40+ Best Free GIMP Tutorials For Beginners (Drawing & Painting)

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Learning GIMP can be intimidating at first. The interface is so different compared to Photoshop and other similar programs.

But with the right tutorials you can pick up GIMP in no time. That’s why I compiled this list with over 40 free GIMP tutorials on drawing & digital painting.

If you’re an artist looking for free art software then GIMP is a great way to start. You may struggle at first but if you stick with it you can design some beautiful work on any OS with this program.

1. Configure Wacom Tablet w/ GIMP

Let’s start with an obvious first step: getting GIMP working with your tablet.

This video covers all the basics of configuring and customizing your Wacom to work with GIMP. Really this should be the very first step you take before ever trying to paint in GIMP.

It can be tricky because this process isn’t as easy as connecting to Photoshop. But I recommend this vid for getting started if you’re having trouble.

2. GIMP Pressure Sensitivity

One related video is this one on pressure sensitivity.

It’s a very short tutorial but it’ll help you set up how much sensitivity you want through your tablet. It may vary based on your tablet resolution but most pressure sensitivity works the same.

And this way you can find the perfect config to capture your pen strokes.

3. Complete Introduction to GIMP

Finally we come to this massive intro tutorial for all GIMP users. I highly recommend checking out this 50-minute intro to GIMP.

It covers practically everything you would want to know about the interface, the tools, and how GIMP works. This will prove especially useful to anyone who’s never done any digital painting before.

And at 50+ minutes long you know this is one comprehensive guide.

4. Introduction to Layers

When you do a lot of digital painting you always want to use layers.

If you’ve never done this before in GIMP check out this vid covering the basics. You’ll learn how layers work from a general standpoint, not just for art, which is valuable no matter how you plan to use GIMP.

5. Custom Brushes

Also if you’re gonna use GIMP for artwork then you’ll be doing a lot with brushes.

Have a look at this setup guide on how to import, test, and switch custom brushes from the brush panel.

These should work much like Photoshop but GIMP brushes can behave a little differently. Also the GUI is very different so learning the interface will take some time.

6. How To Use GIMP (Beginners Guide)

The TechGumbo YouTube channel has some incredible tutorials like this beginner guide to GIMP for painting.

It totals about 15 minutes with plenty of details on the interface, painting techniques, and how to pick up GIMP from scratch.

Great for anyone regardless of their artistic skill level so I recommend giving this a quick watch.

7. Digital Painting – A Carrot

If you want a more specific painting tutorial then here ya go!

Learn how to paint a carrot in GIMP with this 7-minute video.

Artist Mahesh K Bhat shows you how to use GIMP to paint a simple carrot from scratch.

It’s not a super detailed tutorial so it’s great for beginners who just want to learn the software.

8. Learn How To Draw in GIMP

Here’s another specific guided tutorial on drawing with GIMP.

The software is meant to be a general design/editing program so there’s a lot of tools that won’t interest artists. But it does have so many features that you need to learn as you go.

This video is sure to get you started on the right foot.

9. Line Art Tutorial

It’s common for artists to create sketches or basic drawings, then clean them up with line work.

If you want to do line art with GIMP then this tutorial is sure to please. It’s a quick one but it’s also narrated so it offers a valuable guide for beginners.

10. How To Use Gimp Like An Artist

Really, this is one of the best GIMP tuts you’ll find online.

You can use this program for photo editing, icon design, and plenty of other things. But if you want to use GIMP for artwork then you’ll really enjoy this introductory video.

It spans about 20 minutes with guided tips & techniques for anyone just learning the GIMP software.

11. Woman And Dragon Painting

Here’s a really fun painting demo using GIMP to create a woman and a dragon scene.

Painting your own creatures can be really fun, but it requires an understanding of the software first. This tutorial can help you get there.

However it’s not fully narrated and it can move fast so it helps if you already know your way around basic painting before you start.

12. Landscape Painting

If you want to get into painting environments then check out this awesome video covering a landscape painting in GIMP.

This totals about 30 minutes of instruction with plenty of custom brushes and techniques for artists to follow.

13. Paint Manga in Gimp

It takes a lot of work to learn manga as a design style. But once you understand the style you may want to start working on it digitally.

That’s where this 30-minute tutorial can help. You’ll learn how to design your own mangas from scratch using GIMP as the painting software.

Probably the absolute best tutorial for beginners just getting into digital art.

14. Inking and Lineart

Digital inking is a huge part of designing comics so it’s a staple of digital art.

Have a look at this lineart tutorial covering all the fundamentals of ink & line work in GIMP. It is pretty quick but it also covers a lot of detail with a focus on the anime art style.

15. How to Clean up Scanned Pencil Sketch

Many artists prefer to work traditionally first, then import those sketches into a digital design program.

If you aren’t sure how this all works check out this video covering the process of cleaning up pencil sketches with GIMP. You can scan in your work and get it looking spiffy with 30-60 minutes of work following this tutorial.

16. Gimp Coloring Tutorial

Once you go beyond the cleanup phase you’ll want to start adding color into your work.

This is a great intro guide for beginners who have never used the GIMP color panel before.

It can be tricky at first but, like all things, practice makes perfect.

17. How to Color using Gimp

I also really like this color guide which spans 7 minutes and offers a very quick intro for beginners.

All of these videos target beginners and they’re all fantastic.

But this color guide may take the cake for its easy instructional guidelines that any artist should be able to follow.

18. How to Color a Drawing

Here’s another video on how to color with GIMP.

But this one’s a little different since it shows you a step-by-step process for actually coloring your work. This assumes you’ve already done the line art and are ready to create a finished piece.

19. Fast & Easy Coloring

I like variety so that’s why I’ve added yet another coloring tut.

This one’s similar to the video above since it teaches color from the perspective of character design.

I recommend going through both vids if you need to learn basic digital painting and want a template to follow.

20. Painting with Bob Ross using GIMP

Here’s a really fun video tutorial hosted by Chris Were.

This follows the advice of infamous painter Bob Ross as we learn to imitate his style in GIMP.

Granted Bob Ross worked in traditional mediums so it feels very different using a digital program. And that’s exactly what makes this tutorial so much fun!

21. Kynitia – Speed Painting

You can learn a lot from speedpainting videos and this one shows you how to design a character in GIMP start-to-finish.

It’s one of the more detailed tutorials here and it moves very fast.

I mean, that’s kinda the goal of a speedpaint. So give this a shot but make sure you already have some comfort with basic painting first.

22. Daredevil in GIMP

One nice thing about this video is how the creator actually narrates their way through the process.

Most speedpainting videos go so fast and usually rely on background music. But this vid is pretty educational even if you aren’t familiar with GIMP at all.

Highly recommend this if you can follow along with the quick movements.

23. Anime Drawing in GIMP

Ever wanted to draw anime style characters? Well if you’re moving into digital art then check out this great video spanning 13 minutes of clear instruction for artists.

It covers a lot of techniques on how to draw in GIMP and how to nail down the anime style in your work.

Granted this is meant to be a general drawing vid so it’s not specifically anime-focused. But I think the content speaks for itself.

24. Drawing a Face in Gimp

Portrait drawing is incredibly complex and there’s plenty of great books on this topic to get you started.

Now if you want to paint faces and portraits digitally then you might try GIMP as a free starting point.

Specifically with this video since it’s super simple and designed for complete beginners.

It helps a lot if you already have some artistic skills but not totally required.

25. Digital Painting in GIMP

For a more general approach to digital painting you might prefer a freeform tutorial on using GIMP for digital art.

The tutorial is not guided so there is no narrative or voiceover. Instead you’ll watch the artist and be left to mimic the techniques on your own.

It may not be your preferred learning style but it does work well if you have the patience to go back & forth. Or if you have two monitors!

26. Gimp Drawing Workflow

I personally like narrated videos since they’re clearer and a bit more fun.

If you’re just getting into digital artwork in GIMP then have a peek at this free tutorial covering everything you’d want to do know about a digital artist’s workflow.

Really you can start with practically zero knowledge of GIMP or digital painting. Yet by the end you should have a very strong grasp of how to draw, paint, and work with GIMP’s art tools.

27. Retro Engineer Painting

Artist Tomasz Mroziński is phenomenally talented and he often releases videos of his work on YouTube.

One such example using GIMP shows him painting a retro-style engineer character from scratch. You get to see his linework and his final color choices.

Incredibly valuable if you have some artistic experience and can follow along.

28. Speedpaint of Necomi-miku

Another brilliant quick painting vid this time focused on Miku.

You can find a bunch of these art videos in YouTube but very few follow with GIMP as the painting program of choice.

If you love Japanese-style character art or general anime art then give this vid a bookmark for future viewing.

29. Request Speed Paint

From this request video you can tell the artist knows what they’re doing.

It moves fast and doesn’t wait for you to catch up. However there are screen overlay directions for each step, so if you’re new to GIMP this can be an educational watch.

