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How I Make Badges |
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#1
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How I Make Badges
How I Make Badges
Contents
Introduction This thread will tell you how I make my badges. They can be seen on the thread All New Badges. If you want to make badges like the ones on this thread, you’ve come to the right place! I’ll start with the basic essentials of the badge and then I’ll show you how I do cool thinks like changing the color of the badge and stuff like that. Without further ado, let’s get started! What you need I use an editing program called GIMP to make my badges. Any other editing program like Photoshop will work as well, but in this tutorial, I’ll be using GIMP. This is an example of the GIMP tool kit. To prevent you from getting overwhelmed, I boxed all the tools you’ll be using. The gold boxed tools are the “only if necessary” tools. Here are the other features you’ll be using (they’re “only if necessary” items): Select-Grow Select-None Colors-Hue Saturation Filters-Blur-Gaussian Blur Layer-Alpha to Selection Layer-Merge Down The basic badge First, you’ll need a template. Here are the templates I made: Starter badges: Super or Event badges: Flitterific badges: Royal badges: Paste the template on a GIMP file, and you’re ready to start! Step One: The Background Find a suitable background for your badge on Google Images or DOW. I usually use pixie hollow meadows, but I sometimes use something different. Paste the image on GIMP and lower the layer Opacity so you can see the badge under the background. You can see what will be in the badge that way. You can move and scale. The Opacity bar should be on the Layer window. I circled it on this pic: Erase the background except the area in the badge. I like to use the Rectangular Select tool to help me, but when I can’t use it, I use the Eraser tool. It should look something like this when done: You can set your Opacity back to 100 now. Step Two: The object on the badge If you wanna keep things simple, you may just use the background, but badges usually have something in the background like a fairy or an object. Look for a good image on Google Images or any website with good images. For larger images with a colorful background, you’ll want to open it on another GIMP browser and use the Free Select tool to select the object. For images with a single color or transparent background, simply paste the image to the badge. If there’s a background, use the Fuzzy Select tool. Simply move the image to the desired area in the badge. You might need to use the scale tool. You can add as many objects as you like! Step Three: The Text Make sure color 1 is black for the text. You’ll be using the Text tool. For the title of the badge, set the font to 25 and type the title. It’ll go near the top of the box. For the description which explains how your fairy earned the badge, keep the font at 18 and type it. Press Enter when you think the line should end. You might need to move the text a little. The text should look something like this when finished: Creating a badge set In some of my badges, I add a starter badge, super badge, flitterific badge and a royal badge. You’ll need all four templates. The Background I usually use the same background per badge set. I recommend doing the cropping process all over again rather then copying and pasting the background layer for each badge because each template is a different shape. You may use the same background layer for the Flitterific and Royal badges, but you’ll need to do some minor erasing for the Royal badge. The The Object For the starter badge, the object is simple, but I add more development for the harder badges. For example, for my library badges, I added one book with a glow for my starter badge (I’ll tell you about the glow in the More Tips section) and added another book as well as the first book for the Super badge. I moved the two book layers, merged them down and added the glow. I added a third book for the Flitterific badge. For the Royal badge, you can add a completely different image. I added a whole set of books instead of simply adding more books to the set in the Flitterific badge. See how my badges developed in these pictures. You don’t have to do what I did though. Make sure the objects develop though. Check some of my badges in the badge thread. The Text Create a title for the badges like Library Book Reader. It’ll be used in the entire badge set. Simply use the title in the starter badge and add Super, Flitterific and Royal in the other badges. Make the starter badge really easy to earn and make the other badges gradually harder to earn. For the Royal badge, make it really difficult to earn. A good tip is to add an extra challenge (for example, for the royal gathering badges in Pixie Hollow, you have to hold a high number of ingredients in your pouch at the same time). More tips Here are some more tips that I like to use in some of my badges: Tip #1: The Glow I’d like to thank Dawn Peppertree for teaching this. I've learned this in a video. This simple technique will make a “glow” appear behind an object. I really like this technique and use it in some of my other edits. Step 1: Alpha the object to selection. Make sure you are on the right layer. Step 2: Create a new layer behind the glowing object Step 3: Go to Select-Grow and change the number to 5. Step 4: Set color 1 to White and fill the new layer Step 5: Click Select-None so the glow will have a good effect Step 6: Go to Filters-Blur-Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 50.0 to 50.0 to add the full blur effect. Click OK and you’ve got the glow! Top #2: Changing the color of the badge I used this cool tip on my Princess badges and might use it again. Step 1: Select the badge (I’m not the best at this step ) Step 2: Go to Colors-Hue Saturation and move the bars until the badge is the color you want it Hue Bar: Changes the color. Move it around until you get the color you want Lightness Bar: Self explanatory. The far left is the darkest and the far right is the lightest Saturation Bar: How neutral the color is. The far left is completely neutral and the far right is a bright shade of the color Thank you for reading. I might update this in the future. Comment if you have any questions. I’m not the best at explaining things. |
#2
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Flitterific guide, Tinker! This is definitely going to be helpful to pixies learning how to make badges.
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Avatar by _Stormy_ | Profile Picture and Signature by Alyce |
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I agree, Coconut! I want to get GIMP sometime soon, so I can create badges, too!
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#4
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Thanks for posting this guide, Tinker. It's very helpful. I think I'll try downloading GIMP sometime, when I'm a little more practiced at graphics making.
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Thank you Stormy and Alyce! |
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This is a great guide, Tinker! You covered all the basics needed to start making badges, and you even added instructions for a glow effect too!
To those who are starting out using GIMP, I'd say that the best way to learn is to experiment with all the different tools and practice many times over. The possibilities are endless when it comes to badge-making.
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This is a great guide, Tinker! I just created a "Tea with the Queen" Badge! I had to use Pixlr, though, since I don't have Photoshop or GIMP, but I was still able to use your guide.
I think I messed up a bit on the background, since all you can see past the Teapot and Teacup are leaves, but I still like it. |
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It's really good, Daisy! I actually like the background you chose, it pops out nicely and made me imagine how our fairies would have a quiet drink of tea up in the treetops.
I hope you'll make more badges to share with us in the future.
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Ouch, I just didn't noticed about this thread, oh my.
The guide that Tinker gives to us to make a badge is just very helpful for me and I believe others too, because sometimes I have some troubles to make badge in a quick amount of time... and this guide is just very helpful to me, thanks. Oh yes, and Daisy just made a wonderful badge from the guides of this thread, and I simply really enjoy the teapot and cups color that you choose for the badge, oh yes, and simply strategic name for the badge itself. Oh yes, and I also agree with Onion for saying that your teapot blends perfectly with the background, what a nice choice. Great job... |
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There is another way you can add the background in. You can make the inside transparent, then have the layer above the background layer. It has the same result as the other technique, it just seems simpler to me so I shared it.
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