Textures in Gimp

Hm, I can't see your image so I'm not exactly sure. The bucket has its own settings, and you may have it on a setting where it follows the visible colors instead of the layer colors. You can get around that by changing the setting or by hiding all the template layers. Now I can't see your white lines. The bucket tool clicked onto a transparent spot will flood along all the connected transparent pixels ... if your white lines don't completely close an area, that means everywhere that isn't already painted.

You can also paint with the regular brushes and lay down a pattern; in the brush settings, change from painting a color to painting a pattern, and then you can just lay down strokes where you want color.

With the size of the pattern, probably your texture image was very small, and the clothing templates are very big - 1024x1024 ! (This is why I have instructions to scale down before sending to secondlife. If you skip that step, everyone will lag every time you step into view... ) If you open the image that you want to make into a pattern, and first do an 'Image->Scale' and scale it up to, say, 100x100 then it will cover much bigger areas with one pass. (Alternatively, you could scale -down- the kimono image to 512x512 or 256x256. I like to work with the big image and only scale down later, but the pattern will cover more if the image is smaller.)

I get the impression that you are cutting your "v" neckline on the template instead of on the layer you want as a texture.

Here's what I do....basically what Jake does.

Open your template (which is seems you do suceesfully). Then in the "image" window open "as a layer" a completely transparent layer (since this is one of my first steps I made one and saved as a template and keep it in the same folder I use for all other templates). Then do your buckfill.......make sure you have fill whole selection checked). The template beneath the layer will be be obscurred after you fill the transparent layer. Then go the layers dialogu and change the opacity value to something like 50. You can now see through the layer you filled with the buckfill and see your template. Do your cutting out for your "v" neck and all your painting of trim etc.......make more transparent layers like Jake said to avoid ruining what you've done earlier. Once you have all your layers like you want... go back to the layers dialog and put the opacity back to 100 (or whatever you want them to be). Turn off visibility on the layers you don't want showing on your image (usually all the templates you are using as guides......like the 7 layers of the Chip Midnight upper template). Save to .xcf format for future editing. Then merge all visible layers. Resize to 512 or 256 and save again as .tga for your upload.

The great thing about doing your drawing and stuff on separate layers is that if you get it all screwed up all you have to do is delete that layer, open another transparent layer and start over.

Hope I havesn't confused you too much wording things a little different than Jake.

Which reminds me............Jake, you're an angel. I never knew how to ge a straight line like that little trick. Thank you.

Thank you both Penny and Jake that is some sweet advice from the both of you. I am making progress and its because of you!

Once I do get it down right I will have to snap a pic of it. and see about loading it up here.

I hope for some of the others this was old lady friendly and they at least have a hopefully thread to grab onto and try.
Have a great weekend.

P.s.
Before adding a transparent layer I add a white layer then goto Dialouge channels paths and click on that layer and at the bottom of this little popup menu yousee a flat paper icon and som arrows.
hit the down arrow until that white layer (which I name backdrop not to be confused as a background) is pushed all the way to the very bottom thus making it go to the very back or bottom of the pile like a stack of records.now you can see all the crazy graph lines very clearly. Ill try that 50% thing so I can make clean staight cuts still.

I know you guys are going to kill me......

The fill idea was great! I got the opaque turned down just like you said, made the nice cut lines.. and for the life of me something I thought I had down so well has come back to bite me again!
I cant get that back of shirt cut line to stop dancing!! I just cant anchor that cut after I goto edit and clear it.
that should stop it and I can add a new layer, paint, and be on my merry way. But Nooooooooooooooooooo the lines have to do the cha cha in my face (laughs insanely at this point)
Ive only spent All Day fighting my guts out with Gimp.
How can I anchor the cut???????? I clicked on paintbrush and the thing after adding a new layer just refuses to paint.
Last time I just saved and shut gimp down and brought it back up thus fooling it to the next step.....
Didnt happen this time.

The dancing lines mark your current selection, and you can't paint outside of the current selection. You should be able to 'Select All' from the Select menu (or maybe the Edit menu on the older versions).

If you've done a cut and paste rather than a select and clear then you may have created a 'floating selection' which you can anchor either in the layers dialog, or simply by using the 'move tool' (the one that looks like 4 outward pointing arrows) ; if you're on the 'move tool' and pointing somewhere outside the selection, clicking will 'anchor' the selection.

By the way, the entire user manual is online, at,
http://docs.gimp.org/en/

If you get stuck with some particular part, you might be able to find some answers in there. It isn't exactly readable to go through beginning to an end, it is a manual and not a tutorial. But it's useful any time you want to work with a new tool or feature to read a little about it.

Aluviel...............check out this e-book. It's much easier to follow than the manual you get with The GIMP...........not so "geeky".

Since you are somewhat exposed to The GIMP and it's interface the book will make some of the things are talking about a little clearer. I found it after struggling with many of the same things are having problems with..........it helped make things fall into place.

http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/

If the link doesn't show as a hyperlink, just copy the web address between the and paste to your brower, hit enter.........off you go.

By the way it's a free book too.

Thank you Both Again!!!
I will look up that url and bookmark it!

I wish you both a wonderfull weekend!