Denim Jeans Tutorial using The GIMP

This is an adaptation of “Creating Denim in GIMP by *fence-post” from DeviantArt. I’ve changed it so it is relevant to texture creation in Second Life. But I encourage you to read or bookmark the original tutorial as well.

This is a pretty advanced tutorial… It’s not recommended for anyone new to The GIMP, or to clothing creation. However, if you understand the basics of GIMP and the templates, this could be *just* the thing you are searching for to really bring your creations to life. The principles can be applied to ALL you future creations and you will probably benefit greatly from learning some of this stuff.

The final creation will be up for sale for 1L in Afton’s “Dollarbie” shop at HSPL . Click the link to grab a pair now.

This is the poster to look out for.

Are you ready to get cracking? The tutorial starts immediately after the cut…

Clean Blue Jeans Tutorial

Using The Gimp version 2.4.6

All images are smaller previews for faster website load times. To see the full resolutions, with readable details, please click on any of the pictures and the full size will load.

Step One

Open up you basic templates. For this one I’ve chosen to work with the templates by Chip Midnight at 1024 resolution. Create a new layer on top of all the avatar mesh guides. Name it something simple like “Solid Blue”. With the colour picker open, find a blue colour you like, any blue is fine. For mine, I chose to use 393a6e. Fill the new “Solid Blue” layer with your foreground colour.

Step Two

Now we’re going to make some noise (makes a silly joke about the crowd going wild 😉 ). Go to Filters >> Noise >> RBG Noise…

The default values are 0.20 for red, blue and green with 0.00 for alpha, we leave them alone. Make sure “Independent RBG” is unchecked, that way its a uniform colour of noise, not a rainbow one- hehe.

Step Three

Add a new transparent layer above, and fill the new layer with a scan line pattern (click *here* to download from DA). The screen shot won’t show much, so I am not including one. The pattern is just a tiny repeating black diagonal line.

*** So far, all of this had been pretty basic… Now on to the more challenging stuff! ***

Step Four

We’re going to use the Bump Map tool within The GIMP. (Honest opinion, bump mapping is a lot easier/smarter in GIMP than in Photoshop- so there!! XD ). Moving right along…

Make sure you have your “Solid Blue” base layer selected (the one with noise added). Go to Filters >> Map >> Bump Map…

Select the Scan Line layer as your Bump map from the drop down menu. Then, using the next screen shot as a guide, use the following settings. Feel free to experiment, but this is just to make things easier the first time around.

Step Five

You can either hide or delete the scan line layer now, we’re finished with that part.

Step Six

You can go back to your “Solid Blue” layer and add more noise if you want. Its not a compulsary step. I only added 0.10 worth of RBG noise again, just to rough it up a bit more.

*** So far, you should have something resembling a square of denim. We’re now moving on to adding details like the seam highlights and shadowing. ***

Step Seven

Create a new layer and name it “Side Seams for Front”. Along the side seam, on the front of your pants template, draw a white “seam” all the way down, on both sides. I am using the paintbrush tool, with Circle (11) selected. Seems to be the perfect size for seams (seems/seams- lol).

*** For this step, if you bring Chips “Seam Matching Guide” to the layer above the Solid Blue, and below your new “Side Seams” layer, it makes things a lot easier to figure out where to put it. As a tip, only follow the inside of the guide, and keep it at the size 11 brush. That worked well for me. ***

When you’ve done your white line, put Chips Seam Matching Guide back below your Solid Blue base layer. Go back to your Solid Blue Base layer, and create another new layer. (Above the base, under the white lines you just drew) and fill it with black. Merge your white seams, down to the black layer, and again, rename it “front side seams”.

Step Eight

On this “Front Side Seam” layer, we want to make it a bit less harsh, so go to Filters >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur. The default of 5.0, 5.0 is fine for what we’re working with.

Step Nine

We’re going to use Bump mapping again, sort of like we did before with the scan line pattern, this time to get a raised and shadow effect for the side seams. Select your Solid Blue Base layer (the one we want to bump ;), are you getting it yet?)

