AestheticcEquine said:

Hi everyone!

I need help figuring out how to do water reflections etc

I use gimp but i honestly dont even know where to start...

If anyone could help me it would be greately appreciated, im trying really hard to expand my horizons of capibilites.

Thank - you!

Also image examples of already finished pieces would be helpful to look at as well!

As a fellow gimp user I may be able to help!

Like what floresta said, I usually duplicate the horse layer/s, flip it and line it up with where the horse touches the water and play with the transparency. Gimp does have a very handle tool to create ripples for you, it just takes a bit of fiddling. You'll find it under Filters>Distorts>Ripples (a few of the other distorts like waves can also be helpful. However, sometimes the result can end up looking a bit too uniform so I'll go in and smudge or I won't use it at all and I'll use a smudge with a high rate/opacity to sort of move the horse around but trying not to muddy the colors too much.

This is an example I did by smudging it myself, I find this works better when you have choppy/wavy water - still water looks better with the uniform ripples gimp makes.

Floresta said:

I'm not sure how Gimp works. It is still intimidating and difficult to figure out, in my opinion at least.

I can give you the basic idea. I just duplicate the folder containing all the layers that make up the horse (hair, hooves, drawn-on tack, etc.) and flip it. Then, you play around with the transparency to make it look reflection-y. For water, maybe draw in some ripples to add realism. It's the exact same thing I'd do for shadows, except I wouldnt use a filter that makes it all black.

This piece is ancient, but you get the idea.

https://horseeden.com/forums.php?f=19&t=53220&page=6

SilverFern Stables said:

As a fellow gimp user I may be able to help!

Like what floresta said, I usually duplicate the horse layer/s, flip it and line it up with where the horse touches the water and play with the transparency. Gimp does have a very handle tool to create ripples for you, it just takes a bit of fiddling. You'll find it under Filters>Distorts>Ripples (a few of the other distorts like waves can also be helpful. However, sometimes the result can end up looking a bit too uniform so I'll go in and smudge or I won't use it at all and I'll use a smudge with a high rate/opacity to sort of move the horse around but trying not to muddy the colors too much.

This is an example I did by smudging it myself, I find this works better when you have choppy/wavy water - still water looks better with the uniform ripples gimp makes.

AestheticcEquine said:

Thank you silver!

I tried doing the ripple effect and because its literally the whole horse it was a little too much. I picked a horse that was standing perfectly still so i dont have to add too much movement and in turn used the Wave Option: Tools/Transform Tools/Waves. It actually looks quite nice! But i can see how the Ripple effect would be more useful on a high movement stock piece!

SilverFern Stables said:

As a fellow gimp user I may be able to help!

Like what floresta said, I usually duplicate the horse layer/s, flip it and line it up with where the horse touches the water and play with the transparency. Gimp does have a very handle tool to create ripples for you, it just takes a bit of fiddling. You'll find it under Filters>Distorts>Ripples (a few of the other distorts like waves can also be helpful. However, sometimes the result can end up looking a bit too uniform so I'll go in and smudge or I won't use it at all and I'll use a smudge with a high rate/opacity to sort of move the horse around but trying not to muddy the colors too much.

This is an example I did by smudging it myself, I find this works better when you have choppy/wavy water - still water looks better with the uniform ripples gimp makes.

SilverFern Stables said:

Ah that sounds great! Yeah it definitely comes down tp the individual stock and it often takes a bit of fiddling with different tools - I'm glad you figured it out :)

AestheticcEquine said:

Thank you silver!

I tried doing the ripple effect and because its literally the whole horse it was a little too much. I picked a horse that was standing perfectly still so i dont have to add too much movement and in turn used the Wave Option: Tools/Transform Tools/Waves. It actually looks quite nice! But i can see how the Ripple effect would be more useful on a high movement stock piece!

SilverFern Stables said:

As a fellow gimp user I may be able to help!

Like what floresta said, I usually duplicate the horse layer/s, flip it and line it up with where the horse touches the water and play with the transparency. Gimp does have a very handle tool to create ripples for you, it just takes a bit of fiddling. You'll find it under Filters>Distorts>Ripples (a few of the other distorts like waves can also be helpful. However, sometimes the result can end up looking a bit too uniform so I'll go in and smudge or I won't use it at all and I'll use a smudge with a high rate/opacity to sort of move the horse around but trying not to muddy the colors too much.

This is an example I did by smudging it myself, I find this works better when you have choppy/wavy water - still water looks better with the uniform ripples gimp makes.

SilverFern Stables said:

Ah that sounds great! Yeah it definitely comes down tp the individual stock and it often takes a bit of fiddling with different tools - I'm glad you figured it out :)

AestheticcEquine said:

Thank you silver!

I tried doing the ripple effect and because its literally the whole horse it was a little too much. I picked a horse that was standing perfectly still so i dont have to add too much movement and in turn used the Wave Option: Tools/Transform Tools/Waves. It actually looks quite nice! But i can see how the Ripple effect would be more useful on a high movement stock piece!

SilverFern Stables said:

As a fellow gimp user I may be able to help!

Like what floresta said, I usually duplicate the horse layer/s, flip it and line it up with where the horse touches the water and play with the transparency. Gimp does have a very handle tool to create ripples for you, it just takes a bit of fiddling. You'll find it under Filters>Distorts>Ripples (a few of the other distorts like waves can also be helpful. However, sometimes the result can end up looking a bit too uniform so I'll go in and smudge or I won't use it at all and I'll use a smudge with a high rate/opacity to sort of move the horse around but trying not to muddy the colors too much.

This is an example I did by smudging it myself, I find this works better when you have choppy/wavy water - still water looks better with the uniform ripples gimp makes.