Di's Delights PSP Squirrel Tutorial

I was asked to make a tutorial for a squirrel and this is the best I could come up with. There are aspects of it that I'm not too happy with but maybe I'm just being too finicky :o)

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

The fur jpg was obtained here and colourised

You will need my squirrel selections and fur jpg.
Extract the jpg and selection files to where ever you keep them and can find them :o)

These are the settings for the respective tools -

1. Open an new image 600x500 with a transparent background. Open the two squirrel fur jpg's that are included in the zip to use as the fill.

2. Add a new raster layer naming it hand back, Selections/load from disc, open the hand-back.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg at 50%. Selections/select none.

3. Add a new raster layer naming it foot back. Go to selections/load from disc and open foot-back.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg at 50%. Selections/select none.

4. Add a new raster layer naming it foot front. Go to selections/load from disc and open foot-front.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg at 50%. Selections/select none.

5. Add a new raster layer naming it belly. Go to selections/load from disc and open belly.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel1.jpg at 100%. Selections/select none.

6. Add a new raster layer naming it tail2. Go to selections/load from disc and open tail2.sel. Flood fill with white, selections/modify/contract by 3 and flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, lightly colour the left edge of the tail. Selections/select none.

7. Add a new raster layer naming it body. Go to selections/load from disc and open body.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Selections/select none. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, lightly colour the top of his back where the body joins the tail and his armpit. If you're not sure what I mean scroll down as there's a screen shot for you to look at :o)

8. Add a new raster layer naming it tail1. Go to selections/load from disc and open tail1.sel. Flood fill with white, selections/modify/contract by 3 and flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, lightly colour the tail. Selections/none.

9. Add a new raster layer naming it arm front. Go to selections/load from disc and open arm-front.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Selections/none.

10. Add a new raster layer naming it ear back. Go to selections/load from disc and open ear-back.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, lightly colour the ear. Selections/none.

11. Add a new raster layer naming it face. Go to selections/load from disc and open face.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Selections/none. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, lightly colour the top edge and nose of his face. Selections/none.

12. Add a new raster layer naming it eye. Go to selections/load from disc and open eye.sel. Flood fill with black. Selections/none. Effects/3D effects/Inner Bevel, apply the round preset.

13. Add a new raster layer naming it ear front. Go to selections/load from disc and open ear-front.sel. Flood fill with the squirrel2.jpg. Keep the image selected and use the airbrush tool colour set to #A47A4C, colour the ear. Selections/none.

Here's a screen shot of what you should have so far :o)

OK, time to put the kettle on or even pour a stiff drink, this is where the fun starts.

14. Click on the tail1 layer to make it active, using the retouch tool set to smudge with the settings I gave at the beginning pull out the fur of the tail quite considerably. Now do the same for the tail2 layer. Make the body layer active and smudge the fur at the bottom and around the leg and belly. Now the front arm layer and just smudge the lower arm. Then his belly. OK, that's it for the smudging, now on to the lighten and darken, ain't this fun :o)

15. Click on the tail2 layer and darken the fur where it joins the body, click on the body layer and darken the fur where it meets the tail then lighten the fur near the head and arms. Click on the face layer and with the airbrush tool at the previous setting spray colour around the eye. Now use the retouch tool set to lighten RGB and lighten around the edge of the eye. Darken the top of the head, the jaw line and a small line for the nose. Now the ear back layer and then the ear front, you may want to reduce the size of the brush for this detail. Now click on the arm front layer and lighten the top of the arm and each finger, then darken the bottom of each finger. Now on to the feet, with the lighten and darken tool try to highlight each toe, you will need to resize the brush to about size 3 for this. Then darken the feet where they overlap the body and each other.

Merge all layers visible and save as a tube or in PSP format. If it is too big for your liking resize but remember to sharpen the image, I prefer to use the unsharp mask with a radius of 1.00, strength 75 and clipping 0.

I hope you enjoyed this tut :o)

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