the picture somewhere at the end of the ship
ghost tail...
now create new layer, and move it to top (to be above all layers)
pick paintbrush tool (P) and change the brush into not full color brush but something that has weaker borders...
brush tool...
then in the new layer, draw a line around the ship (you can do it with any strong color, and then change the color with hue saturation for that layer) also after you draw the line, change the opacity of the layer, you will see when it looks best (about 25%)
if you dont like the line, try to use on it the blur tool (SHIFT+U)
glowy border...
lets add extra gree lights...
create new layer (it is good to have more layers, so you can change/hide any layer any time)
and draw there some circles/lines
some extra things...
and now use the blur tool (SHIFT+U) on that green parts (more times move with mouse over it)
and then again change the mode of the layer to addition, and change the opacity
or even try to change the HUEsaturation again
if you want you can also duplicate the green ship layer again and move it more further...
now it should look like this:
FINISH HIM!
FINISHED! Anyone seen any need of 3d program? Nothing hard, everyone should be able to do this!
www.universegenesis.com <= game where you can post your pictures and get credits!
save these ships and enemies in jpg 85% quality (no reason to make it 90 or 95, cause the game changes it to 85 anyway, but it is good for you to see how it looks with 85%)
some tips: you can also flip the background, and it will look diferent, or try colorize to change every part of its color...