Bugs tutorial

By doing this tutorial you agree to my terms of use.
Screen shots were taken from PSP7 and as such copyright belongs to JASC

You will need my bugs selections, download here
and my fur jpg, download here

The fur jpg was obtained here and recoloured

OK, lets role up our sleeves and get creating.

1. Open an new image 375x600 with a transparent background.

2. Add a new raster layer naming it feet. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugsfeet.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

3. Add a new raster layer naming it body. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugsbody.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

4. Add a new raster layer naming it tail. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugstail.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

5. Add a new raster layer naming it ear2. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugsear2.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

6. Add a new raster layer naming it head. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugshead.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

7. Add a new raster layer naming it ear. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugsear.sel. Flood fill with the fur.jpg. Selections/select none.

8. Add a new raster layer naming it eye rim. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugseyerim.sel. Flood fill with fur.jpg. Go to Effects/3d effect/Inner Bevel use the round preset changing the width to 5 and the angle to 333. Selections/select none. Use the Retouch tool with these settings

soften the rim by placing the brush over the rim and clicking a few times.

9. Add a new raster layer naming it eye. Go to selections/load from disc and open bugseye.sel. Flood fill with black. Go to effects/3d effects/inner bevel and apply the round preset changing the light angle to 36. With the retouch tool set to soften with the same settings as before and soften the entire eye.

10. OK, now for the artistic bit, we are going to work through all the layers except for the eyes and eye rim lightening and darkening the different area's. The more you apply the effect the lighter or darker the area will become, I used brush strokes rather than a continual hold on the mouse button. For the very edge of the particular area place the brush so that it is half on and half off. These are the settings for the retouch tool and a screen shot of what I have done so far.

I hope you can see just where to darken and lighten our bugs. Notice that the tail has been lightened drastically and don't worry, if you're not happy there's always the undo tool :o)

11. OK, now we start to smudge the fur. I have seen tuts where you merge all the visible layers and then use the smudge tool but I found it easier to work on all the individual layers. Change the retouch tool to smudge with these settings

Magnify your image and pull the fur out at the edges very slightly and simply go through the layers except for the eyes, try to remember that the ears are not quite so furry and to make the fur on the tail a bit longer.

Make all layers visible and merge all visible layers. Of course the bugs is still quite large so resize to a size you need but remember to sharpen the image.

And there you have one very cute bunny :o)

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