Scratch and GIMP Project: From Sketches to Sprites

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If you have downloaded Scratch, get it HERE. To download GIMP, click HERE.
In this article, I will show you how to use GIMP to turn your cartoon drawing to a Scratch
sprite. We will use similar technique used in -a previous sample project where we turn a
person in a photo to a Sprite. But in this lesson, we can use GIMP to color the drawing.
First, scan your drawing or take a picture of your drawing. For this lesson, I use a
drawing that I did for my son's Cub Scout group.

Start GIMP and do "Open" and browse to the image just scanned in.
Before coloring, we need to make sure all areas where we would like to color are
enclosed. Use Color Picker Tool from Toolbox to copy the color of the border.
Then use the paint brush to close any gap in any area you would like to color.

Now the baby diaper has been enclosed.

Use Paint Bucket from GIMP to fill in color.

Now we've colored this baby and next we will "cut" it out. To do so, we use Free
Selection Tool. Click the Free Selection Tool button from Toolbox.

To cut, click around the image and small circles will show on each place you click. Keep
selecting until the selected area is enclosed. Once the selected area becomes enclose,
the path of circles will be replaced with a flashing dotted path. This indicates that the
area inside the dotted line has been selected is now active.
Copy the selected by CTRL+C or "Edit"->"Copy".

Then create a new image file by "File"->"Create"->"From Clipboard".

To save this file as a GIF image (so we can import it from Scratch), click "File"->"Save
As".

Enter "baby" at the Name entry box and then click the "+" button to expand the type list.
From the drop down type list, select "GIF image", one of the type that Scratch support.
You can also select PNG type. Then hit "Save" button.

A message box would pop up, just keep the default selection (because we want to keep
the color) and click "Export" button.
Keep the default setting and leave "Interlace" unchecked because Scratch does not
support Animated GIF; we did not created animated GIF either. Click "Save" to save.

Our "baby.gif" file has been created. Finally, we are ready to import it from Scratch.
Start Scratch and click the New Sprite button to create a new sprite.
Then browse to the baby.gif file just created and click "OK". And click "OK" again at
Paint Editor to finish the sprite creation.

Meet the new baby sprite.

PS GIMP really is a great tool and it has many more features to offer. You can use it to
turn your black-and-white drawing to a colorful digital art! This is what I did with the
original drawing. I am sure you can come up with more interesting stuff. So what are
you waiting for? Go dig out those old drawings or sketches of yours and play with them
using GIMP!