If you choose to so this tutorial pleas leave a comment. I would also very much like to see how it turned out for you so drop a link or send me a link to an image of what you did if you want to :)

To view the images in their original size, right click and choose show image.

I made my image with 1920x1080 dimensions

The brushes i use can be found here:
http://getbrushes.com/


Ok, start gimp and make the background black(using the fill tool, unless its allready black)


Choose a soft brush and start painting anyway you want, make sure you have a black background and a white brush color.

FIG 1


Now choose another cool brush, preferably one with alot of variation in it, and paint inside the white area you just painted(make it seem random by using more than one brush)

FIG 2


Now lets add some color to it.
Click at the top, Color>Colorize - OK then Color>color balance
In color balance window, change the settings to this:
Shadow: 100 -100 -100
Midtones: 100 100 -100
Highlights: 100 63 -100

These settings will give it a fiery color, but i encourage you to play with the settings.

FIG 3

For a nice blue color:

Shadow: -56 -94 100
Midtones: -100 -100 100
Highlights: -100 100 -26

FIG 4


You can stop here, the image should look pretty cool allready, however if you wanna play some more and learn something else keep reading.


Duplicate the layer two times, there should be three layers in this order:
Background copy#1
Background copy
Background

Now lets blur the two bottom layers with gaussian blur.
Background copy#1 this is not going to get blured!
Background copy set this blur to 20 20
Background  set this blur to 50 50

Now change the modes of the layers like this:
Background copy#1 Mode: Screen
Background copy Mode: Darken Only
Background Mode: Normal

This will add some glow to the image. Also try to play with the blur settings, my settings are not ideal, this part is just to teach you some methods to add more glow to an image.

This is how it should look now(or similar)

Blue color:

FIG 5

Fiery color:

FIG 6


Thank you very much for reading! I hope this tutorial helped you learn a few new things you can do with the GIMP.
Heres the XCF file if you want to take a look at it:
Blue:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1070700/gimp%20stuff/tuts/tut1/Gimptut2.1.xcf

Fiery:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1070700/gimp%20stuff/tuts/tut1/Gimptut2.xcf 

Please leave a comment! Also please do join the Dark Scarab forum for more help and C&C on your pictures!



Final Pictures made in this tutorial:

Blue:

Fiery: