HAO 2 GMAWD R33L GUD

Greetings, potential blog viewer, I’m General DeGroot. Yes, the maintainer of “Return of the Revenge of the Loadout Picture Request Topic” and maker of most of the pictures for SPUFblog. I may have -at one point or another- done a picture for you, if you’re on SPUF. And chances are, you asked yourself or me “DEGROOT, HOW DO I GMOD LIKE A BOSS LIKE YOU? TELL ME OR I’LL EAT YOUR BABIES!”* And the fact is, I don’t honestly know. I always end up thinking I could’ve done better with it.

*It’s happened, believe me.

Chapter one, the right tools for the right job

So yeah, gmodding good pictures. How do you make ’em, DeGroogles? Well, most of it is from using the right tools. I made a small collection a while ago. I don’t know why I didn’t make a tutorial then, but I am now, so… Now where was I? Oh yeah, tools. All of those addons are my personal favourites for making those cool pictures.
A quick run-down of the tools:

-ANIMATED PROP TOOL
This sucker is good for making authentic TF2 poses and adds that extra TF2-ey look. Most’ve the time. Can pose just about any ragdoll with anims, and that counts buildings.

-BONE MERGER
The most important tool, the bone merger allows you to merge items like hats, weapons, miscs and other fun junk onto your rag dolls and animated props.

-HAT PAINTER AND CRITGLOW TOOLS
The hat painter’s especially useful if you want that certain paint. Critglow will probably only be used sparingly.

-PARTICLE ATTACHER
Used for the attaching of unusual effects. Currently updated to the latest unusuals.

-THE OTHER PARTICLE ATTACHER(Particle System Tester)
Same as the particle attacher, but with a wider variety. I don’t use this as much personally because it’s a little buggy. However, it DOES load all of the particles, so if one of your maps doesn’t have any weather, you can nab this out, and reload the map.

-ROBOT EYE GLOW TOOL
Does what it says on the box. I don’t use it much.

-SENTRY POSER
See Robot Eye Glow Tool.

So that’s all the tools I use on an ordinary basis. But what’s that, you say? “But degroot, you sometimes use ragdolls and I can’t pose for ♥♥♥♥!” Read on, esteemed gmodder!

Chapter two, ragdolls 101

Ah, now ragdolls are an entirely different kettle of fish. Originally used for poses before the animated props tool came around… There were two types. Poses that were crap and those with effort. A lot of posing is just knowing how to use your physgun and get a lot of practice.
PROTIP: Holding default “E” while posing a ragdoll allows you to swivel it around a ton more. Holding both shift and E at the same time allows for alignment on a straight line. So, uh… yeah. Just get a lot of practice in. Get a good idea what you want to pose.

Chapter three, so you think you’re doing a good job

Chances are, you probably have a picture that looks…Fairly okay. BUT WAIT! Did you see that tab labelled “Post Process”?
That’s right! Dynamics time! Uh… Well, it was. You probably should experiment with ’em, and whatnot. Yeah.

Conclusion:

Good job, I guess. You can make kinda cool pictures. Maybe. Good luck!