Go to Filters >> Map >> Bump Map. From the drop down menu for Bump Map, select the black and white layer you just made for side seams. From the screen shot below use the following settings (again, feel free to fiddle with them, this is just a starting point to make it easier the first time). In the preview window you can see the result of my settings.

As before, you can now either delete or hide the layer we used to bump map. I personally hide them, because they might come in handy for highlights or shading.

Step Ten

Now we’re going to “liven up” the side seam a little. We have its location “bumped”, and its easy to see. So next, we’re going to add some wrinkle effect to the seam.

Create a new transparent layer above you Solid Blue base layer. Name it “Side Seam Wrinkles”. For this, I am using the paintbrush tool again in white, with a few tweaks… Brush is Circle Fuzzy (05), but I have checked “Fade out” and set the length to fade out to 20px. The reason I’ve done that is because if you make a stroke left to right, it will fade by the time it reaches the other side of the raised seam. Then you can stroke right to left with the same result.

SUPER closeup shot to explain…

Keep going until you’ve done both seams, the whole way up and down.. We’re going to use this “Side Seam Wrinkles” layer to bump map again.

Step Eleven

Select your “Solid Blue” base layer again, go to Filters >> Map >> Bump Map… From the Bump Map drop down, select the “Side Seams Wrinkles” layer you just made. I am tempted to not give a screen shot, and just let you figure it out, but I am too much of an information junkie to skip that- lol. If you want to use the following settings, please do, if you want to try it by yourself, go for it!!

Step Twelve

Now for something completely different! Instead of hiding, or deleting the side seam wrinkle layer, we’re going to use it to add some highlights. This is why I keep them!

Select your “Side Seam Wrinkles” layer, and change its blending mode through the layers tab. I switched the blending mode to “Soft Light” and left the opacity at 100%, but you can also use dodge, or overlay, or hard light and so on and so forth. You may need to change the layer opacity if you use another blending mode as well. Feel free to experiment.

*** While we’re on the topic of Maps… I’m going to introduce the “Displace” map option. Bump Mapping, I guess is similar to embossing your base texture with another layer, making height and depth, a fake Z coordinate. Displacement works by shifting/moving the base texture to a new X & Y coordinate. So Bump is depth (height), displace is location (side to side or up and down)… That is definitely NOT a technical explanation *giggles* but it should help you understand the difference. NEVER use a SOLID layer for displacement. You will throw off the whole template coordinates, so just be warned. To use the Displace option, ALWAYS use colour on alpha.***

Step Thirteen

Select your Solid Blue base layer. Go to Filters >> Map >> Displace…

On both X and Y drop down menus, select the “Side Seam Wrinkles” layer for displacement. Here is a screen shot for the settings I used.

Step Fourteen

Now we’re going to make a “Stitching” layer. So create a new transparent layer, above the side seam wrinkles. Name it “Side Seam Stitching”.

Grab the Path Tool, and create a path along the outer edge of the left side seam, top to bottom. When you reach the bottom, hold down the SHIFT key, and click the inner edge of the left side seam, and create a path bottom to top. When you reach the top, hold down SHIFT again, and click the inner edge of the right seam, and go down, hold shift again at the bottom to create a new path on the outer edge.

*** By holding down the Shift key when moving to another path, you’ll create a multi-component point and each will be stroked individually. If you didn’t hold down shift when starting a new line, everything would be connected, and you would have to erase what you don’t want after.***

Step Fifteen

With your paths in place, we now want to select a colour for the stitching… something deep gold. I’ve used b28226 as my stitching colour. Next, go to Edit >> Stroke Path…

Pay attention to the Line width, the Line Style and the Dash preset.

Click on Stroke at the bottom of the dialog box.

Yay! Dashed lines that looks like stitches, without having to do it by hand!!

Step Sixteen

This is an optional step, but you should be used to “Mapping” by now, so I encourage you to give it a shot… We’re going to bump map, or displace the “Side Seam Stitching” layer this time, using the wrinkle layer as our bump map. Select your “Side Seam Stitching” layer. Go to Filters >> Map >> Bump Map, select your “Side Seam Wrinkles” layer from the drop down and mess around with the settings.

No screen shot this time, just play. Same with displace. Just mess around. You can always “Undo” if anything goes wrong.

Step Eighteen

This is a revision time.

Keep doing this for ALL the pieces you might want!!! You can continue doing all of what we’ve covered, on every other “bit” to get the rest of your details to “pop”. I’m not going to keep repeating the above steps for each new piece of the jeans, but I will revise what we’ve covered so far. From here, you can use the above methods, over and over, for the other details on your jeans.

• For new details, create a new layer, and paint the big basic shape in white.

• Apply a small amount of Gaussian Blur so the edges aren’t too harsh.

• Select your Base Layer (the Solid Blue base layer, the one you want to “bump”). Then go to Filters >> Map >> Bump Map.

• Use the layer you just made as the Bump Map from the drop down menu, play with the settings to get the amount you want.

• Bump mapping raises/lowers the texture, displacement shifts it on the X & Y coodinates.

• The same layer you have used for bump/displace (white on alpha) can also be used to add more highlights. Just change the blend mode and/or opacity.

• To add seam wrinkles, set your paintbrush to fade out. And use both bump and displace maps for effect.

• With your path tool, we can stroke the path to create a dashed line resembling stitches. If you hold down shift when finishing a new path, and moving on to the next, you create a multi-component path (separate strokes).

So far, after all that detailing, repeating the steps over and over, I have come up with this… All the bits are in the right place, and my texture has texture.

*** I’m putting up a greyscale JPEG you can save if you are struggling with “where” all the details go. That way you can trace over the top for placements, if you need to. It simply shows my personal locations for the fly, the front and back pockets, the waistband, and belt loops. As I said, its crude/simple/basic… because following the steps above, you can work your own magic. ***

Step Seventeen

Aha!! She exclaims with glee! By now you should be getting a good grasp of all the basics… but NOW we’re going to use the same methods, for WRINKLES and SHADOWS!

Create a new transparent layer. Name it “Big Shadows”. Paint some big, black, blurry shadows. Looks horrible, but this is a pretty nifty way to add shadows and wrinkles to your designs.

Bump map the base layer, using this layer. These are the settings I used.

I’ve kept the “Big Shadow” layer visible, changed the blend mode to burn, and set opacity at 20%.

Make another new layer, and this time we’re painting thin “tight fit” wrinkles in black.

Bump map the base layer, using the Thin Wrinkle layer. These are my settings.

As above, I’ve kept the layer visible and changed the blend mode and opacity.

Step Eighteen

Grins… the final step I guess is what make this “pop” a heck of a lot more. So far, we’ve covered adding texture, to the texture itself. We’ve added shading and highlights, created our wrinkles and stitching… but we still need some extra shading to complete it though. This is what my jeans look like, ALMOST finished…

It’s ok, but it does need some extra *oomph* with some simple shading. I’ve used a “Fake Bake” texture I originally made in PS. Its a greyscale layer, and it comes in SUPER handing for this exact reason.

I place it on a new layer, above everything else, and set the blend mode of this layer to Multiply, and dropped the opacity to 75%.

LOOKING GREAT NOW!!!! Yays!!!!

Step Nineteen

Within The GIMP, you have a few ways you can make it ready for upload to SL. One is by using an alpha channel, the other is by turning off/erasing/masking the layers… By now, you should know how to do any or all of the above. I prefer to mask out what I don’t need of the base with layer masks, as GIMP automatically transfers that info to the alpha channel. Save your work as an XCF or PSD… so if you need to edit anything later on, you have all your layers to work on.

Then you are ready to save it as a TGA, and upload it to SL- wooohoooooo!!! You’ve just made your own jeans!

These jeans will be available in Afton (Slurl) as a dollarbie. Along with a link back to this page. Now go forth and create!!! I am posting another pic of the Dollarbie vendor that will be up for grabs in Afton. Click on the poster for a SLurl to grab a copy of what I made.

As always, play nice kiddies! *Smooches*. I hope you enjoy!

Time for me to make my exit, ta ta for now!