June's Cubby-hole "Little Chicks" Tutorial


Little Chicks Tutorial
In this tutorial I will attempt to take you through step by step how I made the little chicks you can see in the title. I used Paint shop pro7 and KPT's5 Fiber Optix to make them, but if you don't have Kpt's then you could substitute the FiberOptix steps for PSP's fur or Eye Candy fur. The steps below are meant as a guide you don't have to follow them to the letter, there are several places where you could experiment with your own settings. Please respect my rights as the creator of this tutorial and do not download, duplicate, copy, upload to another server, or distribute it in any other way, except in the form of a link to Tutorial Index page. You may however Print a personal copy out for ease of use while following it. Ok now on with the tutorial:
Open New Image 300x300 background black Make a new layer name it Body Select your paintbrush tool , set paint color to a light warm yellow. In the paintbrush tool options dialog box use the following settings: Shape= round Size= 120 Hardness=80 place your paintbrush over the center of your image and click once. You should now have a fuzzy yellow spot.
Now change to your selection tool . set it to Rectangle, anti alias unchecked, feather 0. drag out a large rectangle around your yellow spot then place your mouse cursor just inside the rectangle and click once. you will notice the selection has now closed in around your circle.
With the spot still selected go to your plugins and open KPT5's FiberOptix...

This is where you can really have fun and experiment with your own settings if you want. If you prefer to stick to the tutorial here are the settings I used:

Mask set to: fiber color Mask bevel width= 29% Blend noise to mask= 27%		Fiber Controls Density= 95% Length= 15% Taper=48% Flatness= 17% Flow style= Natural Direction angle= -29%, Intensity= 0%
Lighting (refer to screenshot above for placement of lights) Light brightness= 42% Highlight sheen= 13% Highlight spread= 29%		Fiber Color Plastic, set color to warm yellow Mix gradient color= 42% Mix flat color= 68% Luma variance= 62% Fiber transparency=29%
Noise Crackles Noise scale= -44%		Gradient you can experiment with your own gradients here or Download my chick gradients

Once you're happy with the look of your chick body click OK to exit and return to PSP. You should now see a nice fluffy body with the selection still around it, right click on the body layer in your layer palette and choose Deselect.

Now would be a good time to save (if you haven't already done so)

You have a body, now lets make a Head.. In the Layer palette right click on body layer...choose duplicate.. rename this layer to "head" go to Image/resize choose: percentage original 70% Resize all layers Unchecked click OK. now select mover tool and move the head into position.
Beak... make new layer name it beak. select preset shapes tool, select the red cone from the drop down menu. Settings retain style checked, create as vector unchecked. place the cursor in your image and drag upwards to form a small wide cone shape. you now have a beak.
Just one more thing to do... using the retouch tool set to round, in soften mode.. just lightly go over the top edge of the beak to soften it. don't forget to save :-)
Legs... new layer name it legs. Select paintbrush tool change brush size down to 10. (or whatever size you like). you can also change the paint color to a darker yellow or orange. now draw two simple legs. don't worry too much about getting them in the right position as we can move the layer when we've finished, just get a shape you like.
with your leg layer still active go to Effects../3D Effects../Inner Bevel.. select the frame setting from the presets list, press OK. you're legs are now finished. Just position them where you want and in the layer palette place the leg layer below the body.
Wing.. new layer, name wings, select paintbrush tool, change size to 25. paint in a rough wing shape. select it using rectangle selection and clicking inside once to close selection around your wing. Apply Kpt's FiberOptix same settings as before, just remember to reselect your gradient if Kpt's has reset it.
You now have a wing... back in paint shop, right click on the wing layer in your layer palette and choose Deselect. now apply a drop shadow, then place this layer below your head layer in the layer palette. now would be a good time to apply a drop shadow to your head layer too. don't forget to save :-)
We're coming up for the home straight now ;) just the eyes to go...
Eyes... new layer, name eyes... select preset shapes tool, scroll down and choose button 035, drag out an eyeball shape. remember don't worry about position just get a nice size.

Iris & Pupils... still on the eye layer...paint brush tool.. select a color for your iris, I chose blue, size of your brush will depend on size you made your eyeball. I used size: 12. click once on your eyeball to place a colored spot for the iris. Pupil... still with the paintbrush tool, change color to black and reduce the size to suit your eye, I chose 7. click once on top of you iris to create the pupil.... now change the paint color to white reduce size to 2 and place two small highlight spots either side of the pupil.. (refer to eye screenshot for placement). when your happy with how your eye looks... duplicate layer. and arrange your eyes and beak any way you like.
You're Finished! all that's left to do is switch off the background layer and merge visible. you can now save this image as a picture tube, or use it any way you like. to save as a picture tube.. copy and paste as new image. then file/export/picture tube.. name it and press ok. your chick will then be available in the drop down menu of your picture tubes to use whenever you need it. If you now undo the layer merge on your main image you can play around with the placement of your "chick parts" to come up with lots of other chicks! Thank you for bearing with me and making it to the end of this tutorial:-) I would love to know how you get on with it so please drop me a line ( and maybe a pic of your new chick).
Bye for now & Happy creating ~June~ Would you like to sign my Guest book I would love to hear from you :-)
Tip: you can also save single elements of your chick as tubes i.e. the eyes, furball body.. etc.
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Little Chicks Tutorial