Tuesday 21 October 2014

True Blood

This tutorial was written by Monti on July 18th 2011. It's concept is copyrighted to Monti. Any creation you make from my ideas are yours. You may print out this tutorial for your own personal use, but please do not copy it in any way to put online, pass out or rewrite without my permission or worse yet attempt to claim as your own.

This was written for psp 9 but will work in other versions.

For this tutorial you will need

Paint Shop Pro 
Animation Shop

Tube of your Choice 
I am using the art of Ismael Rac. 
You can purchase a license to use his work from Xeracx
If you buy the mini pack of True Blood tubes you get the True Blood Scrap Kit free with the tubes, which is where I got my elements from.

Fonts of your Choice
I used True Blood available HERE for the main text.
You will also need a small pixel font for the background text. I used Oh La La which is a pay font so I cannot supply.

Wire
I am using a freebie wire available from Cinnamon Scraps.

Mask
WSL 220 - Download from Wee Scots Lass Creations and place in your Masks folder. Masks are listed on the right. She has so many lovely masks you might want them all. 

Filters
Mura Meisters Copies
Eye Candy 400 - Gradient Glow

Ok we are ready to start.

REMEMBER TO SAVE OFTEN

Step 1:
In PSP open a new 500 x 500 image with a white background in PSP.
From the True Blood Scrap Kit open paper TBX-pp6-IR.jpg and copy and paste as a new layer onto your canvas. 
Apply Mask WSL 220 with the following settings:
Source Luminence - Fit to Canvas - Hide All Mask = All Checked 
Layers - Merge Group.

From the Cinnamon scraps wires open CS_wire4.png.
Copy and paste it onto your canvas and rename the layer - Wire.
Go to Image - Resize with the following settings:
Go to Adjust - Sharpen. 
Add the following drop shadow
Vertical: 0
Horizontal: 2 
Opacity: 30 
Blur: 6 
Colour: Black

Step 2:
Set your Foreground to Black and your Background to Null. 
Select your Preset Shapes set to Square - Line Width: 20 and draw out a square approximately 290 x 290 pixels in the centre of your canvas. 
Go to Image - Rotate - Free Rotate - with the following settings:
Direction: Right - Degrees: 13 - Rotate single layer around canvas center: Checked.
Go to Objects - Align - Centre in Canvas and convert to raster layer. 
Rename this layer - Frame.
With your Magic Wand click inside the black square. 
Go to Selections - Modify - Expand by 5.
Add a new raster layer and move this beneath the black square in the layer palette. 
Flood fill with #3C3C3C and Deselect. 
Rename this layer - Back.
Activate your text tool and select your pixel font with the following settings:
Background: White - Size: 10 - Stroke width: 0 - Anti-alias: Off
Type the text of your choice - I used "Just One Bite".
Go to Objects - Align - Center in Canvas and then convert to raster layer. 
Go to Effects - Plugins and apply Mura Meister Copies with the following settings:
Go to Image - Rotate - Free Rotate - with the following settings:
Direction: Right - Degrees: 13 - Rotate single layer around canvas center: Checked.
Adjust - Sharpen.
Lower the opacity of the text to about 60%.
Rename this layer - Text.
Activate your black square layer and using your magic wand click inside it. 
Go to Selections - Modify - Expand by 5 - Selections - Invert.
Activate your text layer and press Delete on your keyboard.
Deselect.
Just to make sure all that text that we don't need has gone activate your Crop tool and select Merged Opaque in the tool bar and crop.

Step 3:
Time to prepare for our animation. 
Open the Bill and Eric close up tubes in PSP. Hide all the layers you DO NOT want showing in your tag. 
Starting with the Bill close up, copy merged and paste as a new layer onto your canvas, beneath your black square layer.
Resize by 57% - Weighted Average - All Layers: UNChecked. Move into position as shown below:
Rename this layer Bill and add the following drop shadow.
Vertical: 0
Horizontal: -4 
Opacity: 30 
Blur: 6 
Colour: Black

Activate the Eric close up and copy merged and paste as a new layer onto the canvas.
NOTE: The Eric close up is actually smaller than the Bill one so we need to resize this one by 73%.
Lower the opacity of the Eric tube to about 60% and move it into position - lining up the noses and the chins so they are more or less in the same place on both tubes. 
Once happy with the positioning change the opacity on the Eric tube back to 100% and rename this layer Eric.
Add the following drop shadow.
Vertical: 0
Horizontal: -4 
Opacity: 30 
Blur: 6 
Colour: Black

Activate the Back layer and using your magic wand to click outside the back area.
Activate the Bill layer and hit delete on the keyboard. Do the same on the Eric layer. 
Deselect.

