[Award Winner] Using the mosaic filter to make towns in Gimp

[torstan]

Okay, so now we want to add some shadows.

1. Go back to your black and white buildings layer
2. Use the Select By Colour Tool to get a selection of all the buildings
3. Go to Filters->Light and Shadow->Drop Shadow
4. Pick the following options in the dialogue:



5. Hit okay and move the layer under your Colours Layer

That's it done. The town is finished and the houses are all there. My final screen looks like this:



and the final map looks like this



Now there are lots of things that can be done to tweak this process - if you fiddle with the settings in the mosaic filter specifically you will be able to get more or less spaced out houses and different shapes. Equally you can posterise the colours layer and apply a stroke to the houses to make it look more hand drawn. Here I also put all the colour layers over a parchment background and changed them to multiply, overlay, or hard light, to get a less intense feel. I added an overlay layer with some broad regions of light and dark for the hills. I also used the bump map layer as an overlay layer to give a bit more light and shade to the buildings.



Here's the layer layout for that map: