Spider-Woman Captured At The Hypnosis School

Manipulations are an missunderstood art form, many believe it is a form of cheating in drawing while not realising it can be a way to produce a vision in more depth, at a quicker pace than traditional art. I produce manipulations and art, so appreciate both.

The Mind Controller works using second life to set the scene, no doubt roleplaying with like mind users and then altering the images to add value by manipulaton, taking what is possible in second life and expanding it.

His tool of choice is GIMP to manipulate the images and this open source product can enable the vision to come to life. The vision , originality and impact of these manipulations is excellent. I enjoy this work and look forward to seeing them.

What can be improved is the Technique with GIMP in forming the manipulations. It is often clear the difference between the second life and GIMP components in the released image and this can distract from the overall effect. A few additional techniques (if mastered) can improve this and would not take any more time to produce the images, and can actually be made quicker in many cases. This crituque is being made in the hope of passing on tricks i have learned, in the hope the quality of this art will get better!

For example the text box of spider woman is pixilated and slighlty out of alignment. A high res text box specifically scaled for this image could be added by selecting adding a new layer in GIMP. Then on that layer selecting from the TOOLBOX a shape and drawing out a RECTANGLE SELECT, with ROUNDED CORNERS ticked.

Then on the same layer selecting FREE SELECT TOOL and in mode clicking the ADD TO CURRENT SELECTION (thats the small two boxes overlapping) to draw out the extention to form the speach bubble spur to the mouth. No need to draw by dragging, but by clicking to leave points so it is a smooth triangle

This gives an outline that if you click EDIT than STROKE SELECTION allows you to draw a line around what you highlighted.

This leaves a smooth resolution matching bubble that doesnt look out of place, that you can BUCKET FILL if you want.

Another technique is for the swinging spiral. a swinging item is more realistic if blurred. GIMP allows you to add as a layer your spiral, Then select FILTERS you will see BLUR. under BLUR their is MOTION BLUR. Adding the appropriate angle and length can give a good motion look to the swinging watch and in effect blend it inot the image.

All the best with this ART and I hope this will help improve the work going forward