Christmas Angel

This tutorial was created on October 4, 2002.  If it bears any resemblance to another tutorial on the net, it is pure coincidence.  The skills that you will learn here are your own, and I hope that you will find them useful.

In this tutorial, I will assume that you have a basic working knowledge of PSP, and is made for the intermediate skill level.  I will not be using screen shots in this tutorial.  If you have any trouble, feel free to contact me, and I will do what I can to help.

These are the materials that you will need:  You will need Paint Shop Pro, or course.  I use Version 7.04, but I am sure it will work in other versions as well.  If you are connected to the internet, you can download a trial version of Paint Shop Pro from JASC.

Plugins:  We will also be using Eye Candy 4000.  You can download a free version of Eye Candy here:

EYE CANDY

Optional: Flaming Pear's Aetherize.

This tutorial uses Selections, and you can download the selections and the hair and holly wreath images HERE. The Holly that I used is from a tutorial which you can do for yourself Here, with an internet connection, or use the one that I have included in the zip. If you are using the images that I have included, open both image files and minimize them on your workspace for later. Unzip the selection to your selections file in PSP.

Here is the color chart that you can copy and paste into PSP.

Open a new image, 400 by 500, 72 million colors on a transparent background. Name it and save it now, and don't forget to save it after every step.
New Raster Layer and name it Dress. Selection/Load from Disk the angel_dress.sel and flood fill with black #000000.
Selection/Modify/Contract. Now contract by 2, and flood fill with white. (* Optional=add the Flaming Pear Atherize at these settings: Blur=130 Hue=75 Colorize=100 Haze=75 Dreaminess=0*) Do not Deselect.
New Raster Layer and name it dress cut out. Effects/Cutout V and H at 0, Opacity=70 and Blur=20, Color=black. Select/None. Save.
New Raster Layer, and name it right arm . Selection/Load from Disk angel_rightarm.sel
Flood Fill with black.
Selection/Modify/Contract. Now contract by 2, and flood fill with white. (* Optional=add the Flaming Pear Atherize at these settings: Blur=130 Hue=75 Colorize=100 Haze=75 Dreaminess=0*) Do not Deselect.
New Raster Layer and name it right armcut out. Use the same cutout that we used before. Save.
New Raster Layer and name it right hand. Selections/Load from Disk angel_righthand.sel.
Flood Fill with black, Selection/Modify/Contract by 1 and Flood Fill with the flesh color #1.
Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel Pie shape, Width=30 Smoothness=100 Depth=7 Ambience and Shininess=0 Angle=335 Intensity=43 Elevation=30 Color=white
Move this layer down under the sleeve on the arm. You can do this by either going to Layer/Arrange/Move Down, or simply go to the layer pallette, and drag this layer under the arm layer.Save.
New Raster Layer, and name it left arm. Selection/Load from Disk angel_leftarm.sel
Flood Fill with black.
Selection/Modify/Contract. Now contract by 2, and flood fill with white. (* Optional=add the Flaming Pear Atherize at these settings: Blur=130 Hue=75 Colorize=100 Haze=75 Dreaminess=0*) Do not Deselect.
New Raster Layer and name it left armcut out. Use the same cutout that we used before. Save.
New Raster Layer and name it left hand. Selections/Load from Disk angel_lefthand.sel.
Flood Fill with black, Selection/Modify/Contract by 1 and Flood Fill with the flesh color #1.
Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel Pie shape, Width=30 Smoothness=100 Depth=7 Ambience and Shininess=0 Angle=335 Intensity=43 Elevation=30 Color=white
Move this layer down under the sleeve on the arm. You can do this by either going to Layer/Arrange/MoveDown, or simply go to the layer pallette, and drag this layer under the arm layer. Save.
New Raster Layer and name it head.
Flood Fill with black, and then Selections/Modify/Contract by 1.
Flood Fill with color #1 or a flesh color of your own.
Effects/3D Effects/Inner Bevel with these settings... Width=30 Smoothness=100 Depth=5 Ambience and Shininess=0 Angle=335 Intensity=43 Elevation=30 and Color=White.
Effects/Noise/Add and add 1% uniform. Save.
New Raster Layer and name it eyes.
Selection/Load from Disk and load the angel_eyes.sel
Flood Fill with #7072B6.
Selections/Modify/Contract by 3, and Flood Fill with black.
Selections/Modify/Expand by 3, and then add a slight Inner Bevel, pie shape, Width=5 Smoothness=100 Depth=5 Ambience=0 Shininess and Intensity=50 Elevation=30 and Angle=45 Color=white. Save.
New Raster Layer, and name it eye lids. Load aangel_lids.sel
Flood Fill with the flesh tone (color #1). Add the same Inner Bevel that you used on the eyes.
New Raster Layer and name it lashes. Selections/Load from Disk and load angel_lashes.sel. Flood Fill with Black.
Go back to your eyes layer, and with it highlighted, add a white sparkle to the eyes. Using your Paint Brush, line width 1 and color=white add a dot to your pupil.
New Raster Layer and call it nose. With your paint brush, and the flesh tone in the foreground, size 5. make a dot where the nose should be. Save.
Add an Inner Bevel, Pie Shape, Width=4 Smoothness=0 Depth=3 Ambience=-4 Shininess=0 Angle=326 Intensity=33 Elevation=53 Color=white.
Slight drop shadow Effects/3D Effects/Drop Shadow V & H=1 Opacity=75 Blur=3.7
Layer/New Raster Layer named blush.
Change your foreground color to #DE8A8A or #3 on the color chart. Using your Paint Brush, size 20 put two dots on the face where the cheeks should be.
Effects/Blur/Gaussian Blur and add a gaussian blur of 7. Save.
Layer/New Raster Layer and name it mouth. Load angel_mouth.sel.
Flood Fill with #5 on the color chart or #800000. Selections/Modify/Contract by 1, and then Flood Fill with #4 on the color chart or #B56161. Keep Selected.
New Raster Layer, and call it mouth cut out. Effects/3D Effects/ Cut Out with V&H=1 Opacity=70 and Blur=5. Deselect.
New Raster Layer, name it halo, and either drag or move this layer down to the bottom layer.
Selections/Load from Disk and load the angel_halo.sel
On your styles pallet, there is a little arrow. Click on the arrow, and change to Gradient. With Gradient selected, click in the center of the square, and change to the Yellow Metallic Gradient, angle=45 repeats=1 and invert unchecked. Flood Fill your halo selection with the gradient. Deselect. Save.
Add a gaussian blur of 7.
New Raster Layer called hair. Layers/Arrange/Send to Top. Selections/Load from Disk and bring up the and load the the angel_hair.sel, and copy and paste the hair that I have included in the zip into the selection. If you used the selection, and want to do it the way that I did, you can Flood Fill it with #2 or #8A5C5C. Deselect.
Effects/PlugIns/EyeCandy4000/Fur Direction=326 Density=80 Curl Size=36 Curliness=75 Length=36 all boxes unchecked and random seed is 1.
New Raster Layer called holly. If you have your own holly that you have tubed, feel free to use that and arrange it how ever you like, but I have a holly crown that I made for this little angel, and you can open the holly image, copy and Edit/Paste/As New Selection, and position it on the angel's hairline.
New Raster Layer called clouds. Using the cloud tube that is included in PSP, add a couple of clouds on the bottom of her gown.
At this point, you can Layers/Merge/Merge Visible. You can save this as a tube, or add a background, or frame it how ever you like!

If you are doing this for a group, do not forget to resize to their specifications. Don't forget to sharpen after your resize, and thank you for doing one of my tutorials!

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