Rock Hard

ROCK HARD

You'll need:
Paint Shop Pro
Filter:  Eye Candy Impact Gradient Glow

the Rock Hard HD plus pack and Rock Hard tube from Ishmael Rac
mask, download from 4Shared here

Open a new raster layer 800x800.  If you would like a smaller tag, you can resize near the end of the tutorial.  Open Paper 2, copy & paste as a new layer.  Apply the mask to this layer.  Open Paper 6, copy & paste as a new layer, apply the mask to this layer, too.

Open the Curled Frame 2 element, copy & paste it as a new layer and using smartsize, resize by 80%.  Go to Image>Rotate>Free Rotate and use these settings:

Now open the speakers element--you'll notice a black guideline running down the right side of the element--erase this & center the element.  Resize by 90%.  Open the Music Doodle, copy & paste as a new layer, and using your Raster Deform tool, bring both sides out to almost the width of the masks layers.  Add a Gradient Glow>Subtle White Glow with these settings:

Open the Amplifier and Light Can elements--copy & paste them as new layers.  Resize each of them by 30% and position them on the tag.  Now add the tube & position. 

Using the DuVall or other fat font, type the word Rock using a foreground-background gradient that you create using the colors from the hair & guitar on your tube. Convert this layer to raster, then duplicate this layer and using your Manual Color Correction tool, change the color of the LOWER layer to black.  Hide all other layers, leaving only these two layers visible.  Move the colored layer slightly down and to the right--this gives a slight 3D appearnace to the word.  When you're happy with the positioning merge these two layers, and hide this layer.  Type the word Hard, and follow the same steps.  Open all layers, position the words to the bottom left of your tag--see my tag for placement.  Change your foreground color to light grey and your background to black.  Set your font stroke width to 1.0 and write your name using the script font.  Convert this layer to raster and using your Deform tool, tilt the name at an angle that suits you. 

Apply a simple drop shadow to all layers except the mask layers--remember, varying your drop shadow helps to add depth to your tag!

Merge all layers, and if you want a smaller tag, resize now, using smartsize.  Add your copyright and licence information, save your tag as a .png,  and you're done! 

TIP:  Always add your copyright info AFTER any resizing, this will keep the info clear & legible.

Spooky

This is an easy-to-animate tag, but if you prefer, you may simply place the spiders where you like them and flatten the image.  The tube I used is Bella, an HD image by Ishmael Rac-you must have a licence to use his wonderful art. 

The kit is Spook, a ftu/pu kit on my blog. (Scroll down, it's the last kit)

This tutorial was written using Paint Shop Pro 9 and Animation Shop 3.

Open a new raster image, 800x800.  We'll resize later.  Floodfill the layer with white.  From the kit, open paper 3, copy & paste as a new layer.  Resize by 60% and move to the upper left corner.  Open frame-1, copy and paste as a new layer.  Resize the frame by 80% and move slightly down and right.  Open paper 4--go to your materials pallette and set the paper as your background pattern.  Hide the foreground palette.  Using your preset shapes, draw a circle a little larger than the frame.  Convert to raster, move layer down and center below frame.  Add a simple inner bevel to this layer.  Open the web element, copy and paste as a new layer, centered under frame.  Erase all of the bits of the web that extend beyond the purple layer.  Open stars, copy and paste as a new layer, move to the upper left--see my tag for reference.  Open the circle element, copy and paste as a new layer and center around the frame.  Open Halloween wordart, copy and paste as a new top layer.  Resize by 90% and position at the bottom, overlapping the frame slightly.

Open your tube of choice, copy and paste as a new layer.  Arrange tube so that the hair hangs below the frame.  Duplicate the tube layer, and move the duplicate layer down below the frame layer.  Click back onto the top tube layer and carefully erase unwanted bits of tube at the bottom.  If you are using the RAC tube that I used, the hair is on a seperate layer, so you can erase all of the bottom and then paste the hair on next as a new layer.  Add a drop shadow of 3, -3, 50, 5, black to all layers and merge all layers.

Open the spooky-spider-2, copy and paste as a new layer and resize by 30%. Duplicate once or twice and place the spiders where you would like them.  Place the spiders at the lowest points they will drop to.  If you need a longer web string, just make a selection of the string and copy and paste it as a new layer and move it under the string you need to lengthen. 

IF YOU WANT TO RESIZE YOU TAG, DO IT NOW--resize all layers

Once the spiders are positioned, merge all layers, copy and paste as a new animation into Animation Shop.  Back to PSP--unmerge/undo, move the spiders up slightly,erase the extra bit of webs,  merge all layers again, and copy.  In Animation Shop, paste BEFORE current layer.  Back to PSP, unmerge/undo, move the spders up a little more, remove the extra bits of web again, and repeat the 'paste before current layer' in Animation Shop.  Repeat these steps until the spider have no web left to erase--my tag is 7 total frames.  In Animation Shop, go to Animation>Frame Properties.  Select the first frame and set the frame speed to 30.  Click okay.  Click on the last frame of the tag, go back to Frame Properties, and set the frame speed to 60.  The remaining frames should all be set to 10. 

Add the artists copyright info and your name and save as a .gif.