Make blood splatters using GIMP

Have you ever had a great idea for a Halloween card or a t-shirt and thought you couldn't do it because you couldn't design something with a bit of blood on it?

Making blood splatters or blood stains using GIMP is easy. Below you will see step by step instructions for using GIMP to make a blood splatter design. GIMP is free to download software and with a bit of practice you will be creating designs easily.

Your designs could be used on t-shirts, or Halloween invitations or anything that you want to look a bit gory. Or change the color and you will have a splash of any liquid. You are only limited by your imagination.

I have also included some products that I have designed using this technique.

Once you have downloaded Gimp, you are ready to begin. First we need to open a page click on file and then new. In the picture you will see this on is set to 640 x 400. You can use this to practice with or change it to any size that will be suitable for your design. Then click ok.

Now that you have your page, we are going to choose the tool you will need to make the blood splatters. Firstly you will want to choose your airbrush. That is located in your toolbox on the fourth line between something that looks like an eraser and an ink pot.

Next you need to choose the type of brush. Below the black and white squares you will see two icons. One looks like a stack of papers and the other like two levers. If you hover over the one that looks like two levers, you will get a message up. "open the tools options dialog box". Click this. By doing this you will bring different options available to you.

Where it says brush click on the black dot. This will open up your options of brushes. click on the one that looks like a sun. This is your sparks brush.

Open a new layer by clicking the Layer tab. Then click new layer. This will bring up a box with the sizes in it. Towards the bottom you will see a circle for transparency. This should have a dot in there. If it doesn't, click on it.Then click on OK.

Now with your brush begin moving your circle around the page. You won't see much at first but it will appear a yellow color. This is the time to think how you want your design to look. Remember when something splatters it goes in all directions. If you think of a darker center with rays coming from it.

The next step will be to unlock your layer. Click on the box where you had previously put a check mark.

Now go the layers tmenu. If it isn't showing click control and L. You will see a small square that says lock, on your layers options below the black and white squares.You need to put a check in this box.

Now we need to choose our color of blood. If you click on the two colored squares this will bring up a color chart. From here you can select the color you want. You will want to opt for a dark red. Then click OK.

Next you will want to click on Edit, fill with foreground color. That will change your yellow to the red color you selected.

The next step is to click colors from the top menu bar.

Then click curves, where it says channel, click alpha then ok.

You now want to drag the top point to the left.

Next you will want to grab the bottom point and drag it slightly to the right.

Now you want to adjust the line by pulling from the line. Look at the diagram. You will be able to see your changes while you are making them. This makes it easier to adjust them. When you have altered the lines to get the desired effect, click OK.

When you have finished it, you will want to save your design. Go to file, save as. Give it a name such as "blood splatter".