Step 4:
Hide all layers apart from the Bill and Eric layers. 
Save as a PSP file to your desktop so you can find it easily. 
Open Animation Shop.
Open the psp file you just saved. It should have just the 2 frames, one with Bill in and one with Eric in. 
Click on the Bill frame to activate it and go to Effects - Insert Image Transition with the following settings:
Start with: Animation Frame (Bill) - End with: Animation Frame (Eric) - Effect: Fade - Transition Length: 1.7 secs - Frames per second: 9 fps
Click ok. 
Your animation will now have 17 frames. 
Click on Frame one activate it. Copy this frame. 
Right Click on Frame 17 and choose Paste After Current Frame.
Click on frame 17 to make sure it is activated and go to Effects - Insert Image Transition with the same settings we just used. 
Our animation will now have 33 frames. Click on frame 33 and delete it. 
Keep the animation open in Animation Shop while we go back to PSP and finish our tag.

Step 5:
In PSP go to Layers - View - All. 
Go to Image - Canvas size and change the Width to 700, the height to 500 and make sure you have the center LEFT arrow depressed.
Press ok. 
Click on your Frame layer and add the following drop shadow:
Vertical: 3
Horizontal: 3 
Opacity: 40 
Blur: 6 
Colour: Black

Copy and paste your Sookie tube as a new layer onto your canvas. 
Resize by 65% - Weighted Average - All layers: UNChecked. 
Add the following drop shadow:
Vertical: 0
Horizontal: -5 
Opacity: 40 
Blur: 7 
Colour: Black

Activate your Selection tool set to Rectangle and set your Feather to 25.
We want to get rid of the hard edge to the tube so draw a thin rectangle at the bottom using the guide below.
Press delete on your keyboard and deselect. 
Repeat this to remove the arm that sticks out at the side. See my tag as a guide. 
Add any other elements from your kit to decorate your tag.
Once all your elements are in place hide the white background and Crop - Merged Opaque. 
Unhide the background layer.

Step 6:
Activate your text tool with the following settings: Font: TrueBlood - Size: 36 - Stroke width: 1 - Anti-alias: Smooth.
Set your foreground and background to a dark red. I used #8A1516.
Type your text - I used "Who would you choose?"
Position at the top of the tag and go to Objects - Align - Horizontal In Canvas and convert to raster layer.
Apply Eye candy 4000 Gradient Glow with the following settings: 
Glow Width: 3 - Soft Corners: 25 - Opacity: 100 - Under the colour tab choose Fat.
Apply the following drop shadow. 
Vertical: 2
Horizontal: 2 
Opacity: 40 
Blur: 4 
Colour: Black

NOTE: If you are happy with the size of your tag you can add your artists copyright now, however if you want to resize please do not add it yet, I will add it later in the tut.

Step 7:
Ok ready to animate? 
In PSP hide all layers apart from the following:
Background - Mask - Wire - Back and Text. 
Go to Edit - Copy Merged and paste as a new animation in Animation Shop. 
In the top tool bar press the Duplicate button 6 times until you have 33 frames on your image.
As our animation only has 32 frames we need to click on frame 33 of the background image and choose delete.
Go to Edit - Select All on both the background image and the Bill/Eric animation.
On the Bill/Eric animation go to Edit - Copy.
Activate the background image and go to Edit - Paste into selected frames. 
Make sure you line the edges of the tube up with the edges of the grey background. 
Back in PSP Hide all layers and then uphide Frame layer and all layers above it. 
Go to Edit Copy Merged and paste as a new image into animation shop.
In animation Shop make sure your Propagate paste button on the top tool bar is depressed and activate the Sookie tag part you just pasted into animation shop. 
Go to Edit copy and then activate the animated tag back and choose paste into selected frames. 
Line it up so the frame goes around the back and tubes nicely.

Step 8:
If you want to resize your tag do it while in Animation shop. 
Go to Animation - Resize. I resized mine by 85% - Bicubic resample.
Back in PSP add a new raster layer to your tag and add your artists copyright onto that layer. 
Copy and paste that layer into animation shop and then copy and paste it onto your tag. As long as all frames are selected and propagate paste is still depressed you only need to add it to the 1st frame and it will appear in all. 
Make sure all the frames are selected and go to Animation - Frame Properties and make sure it is set to 10. 
Click on Frame 1 to activate it and change the frame properties to 100.
Click on Frame 17 to activate it and change the frame properties to 100.
Save your tag now, so you have a blank animated tag for when you are ready to add names to it. So much easier than remaking the tag each time. 
Back in PSP using the same text settings as earlier, type your name and copy and paste that onto your tag and save.



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