Little Cuties Series: Doggie

Pracken's Paint Shop Pro Tutorials

This is a series of little cute animals. The tutorials use selections and are really easy - most folks, even beginners should have no difficulty completing them. In order to do these tutorials, I assume that you have a basic working knowledge of PSP and its tools. If you'd like to do the other other tutorials in this series, you'll find them here.

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For this tutorial, you will need the following:

Paint Shop Pro. I used version X, and have also added comments as appropriate for PSP 7 users. If you have other versions of PSP, you should also be able to do the tutorial without difficulty. You can download the latest PSP version demo here.

My canvas with alpha channels.

My stylized line preset. Place this in your PSP lines folder.

You may download all of my materials here.

You'll also need my color chart. Right click on it and save it to your computer.

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Step 1. Open up the canvas with alpha selections you downloaded. The selections that you'll need for this tutorial are all saved to alpha channel and are in the order that you will load them. To load an item from alpha channel, go to Selections>Load/Save Selection>Load Selection from Alpha Channel . Make sure "Replace selection" is checked, and nothing else is checked. [Note: PSP 7 users: go to selections>load from alpha channel].

To choose a selection, just click on the box to the left (it's circled in red in the screenshot) and navigate to the selection you want. It'll show up in the preview window on the right. Then just click "Load."

Step 2. Copy your color chart and paste it as a new layer onto your canvas. Move it to the top out of the way. When you need a color, just click on it with your eye dropper tool.

Step 3. You will follow the same basic instructions for each selection that you load. The only difference is the color you use to flood fill and use as a cutout. Load the selections in numerical order.

I'm listing the selection number and the colors to use with each here:

• Color 1 for selections: 1, 5
  Color 2 for cutout for these selections.
• Color 3 for selections: 2, 3, 4, 6
  Color 4 for cutout for these selections.
• Color 5 for selection 7
  Color 4 for cutout for this selection.
• Color 6 for selection 8

Follow these steps for each selection:

• Add a new layer.
• Load the selection (start with selection "01").
• Flood fill with color given above.
• Float the selection. You can either go to selections>float, or, you can use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+F".
• Apply a cutout (effects>3d effects>cutout) with the settings in the screenshot below. [NOTE: use the colors listed above for the cutouts for the appropriate selections]. Repeat the cutout, but change the horizontal and vertical to -1.

• Now just repeat this process for each selection, in order.

When done, it should look like this:

Step 4. Add a new layer. Set your foreground color to null, background to black. Choose your preset shapes tool>circle, using settings in the screenshot. Draw two small circles for the eyes.

Apply an inner bevel, using settings in the screenshot.

   

Step 5. Add a new layer. Set foreground color to black, background to null.Choose your pen tool>draw freehand, using settings in the screenshot. [Note: PSP 7 users: draw tool>draw freehand]. Draw some lines under the nose, similar to mine.

Step 6. Add a new layer. Set foreground color to #6. Choose your airbrush, using settings in the screenshot. Spray somecolor on the cheeks.

Choose your smudge brush, using settings in the screenshot. Soften the cheeks colors just a wee bit.

Step 7. Add a new layer. Set your foreground color to #1 and background to null. Choose your pen tool again. Navigate to the "pracken_stitched" stylized line you downloaded. Draw stitching on as it pleases you.

Step 8. When you're satisfied with your doggie, delete the color chart and background layer. Merge visible layers. Save as a PSP file (or whatever format you prefer).

And that's it. I hope you've enjoyed the tut! ;o)