Just make sure you pause the video when you move into GIMP so you don’t miss anything.

30. Realistic Painting in GIMP

So far I’ve mostly covered basic tutorials or guided tuts for stylized artwork.

If you’re more interested in realism then check out this tutorial on painting a realistic wolf in GIMP.

The final result will never look as clean as an oil painting but it does offer an alternative where you don’t need to buy all those supplies.

31. Mareep in GIMP

Are you a huge Pokémon fan? Love creating fanart of your favorite characters?

Then you’ll adore this Mareep painting tutorial in GIMP. It’s a fast speedpaint but it spans a whopping 22 minutes showing you the entire creative process.

Whether you love or hate this gen 2 sheep it’s still a brilliant practice video for getting into painting.

And if you’re looking for more tutorials just like this have a peek at our recommendations for Pokémon that anyone can learn to draw or paint.

32. Pokémon Scene Painting

Now if you want something a little more complex check out this speedpaint video featuring Charmeleon, Bulbasaur, and Totodile.

The total time in real-world hours to complete this piece was over 5 hours so it makes sense that the artist sped it up.

It actually ran so long that they broke this into three parts! You can find parts two and three on YouTube as well if you’d like to follow along.

Just be warned this is a pretty technical painting. You should have some knowledge of digital art before trying to follow along with the artist(Karolina Twardosz) who you can also follow on Tumblr.

33. Intro to Illustrating Characters in GIMP

So you want to start illustrating and designing your own characters from scratch. How fun!

If you’d like to do this using GIMP then I’ve got a real treat in the form of this video. It totals over 8 minutes long and it’s the perfect intro to illustrating characters from scratch.

You’ll learn about pressure sensitivity and how to use many of GIMP’s drawing tools to craft clean lines regardless of your designs.

34. Painting Hair in Gimp

Hair can be one of the most frustrating things to learn to draw.

Everyone’s hair is different and it’s not always a uniform shape. Really this is one thing that can take forever to learn, but if you’re just getting into GIMP for artwork I recommend this video on painting hair.

It’s about 20 minutes long and full of step-by-step guidance to help you learn the foundations of creating believable digital hair.

35. GIMP Pixel Art Tool Setup

I couldn’t go this whole list without mentioning pixel art.

It’s one of the most unique mediums for game art and digital art as a whole. And with this setup tutorial you’ll learn how to turn GIMP into a powerful pixel art machine.

Best of all the video’s creator Matej Jan is a true-blue master of pixel art. He’s working on a game for the Pixel Art Academy to help artists learn everything about this style.

Great video for getting into pixel art for beginners who don’t know anything about pixel art or GIMP.

36. How To Make Pixel Art From A Photograph

Here’s another really cool tutorial covering pixel art designed from a photograph.

The video totals about 32 minutes and it really does walk you through the entire process step-by-step. A beautiful example of how much you can learn with the right resources.

I know that not everyone wants to learn pixel art but I will say this tut is phenominal. Especially when combined with the setup tutorial above.

37. Puppy Dog Speedpainting

Getting back onto the painting side we have this video from artist Johan Brits.

Again it’s a speed painting so it helps if you can follow along and pause when needed. But it’s a fun video of a dog in GIMP! Who wouldn’t love that?

38. Cat Speedpainting

Well if you’re more of a cat person then maybe this tutorial will be more up your alley.

This one uses a photo as a reference guide and the painting process is very clear.

But try to use this more as a guide for your own work rather than a step-by-step tutorial.

39. Painting in GIMP(Nebula)

The fictional character Nebula is the focus of this painting tutorial.

It totals over a half hour with clear instructions on how to draw your own version of Nebula in GIMP. The process is fully narrated so you can easily follow along.

I mostly recommend this for anyone new to GIMP or digital drawing in general. Super easy to follow with a very clear process.

40. The Big Tutorial of GIMP Painting

Now moving away from YouTube I wanna wrap up this list with a couple tuts from DeviantArt.

Specifically this one to start with created by Natalie Beth.

She published this quite a few years ago and it’s still the de-facto visual guide to GIMP.

If you’re looking for a way to learn GIMP outside of videos then definitely check this out.

41. DeviantArt GIMP Tuts Gallery

Alternatively have a look at this huge gallery of tutorials all on DeviantArt.

These are all 100% free to browse and they teach GIMP specifically for artists. Pretty cool right?

Regardless of your experience as an artist or in GIMP I’d guarantee these tutorials can help improve your skills no matter what you want to create.