Di's Delights PSP8 Toy Duck Tutorial

PSP8 Pull Along Toy Duck

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

For this tutorial you'll need a basic knowledge of vector shapes and my PSP Gradient zip available here. Extract the duck1 and duck2 PspGradient files to My Documents/My PSP8 files/Gradients folder. You can of course use your own gradient :o)

By doing this tutorial you agree to my terms of use. However as you will be making your own shapes the resulting image is yours.

If it helps you can save this image to your hard drive and use it as a template.

1. Open a new image 260x260, 16 million colours with a transparent background. Null the foreground and set the background to the duck2 gradient at an angle of 90. Create a new vector layer named body. With the preset shapes tool , ellipse, antialias and vector checked draw out a wide oval. Click on the pen tool to edit the nodes. Click on the left hand node. Bring the node up and out to the right, shorten the top control arm. Now work on the top center node, Ctrl+S to make it symmetrical, bring it down and to the left shortening and moving the control arms as shown. Finally the right hand node, simply extend the top control arm.

2. Duplicate the body layer. In the layer pallet click the plus sign of the body layer, click ellipse to select. Use the presets shape tool, this will select the shape. Move the body up and to the right. With the pen tool to edit the nodes, bring the bottom node down slightly. Add a node just below the left side node, bring this down so that it is in line with the tail. You may need to alter the angle of the bottom control arm of the now top left node.
3. Make the body layer active *this should be your top layer. Create a new vector layer named wing. Change the gradient to duck1, angle 90. With the preset shape tool draw out a circle. Place the curser over the top left corner, hold Ctrl and move down to narrow the side. Now move the curser over to the top right, hold Ctrl and move up to widen the left side.
4. Make the body layer active. Create a new vector layer named head. Change the background to solid colour #1AC806. With the preset shape tool draw a circle for the head.
5. Crate a new vector layer named beak. Change the fill to #EB2006. Draw out a wide narrow oval. Click on the pen tool to edit the node. Click on the left hand node, Ctrl+S then lengthen the control arms. Click on the right hand node, bring the node up and shorten the control arms.
6. Make the wing layer active. Create a new layer named front wheel. Hold Shft and draw out a circle. Create a new vector layer named back wheel. Change the background colour to #E5E5E5. Hold Shft and draw out a smaller circle. Duplicate the front wheel layer. In the layer pallet drag it down so that it is below the body layer. It will be helpful at this point to make the front wheel layer invisible . Move the duplicated front wheel as shown. Bring back the visibility of the front wheel layer.
7. Make the back wheel layer active. Create a new vector layer named eye. Change the background colour to white, draw out a circle for the eye. Change the background colour to black and draw out a smaller circle for the pupil.
This is what your layer pallet should look like OK, if you're happy with the overall look of your duck go through all the layers and convert to raster. 8. Make the copy of body layer active. Adjust/Brightness & Contrast/Brightness Contrast, bring the brightness down to -40.
9. Duplicate the head layer. Make the head layer active. Adjust/Brightness & Contrast/Brightness Contrast, bring the brightness down to -255. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 3. Move blurred and darkened head down to the right as shown. Make the body layer active. With the magic wand, replace, feather 1 click the transparent area. Make the head layer active, delete. Select none. Bring down the opacity of the head layer down to about 50.
10. Make the body layer active. Lock the transparency of the layer. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout at the given setting. Unlock the transparency of the layer. 11. Make the copy of head layer active. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout at the setting given. 12. Make the wing layer active. Lock the transparency of the layer. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout at the setting given. Unlock the transparency of the layer. Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow, vertical 1, horizontal -1, Opacity 80, blur 3, shadow colour black. 13. Make the beak layer active. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout at the setting given.
14. Duplicate the back wheel layer. Adjust/Brightness & Contrast/Brightness Contrast, bring the brightness down to -40.Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 2. Move the blurred wheel down and to the left as shown.
Make the back wheel layer active. With the magic wand, replace, feather one click on the transparent area of the wheel. Make the copy of back wheel layer active, delete. Select none.
Make the back wheel layer active. Effects/3D Effects/Cutout at the setting given.
14. Duplicate the front wheel layer. Adjust/Brightness & Contrast/Brightness Contrast, bring the brightness down to -40.Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 2. Move the blurred wheel down and to the left as shown.
Make the front wheel layer active. With the magic wand, replace, feather one click on the transparent area of the wheel. Make the copy of front wheel layer active, delete. Select none.
Make the front wheel layer active. Apply the same cutout changing the fill colour to #EB2006 and the shadow colour to #6E0000.
15. Repeat the above steps for the copy of back wheel layer, that to the back of the duck.
OK, we're nearly there. All we need to do is to add some highlights :o) We will tidy up the layers first. Go through the layer pallet and make it so that the body, wing, head and beak layers are visible, merge visible and rename to body. Turn off the visibility of the layer, bring back the visibility of the 2 back wheel layers, merge visible and rename to back wheel. Turn off the visibility, bring back the visibility of the 2 front wheel layers, those at the front of the body, merge visible rename to front wheel. Turn off the visibility, bring back the visibility of the 2 front wheels, those behind the duck, merge visible rename to rear front wheel.....................................phew........................this is what you should have
16. Make the back wheel layer active. Create a new layer named back wheel highlight. Set the foreground to white. With the paint brush , round, size 4, hardness 25, step 1, density 100, thickness 100, rotation 0, opacity 100, blend normal, paint a highlight as shown. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 3. Make the back wheel layer active. With the magic wand at the same setting click the transparent area of the back wheel. Make the back wheel highlight layer active, delete. Select none.
17. Make the front wheel layer active. Create a new layer named front wheel highlight. Paint a highlight as shown. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 3. Make the front wheel layer active. With the magic wand at the same setting click the transparent area of the front wheel. Make the front wheel highlight layer active, delete. Select none. Repeat for the rear front wheel.
18. Make the body layer active. Create a new layer named body highlight. Paint a highlight as shown. Adjust/Blur/Gaussian Blur with a radius of 4. Make the body layer active. With the magic wand at the same setting click the transparent area of the body. Make the front wheel highlight layer active, delete. Select none.
Ooooooooooops, nearly forgot the loop for the string.
19. Make the body layer active. Create a new vector layer named hook. Null the background and set the foreground to #1AC806. With the preset shapes tool, ellipse, antialias and vector checked, line width 4. Draw a small circle. Click the pen tool to edit the node. Click the left hand node, delete. This will make your shape into a semi circle. Convert the layer to raster. Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel at the setting shown.
Merge visible and save as a tube or in PSP format.

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