Santa Ornament

This tutorial was written for PSP 7. It is modeled after one of my favorite wooden ornaments.

I used Eye Candy 4000 for the fur. You can get Eye Candy 4000 here.

The selections for the tutorial are here but to do the tutorial with vectors is not hard so be brave and try it.

This is the color palette. Right click and save to your hard drive.

Don't forget to save your work often.

1. Open a new image 250 X 500, transparent and open your color palette. Leave it open in PSP then use the color picker tool to get your color.

2. Add new layer and name it "body".

3. Click on Selections/Load from disk and double click on the "body.sel" selection.

4. Flood fill that selection with the red color. (Add it to your custom colors while you are there so you'll have throughout the tutorial) Leave selected.

5. Click on Selections/invert.

6. Go to Effects/3d Effects/Drop Shadow and use these settings. (I have been doing my shadowing this way because when I use cutout sometimes I get a white edge around the section).

7. Select none.

8. Add a new layer naming it "body shadow".

9. Using your paint brush tool with the following settings.

10. Paint a black line from his shoulders to under his arm, like this:

11. Go to Effects/Blur/Gaussian and give it a gaussian blur of 10.00.

12. If you like you can turn off the bottom layer and merge/visible now, renaming the merged layer "body".

13. Add a new layer naming it "hat". Go to selections/load from disk and double click on the "hat.sel" selection. Keep selected.

14. Flood fill the selection with the red color.

15. Go to selections/invert.

16. Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and use the same settings except bring the blur down to 22.2.

17. Selections/none.

18. Add a new layer naming it "hair".

19. Go to selections/load from disk and double click on the "hair.sel" selection.

20. Flood fill this selection with white. Keep selected.

21. Go to selections/invert.

22. Go to Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow and apply the drop shadow with the same settings.

23. Select invert.

24. Go to Selections/Modify/Expand by 3.

25. Go to Effects/Plugins/Eye Candy 4000/Fur and use these settings:

26. Click "ok". Select none.

Remember to save.

27. Add a new layer naming it "beard".

28. Go to selections/load from disk and double click on the "beard.sel" selections.

29. Go to selections/invert and apply the drop shadow with the same settings except changing the blur to 16.

30. Selections/ invert.

31. Selections/modify/expand by 3.

32. Effects/plugins/eye candy 4000/fur with the same settings.

33. De-select.

34. Add new layer naming it "face".

35. Go to selections/load from disk and double click on the "face.sel" selection.

36. Flood fill with the skin color.

37. Go to selections/invert and apply the drop shadow bringing the opacity down to 83 and the blur to 17.3. De-select.

38. Add a new layer naming it "fur for hat" and double click on the "fur for hat" selection.

39. Flood fill with white.

40. Selections/invert.

41. Apply the same drop shadow.

42. Change your foreground color to a light gray.

43. Choose the airbrush tool with these settings:

44. Spray lightly around on the fur selection.

45. Go to Effects/noise/edge preserving smooth and apply with a setting of 2.

45. De-select.

46. Change your foreground color to white and spray randomly around again letting some of the paint go outside of the lines. Change the size of the airbrush if that helps you.

47. Effects/noise/edge preserving smooth again.

48. Add a new layer naming if "fur ball" and double click on the "fur ball.sel" selection.

49. Flood fill with white.

50. Repeat steps 40-47. (Invert selections, drop shadow, airbrush gray, edge preserving smooth, de-select, air brush white, edge preserving smooth.

51. De-select.

Are you saving?

52. Add a new layer calling it "mustache" and double click on the "mustache.sel" selection.

53. Flood fill with white.

54. Selections/invert. Drop shadow with the same settings.

55. Selections/invert.

56. Selections/modify/expand by 3.

57. Effects/plugins/eye candy 4000/fur. Increase your density to 100. Click ok.

58. Add a new layer naming it "hanger". Go to selections/load from disk and double click on the "hanger.sel" selection.

59. Flood fill with black.

60. Go to Effects/3D effects/inner bevel and use these settings:

61. Apply this inner bevel twice. De-select.

62. Add a new layer naming it "spring legs". You can load the "lft spring leg" and the "rgt spring leg" on the same layer. Load the left, flood fill with black and de-select. Then load the right, flood fill with black and de-select.

63. Apply the same inner bevel twice.

64. Add a new layer naming it "feet". As before in the legs, you can load the left and right feet on the same layer. Load the left foot, flood fill with black and de-select. Then load the right foot, flood fill with black and de-select.

64. Apply an inner bevel with these settings:

65. Add a new layer under the body layer (since I forgot to do the hands first !!!) and name it "hands". As with the legs and feet you can do the hands on the same layer. Load the left hand, flood fill with the skin color, invert selection, add drop shadow (bring the opacity down to 65) and select/none. Load the right hand and do the same thing.

66. Add a new layer under your hanger layer.

67. Using your preset shapes tool and the color black draw a small circle under where your metal would go through your santa. Do a gaussian blur on this circle of 2.00.

68. Duplicate this layer and flip. Move it into position under your left spring leg.

69. Duplicate this layer and mirror. Move it into position under your right spring leg.

70. I decorated his clothes with some dots using the paintbrush and the off-white color.

71. Now give him any face you would like. I used the teardrop in the preset shapes for his eyes. I put them under the "fur for hat" layer. Just a circle for his nose with the drop shadow applied and a mouth (under the mustache layer).

72. If you would like to add some depth to santa you can add some shading such as under his beard, sleeves and hat. Just make a new layer under the items you want to shade and using the paintbrush paint a line of black, then use the gaussian blur at about 7.00. You can lower the opacity of the layer if the shading is too dark.

73. When you've looked him over and are happy with him then go to layers/merge visible and resize him to what you want.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

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.