WarLocke's Micro Hero Army Thread

[DeeBye]

Actually Dee, I have a copy of the GIMP (it may be outdated by now, though, I suppose), but I don't find it as intuitive to use as PSP.

Your version is probably outdated, and will be even more so when GIMP 2.0 comes out within the next few months (which will address the horrible Windows interface).

I've never used PSP, so I can't comment on it. I CAN say that every entry I've seen for SomethingAwful's Photoshop Phriday composed using PSP would look 100% better if it was done using The GIMP (500% better if using Photoshop :)).

The comment you quoted was about the 'DUH' on Captain Obvious' shield; it's relatively easy to make recognizable letters at the pixel level, but it's a different matter getting them to look halfway decent.

Here's what I whipped up using Photoshop. I could have done the same using The GIMP. I used the Impact font, but I'm sure that there are many better fonts for this.


Steps:
1. Create BG layer (R:41 G:32 B:11 for this forum's colour scheme).
2. New layer. Draw circle. Fill with white.
3. Select circle.
4. Stroke the inside of the selection with X pixels of red (I cannot recall how many pixels I set the stroke to :)).
5. Create new layer.
6. Draw a horizontal red line X pixels wide (whatever looks good; preview it as necessary). Be sure the stroked circle is a visible layer so you can constrain the boundaries of the line to within the border (red stroke) of the circle.
7. Rotate the line 45° clockwise. Move as necessary to keep the line within the red stroke of the circle.
8. Flatten the circle and line layers into a single layer.
9. Use the Lighting Effect filter (available in both The GIMP amd Photoshop) to create some depth.
10. New layer. Type text. Move text and center it.
11. Save as a suitable image file format (.png worked for me here) and upload to webspace.
12. Post reply on LL.

The text part was the easiest :)