Reindeer On Wheels

This tutorial was written for PSP 7. You don't need any outside filters for this tutorial. This tutorial has a lot of layers but is not a hard tutorial. You don't have to put everything on different layers if you feel confident that you won't want to change anything.

You can do this tutorial with selections which you can get here, or you can try your hand at vectors. Unzip the selections file and put them in your PSP selections folder.

Also included in this zip is the rope tube, in case you don't have it.

The bells for the reindeer's antlers were made from a tutorial by Pat. You can reach her tutorial by clicking here. She has graciously given me permission to link to her tutorial so you can make your own bells which is really fun or you can use the ones I made which have been included in the selections zip above. If you use the bell I made just save it to your hard drive and open it in PSP and copy/paste when it's time to use it.

This is the color palette. Right click and save it to your hard drive and open it in PSP while you are making your reindeer and use the color picker to get the color.

Save your work often.

1. Open a new image 500X500. Do a "save as" and save your image as a .psp file. Open your color palette.

2. Add a new layer naming it "back wheels" and double click on the "back wheels.sel" selection.

3. Flood fill with black and add an inner bevel with these settings:

4. Select none.

5. Add a new layer naming it "platform" and double click on the "platform.sel" selection. Leave selected.

6. Flood fill with the red color. Go to selections/invert and apply the following drop shadow and then select/none.

7. Add a new layer naming it "front wheels" and double click on the "front wheels.sel".

8. Flood fill with black and apply the same inner bevel.

9. Apply the following drop shadow and then select/none.

10. Add a new layer naming it "wheel centers" and double click on the "wheel center.sel".

11. Leave selected and flood fill with the yellow color (or if you have Blade Pro a shiny gold finish would look good on these centers I think).

12. Go to selections/invert and apply the following drop shadow. Select/none.

13. Add a new layer naming it "stick" and double click on the "stick.sel".

14. Leave selected and flood fill with the red color.

15. Go to selections/invert and apply the following drop shadow. (I applied the drop shadow twice but if you prefer just do it once).

16. Selections/none.

17. Go to your layer palette and highlight the "stick" layer and drag it behind the platform layer.

18. Go to your layer palette, highlight your top layer and add a new layer naming it "back legs" and double click on the "back legs.sel" selection.

19. Leave selected and flood fill with the light tan color.

20. Selections/invert and apply the following drop shadow:

21. Select/none.

22. Add a new layer naming it "back leg hooves" and double click on the "back leg hooves.sel" selection.

23. Flood fill with black and select/none.

24. Add a new layer naming it "front legs" and double click on the "front legs.sel" selection.

25. Leave selected and flood fill with the light tan color.

26. Selections/invert and apply the same drop shadow as you applied on the back legs.

27. Select/none.

28. Add a new layer naming it "front leg hooves" and double click on the "front leg hooves.sel".

29. Flood fill with black and select/none.

Are you saving your work?

30. Add a new layer naming it "tail" and double click on the "tail.sel" selection.

31. Leave selected and flood fill with the light tan color.

32. Selections/invert and apply the same drop shadow. Selections/none.

33. Add a new layer naming it "body" and double click on the "body.sel" selection.

34. Leave selected and flood fill with the light tan color.

35. Selections/invert and apply the same drop shadow. Selections/none.

36. Add a new layer naming in "blanket" and double click on the "blanket.sel" selection.

37. Leave selected and flood fill with the green color.

38. Selections invert and apply the same drop shadow.

39. You can decorate your blanket however you want to. I have trimmed mine out in red. If you want to trim yours out like this then there is a selection provided, "blanket trim.sel".

40. Selections/none and apply this drop shadow to the blanket:

41. Add a new layer naming it "ears" and double click on the "ears.sel" selection.

42. Leave selected and flood fill with the light brown.

43. Selection/invert and apply the same drop shadow as the body.

44. Select/none.

45. Add a new layer naming it "inner ears" and double click on the "inner ears.sel" selection.

46. Leave selected and flood fill with a pink color.

47. Do a gaussian blur at 1.50.

48. Add a new layer naming it "head" and double click on the "head.sel".

49. Leave selected and flood fill with the tan color.

50. Selections/invert and add the drop shadow. Selections/none.

51. Add a new layer naming it "antlers" and double click on the "antlers.sel".

52. Leave selected and flood fill with the dark brown color. Selection invert and apply this drop shadow:

53. Select none.

54. Apply this inner bevel:

Don't forget to save!!!

55. Go to the layer palette and drag the antler layer below the head layer.

56. Make a new layer named "bells" and place the bells you made (or the ones I included in the zip) on his antlers.

57. Make a new layer name "pull knob" and load the "pull knob.sel".

58. Leave selected and flood fill with the red color. Selections/invert and apply the drop shadow changing the blur to 18.5.

59. Select/none.

60. Make a new layer for the pull toy rope and drag it to the very bottom.

61. Using the rope tube included in the zip with these settings start at the platform and make a rope around to the pull knob. Continue to the other side of the pull knob and make several little strokes with the rope to make the tassle.

62. Give your reindeer a face. I put each part on a separate layer so I can delete or move that part around if I want to.

63. I also go back and do some shading to separate layers or parts. I don't add drop shadows behind parts because they extend past the outer perimeter of the image and can cause problems if you are tubing the image and making selections. To do the shading I make a layer under the part I want to shade and paint or airbrush a thin layer of black and then do a gaussian blur on it. This is all optional though.

64. I also decorated his blanket up some.

When you have your reindeer all fixed up like you want him just merge visible layers and save as a psp and you have a new tube!!!

E-Mail Lady TX

This tutorial and the graphics are the property of Lady TX/Midnite Design and may not be copied, placed on any website, or distributed in any way. If you would like to share this tutorial with someone please do it by sharing the url address. You may link to this tutorial for groups with prior permission. Please do not link directly to any graphics or files, thank you.