Oriental Beauty

YOU WILL NEED:

* Paint Shop Pro. I used version 10 but you should be able to make this tag in all versions.

* Tube of choice. I am using the artwork of Mark Wasyl and you can purchase his art from CILM.

* Oriental Beauty Scrap Kit by me. This kit is available in all my stores as a full size kit or a taggers kit, you will find the links on My Blog. I used the taggers kit for this tut.

* Font of choice - I used Shangri-La HERE (SHANLNC.TTF)

* Vine brush freebie by me, also available from my stores or on my blog.

* Smudge mask by me HERE.

NOTE It is possible to make this tag using the free Oriental Beauty Add on which is available in all the stores, example below. If you need a free glitter tile for the brush, the free Glitterbug 04 download from all the stores has a set of 20 glitter tiles which includes suitable colours for this tag.

LETS START!

1. Open a new image 500 x 500 with a white background.

2. Open your scrap kit and decide which two colours you are going to use. I went with the beige and the red. Copy the darker paper (in my case red) to your canvas and apply the smudge mask. Merge the mask group. I used the paper that matches the fans.

3. Copy and paste the two fans that you wish to you to the canvas. Image - Free Rotate - Left 35 degrees for each fan. Sharpen using the settings below. Place the darker colour at the back and using my tag as a guide, position your fans. Copy and paste your tube between the two fan layers.

4. Copy and paste the flowers to the canvas. Duplicate and resize some of them to 80% to get variety, resize some of the ones already resized and sharpen. If using the Pay kit, mirror and flip the flowers to get variety as well. Place your flowers around your tag (will refine later). The main function of the flowers in my tag is to hide the edge of the geisha tube. Adjust your flower layers so that some are above and some are below the front fan. Sharpen any resized flowers that may require it. Apply drop shadow to the flower and fan layers at the following settings -

5. Activate your mask layer and add a new raster layer. Have your glitter tile open in PSP. Click on the materials palette and select patterns. Find your tile in the drop down list. Scale the glitter to 50%.

6. Open the png for the brush you wish to use (I used vine 15) and export it as a custom brush (File - Export - Custom Brush. This is for PSPX, not sure what other versions require). Change the brush size to 300. Paint the vine pattern on your new raster layer. Change the rotation of the brush to have different parts of the vine peeking out from under the fans and tube. Erase any parts you don't want showing as you go otherwise it will overlap your next brush stroke. When satisfied with your brush work, sharpen and add shadow using the same settings as before.

7. Arrange your flowers where possible so that they look like part of the vine. Copy and paste the dragonfly or other accent to the canvas and position to your liking.

8. Add copyright information and your watermark.

9. Activate your preset shapes tool and draw an ellipse using the dark fan as a guide. We are going to use this to create the curved text but you wont get it perfect because the fan is not a perfect circle - we just want the basic curve for the text. Have the colour for your text as the background on your materials palette. Select your text tool and using the settings below type your name. Your text icon will be on an angle if you have done the vector correctly. It may take a couple of attempts to get the text on the right curve. When satisfied, promote the selection to layer and select none. You can adjust the text slightly when done by using your raster deform tool to tilt your name. Sharpen and apply shadow as before.

10. Save as a .jpg file and you are done. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Pink Star

YOU WILL NEED:

* A good knowledge of Paint Shop Pro and Animation Shop (or similar).

* Tube of choice. I am using the art work of Mark Wasyl. You will need a license to use his art work. Tubes can be purchased from CILM.

* Eye Candy 4000 - Gradient Glow.

* Star Mask (made by me) HERE.

* Font of choice - I am using Heather.

* Muras Filter Meister - Clouds.

* Animated background by me HERE. NOTE: The pink background is supplied with the layers closed as it makes it easier to do the tut. A greyscale background is included as well so you can colour to match different tubes but the layers are not closed. The animation was made using a preset shape from HERE.


LETS START

1. Open the animated background and duplicate. Close the original.

2. Add a new raster layer and floodfill with white. Move this to the bottom. Add another raster layer and floodfill with black. Apply the mask to your black layer, merge group.

3. Activate your white background layer and add a new raster layer. Floodfill with a strong colour from your tube. I used #da0280. Apply Muras Clouds at the following settings. Resize this layer to 85%. Select all - float - defloat - modify - feather by 45 - selection invert - press delete 3 or 4 times to soften the edge of the square.

4. Merge the white background, clouds and mask layers together. Use your magic wand tool to select the black stars that you want the animation to show on. Make sure your wand is set on add. Selection - Modify - contract by 2. Selection - Invert. Activate each star layer and press delete. Select none.

5. Duplicate so that you have 6 of the background layers and merge a star layer to each background layer. Activate your top layer.

6. Copy and paste your tube to the canvas. Resize, sharpen if necessary and position where you want it. Add copyright information and your watermark in place that wont interfere with your text.

7. Set your materials palette to null foreground and black background. Activate your text tool and type your message. Mix up the font size to get an interesting effect. I typed my message at size 36 and the name at 55. Apply Eye Candy Gradient Glow - Electric Pink setting (settings shown below). If you are using a different tube then you may need to adjust the colours of the glow (click on the pencils to select and change). I changed the first two pink pencils to the dark pink colour I used earlier. Repeat process with your name.

8. Merge your tube and text layers together. Duplicate this layer and merge to each of the background layers. Save as an Animation Shop .psp file.

9. Open your image in Animation Shop. Change your frame properties to 25 and save as a .gif and you are done. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.