Basic textures in GIMP: Satin

Overview

This mini guide shows how to create a basic satin texture in GIMP from scratch.

Required tools

• GIMP

Creating a basic satin texture

Create a very bright texture

1. First of all create a new square image. For this tutorial I've created a 512x512 image, but you can use any size you want.
2. Select the menu option Filters -> Render -> Clouds -> Solid Noise. A window like the one shown in picture Solid Noise window will pop up.
   1. Set the Detail to 1
   2. Set the X and Y sizes to 1
   3. Press OK
3. Now we are going to darken the texture using the Levels tool. Select the menu option Colors -> Levels. Now you'll see a window like the one shown in picture Colour levels window. To darken your image, increase the Output levels as shown in the example picture and press OK. At this moment your texture looks very dark.
4. Select the menu option Colors -> Invert and now your texture will look very bright, like the one shown in picture Bright texture.

Add a cloth layer

The next step is to add a cloth layer. For this tutorial I am going to use the Cloth texture explaind here Basic textures in GIMP: Cloth but you can use any cloth texture as a base)

1. Copy the Cloth texture as a new layer on top of the Bright texture image:
   1. Open the Cloth texture in GIMP
   2. Select the menu option Edit -> Copy
   3. Go to the GIMP instance where you Bright texture is and select the menu option Edit -> Paste as and select New Layer from the drow down menu.

   Note: To see and work with the different layers that you have in your image:

   • Select the menu option Windows -> Dockable Dialogs -> Layers '
   • This will open a window with the layers stack for your image as the one shown in picture Layers stack'
     • To work on one of the layers, select the corresponding layer in the stack and then work in GIMP main edition window: all you do (painting, erasing, resizing, etc) will be done on the selected layer.
     • To hide/show one of the layers, click on the eye icon at the left of each of the layers in the layer stack.

2. Select the layer that contains the Cloth texture and select the menu option Filters -> Map -> Displace
3. A window like the one shown in picture Displace map window will pop up:
   1. Select the Bright texture layer in the X and Y boxes
   2. Set the X and Y displacement to 20 (again, you can try other values and see which one looks better to you).
   3. Once you've got the results you want, click OK.
4. In the layer stack select the layer that contains the Cloth texture and set the Layer mode to Overlay and the Opacity to 60.

Add colour

1. Now add a new transparent layer on top of the cloth layer. This is the layer where we are going to add the colour:
   1. Select the menu option Layer -> New Layer
   2. Add a name for the new layer, select Transparency on the pop-up window and click OK
2. Set the foreground colour to the colour you want to use (for this tutorial I've used the 929cf3 colour).
3. Select the Bucket fill tool from the toolbox and fill the new transparent layer with the colour you've selected.
4. In the layer stack select the layer that contains the colour and leave the Layer mode to Normal and set the Opacity to 50.

And this is it. Your texture will look like the one shown in picture Satin texture.