Di's Delights PSP8 Pop Up Lion Tutorial

PSP8 Pop Up Lion

This tutorial has been written for PSP8 but will also work in PSP7.

For this tutorial you'll need a basic knowledge of PSP and vector shapes.

If it helps you can save this image to your hard drive to use it as a template or simply for guidance.

You can, of course, use your own colours, for the purpose of this tutorial,
I will give the colours I used.

Don't forget to save your work often, I am not in the habit of giving this reminder.

1. Open a new image 300x400, 16 million colours with a transparent background. Null the foreground and set the background to #F5C44A. Create a new vector layer named body. With the preset shapes tool, ellipse, antialias and vector checked draw a wide oval for the body. Click the pen tool

to edit

the nodes.

Working on the left node, lengthen the top control arm and move to the right. Lengthen the bottom control arm slightly more than the top and move to the right.		Working on the right node, lengthen both control arms.

Working on the bottom middle node, move down the left control arm and lengthen both control arms if needs be.		Working on the top middle node, move both control arms up and lengthen if needs be.

2. Create a new vector layer named tail.

Draw an oval for the tail. Rotate it slightly to the left. Edit the nodes.		Working on the left node, lengthen the top control arm.

Working on the right node, lengthen the top control arm.		Working on the bottom node, Ctrl+S to make symmetrical and lengthen the control arms slightly.

3. Create a new vector layer named head.

Draw an oval for the tail. Rotate it slightly to the left. Edit the nodes.

Working on the bottom node, lengthen the right control arm considerably and the left slightly.

4. In the layer pallet, make the tail layer active. Create a new vector layer named left ear. Draw an oval for the ear. Crtl+C to copy. Create a new vector layer named right ear. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Place the curser where you want the right ear to be, click then rotate into position.

5. In the layer pallet make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named left leg1. Draw an oval so that it overlaps the body. Crtl+C to copy. Make layer 1 active. Create a new vector layer named left leg2. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Place the shape so that it overlaps the left leg.

6. Make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named left foot. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Place this shape to the bottom of the leg so that it overlaps slightly. Edit the nodes. Bring the left node out to the left. Shorten the bottom control arm. Bring the right node out to the right. Shorten the bottom control arm. Bring the bottom node up.

7. Make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named right leg1. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Place the shape to the right of the body. Rotate it slightly to the right. Crtl+C to copy.

Make layer 1 active. Create a new vector layer named right leg2. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Place the shape so that it overlaps the right leg.

8. Make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named right foot. Ctrl+G to paste as a new vector selection. Edit the nodes as we did for the left foot.

9. We are now going to make the base. Make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named base top. Change the background to #429442. With the preset shape tool draw an oval for the top of the base. Ctrl+C to copy.

10. Make raster 1 layer active. Create a new vector layer named base. Ctrl+G To paste as a new vector selection. Place this shape to the bottom. Edit the nodes. Add a node above the left node.

Click on this added node to select. Ctrl+B. Ctrl+F. This will convert to a line before and after. Bring this node up so that it is in line with the left side edge of the base top.

Add a node above the right node. Select it. Ctrl+B. Ctrl+F. Bring this node up in line with the right side edge of the base top. Bring the top middle node up if needs be.

OK, I think we're about done with the general shapes for the lion. Convert all layers to raster and get ready for some shading.

11. Make the head layer active and apply the following cutout.

12. Create a new layer named head highlight. With the paint brush

, Size 6, Hardness 50, foreground colour #FDE4A9 paint a highlight as shown. Change the colour to #FFF0CB and paint a bit more. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian blur with a radius of 4 or 5.

13. Make the right ear layer active. Apply the cutout changing the Vertical to 6, Horizontal to 2 and blur to 20. Create a new raster layer named right ear highlight. Using the paint brush with the colours give previously paint a highlight as shown. Apply the gaussian blur.

14. Make the left ear active. Apply the cutout changing the Vertical to -2, Horizontal to -6. Create a new raster layer named left ear highlight. Paint a highlight and apply the gaussian blur.

15. Make the tail layer active. Apply the cutout changing the Horizontal to 2 and the blur to 10. Create a new raster layer named tail highlight. Paint a highlight and apply the gaussian blur.

16. Make the body layer active. Apply the cutout changing the Vertical to -11, the Horizontal to 0 and the blur to 30. Create a new raster layer named body highlight. Paint a highlight and apply the gaussian blur.

17. Go through all the leg and foot layers applying a cutout changing the Vertical to -4, the Horizontal to 4 and the blur to 20. For each of the foot and leg layers, create a new raster layer and paint a highlight then apply the gaussian blur.

18. Make the base top layer active. Apply a cutout at the given setting.

With the freehand selection tool

, feather 15, Make a triangular selection as shown. Screen shot shows selection with no feathering to give an idea of the actual selection made. Adjust, Brightness contrast, Brightness/Contrast, brightness 30, contrast 0. Selections, Modify, Contract by 10. Adjust the brightness and contrast again, this time the brightness needs to be 10. Ctrl+D.

19. Make the base layer active. Apply a cutout changing the Vertical to -6, Horizontal to 6 and the blur to 50. With the freehand selection tool make a selection as shown. Repeat the brightness and contrast as done previously.

I have chosen this method for the highlights on the base simply because I preferred it and because it seemed to give a better result than painting and blurring as done for the body parts. How you decide to do it, is entirely your choice.

OK, we're very nearly done, so bear with me.

20. Make the tail highlight layer active. Create a new layer named mane. With the tube tool

, choose the rope tube at a scale of 30. Starting at the top of the head, draw out the mane, going round the entire head. I have showed in the screen shot the direction that I drew the tube. This gives a darker effect, giving the mane some depth.

Create a new layer named mane 2. Draw some more hair going in the opposite direction than before giving a lighter effect to the tube.

Make the head highlight layer active, create a new layer named fringe, with the tube tool as before draw out a fringe.

Make the body highlight layer active. Create a new layer named tail hair. With the tube tool, draw out the tail in the direction shown. Create a new layer named tail hair 2. Draw a few more hairs in the opposite direction.

21. Make the very top layer active. Create a new layer named face. Set the foreground to black. With the paintbrush, size 12, hardness 50, density, thickness and opacity all 100. Paint an eye. Reduce the size of the brush to size 2, hardness 0, paint the nose and mouth.

Ok, lets tidy up. Make all layers invisible

except for all the left leg layers. Merge visible. Rename this merged layer to left leg. Duplicate the layer. Make the left leg layer active. With the deformation tool

move and rotate the leg slightly.

Adjust/Brightness and Contrast/Brightness contrast, bring the brightness down to -20.

22. Make all the layers invisible except for all the right leg layers. Merge visible. Rename this merged layer to right leg. Duplicate, deform and darken as before.

Nearly there.......................make both base layers invisible. Merge visible, this should just be the entire lion. Duplicate the layer. Bring the other layers back in to view. Make the merged layer active. Adjust the brightness down to -255. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian blur with a radius of 12. Use the deformation tool to narrow down the image. Bring the opacity of the layer down to 50.

Make the base top layer active. With the magic wand, feather 2, click the outer, transparent part of the base top. Make the merged layer active, the darkened, deformed layer, hit delete. You should now have a shadow on top of the base. Merge all layers visible and save as a tube or in PSP format.

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