This tutorial was written in April 2002 and © by Lady Oz. You may make a copy of this tutorial or print it out for your own personal use ONLY. If you would like to LINK to my tutorials to share them with others please let me know. What you create from my tutorials belong to you to do with as you wish....I hold no claim to them
I got the idea to do this tutorial last week when I visited a local Gardening Center with my husband, Mel. I love the terracotta garden ornaments that they have for sale and thought I would try to copy one in PSP. The one I particularly liked was not what I call the normal Terracotta colour but rather like a stone colour...though it is up to you what you choose to do. Please try to remember to save your work as you go along...it will save a lot of headaches and tears!
What you will need:
PSP 7
(I used version 7 but should be easy to do in 5 or 6)
#E9E5E7 #D8CFC3 #AD9070 #755333
Right click and save to your hard drive.
My images have been reduced in size to 80%, obviously, yours will be bigger.
Now to get started!
1* Open up a transparent image 300 x 400 pixels
2* Select Preset Shapes
....Octagon and with these settings below . Foreground set to Null and Background set to #AD9070 (3rd colour on the sample above), which should by now be sitting in your work area ready for you to use. Ah...I knew it would be. ;o)
3* Draw a large octagon shape on your new image....we are going to move the nodes to get the shape we need....(If you wish to make yours a different shape to mine, please do so as I would love to see some variations. Choose your object selector
and then node edit. Follow the example below. Pic 1 is the shape I drew but isn't what I want for my clock so I changed it to as it is in Pic 2. Pic 3 shows the numbers that you need to watch when moving your nodes. Pic 4 shows the number combinations...each set of numbers is next to the applicable node.
Pic 1. Pic 2.
Pic 3.
Pic 4.
Move the arrows in the direction of the arrow as in the diagram above,
top left node to 90/15....top right node to 210/15
top left side node to 30/70....top right side node to 210/70
bottom left side node to 30/340....top right side node to 270/340
bottom left node to 90/415.....bottom right to 210/415
4* Okay, once you have the required shape, convert to raster layer. Cut and paste back into the image, this puts it in the center of your image. Now go to 'Image'...'Canvas Resize' and change the size of the image to 300 width and 500 height...this gives us a bit more room to work with. You can do it the other way around of course but this was my preference as it made it easier to get the shape right. ;o)
5* Selections...Select all...Float....modify....contract by 20. Whilst this is selected, go back to Selections...Save to Alpha Channel and save this selection in your selections folder...we will be needing it for later. Select none.
6* Add a Layer and grab your airbrush tool
Using the settings above and #D8CFC3 (second colour on your sample). Do sweeping motions down your selection until it is lightly filled. Go to 'Effects'...Blur...Gaussian Blur...and choose 0.50 Ok it.
7* Add a new layer. Using the airbrush again, and with the first colour #E9E5E7, spray in a few areas a bit heavier than our first coating but not filling the whole image. Then Gaussian Blur on same setting as before.
8* Add a new layer. Spray some of the darkest shade #755333 shade...Gaussian Blur again. Merge visible all these layers.
9* Inner Bevel and use the settings below, then deselect. Call this layer 'Base'.
10* Add a new layer. Go to Selections...Load From Alpha Channel and choose the selection you saved before.
11* Food fill
this selection with #AD9070 (3rd colour). Now go to Selections...Modify...Contract by 10 and then hit your delete key...this will leave the 10 pixel border only. Grab your magic wand
and select this border. Now in the same way that we did before, spray a mixture of the colours...then merge visible only these layers...use the glasses icon
to shut off the base layer. Then turn it back on again when you have done this.
12* Now we will add an Inner Bevel with the same setting as before. Deselect. It should look something like this one. Call this layer 'Rim'
13* Add a new layer. Then with Preset Shapes
14* Go back to your clock layer...Selections...Select All...Float. Add a new layer and using your airbrush
15* Add a layer. Go to Effects...3D effects...Cut out...V 2 H2 Opacity 38 Blur 2.4 Merge Visible these last three layers. Call this layer 'Clock'.
16* Now follow these steps for the thermometer layer. I did a circle of the airbrushing in the centre, a bit different to the top circle. Call this layer 'Thermometer'
17* Selecting your base layer again...Select All...Float...Add a new layer and with your airbrush using the light colour ...spray between the two circles. Gaussian Blur and Merge visible these two layers.
18* Add a new layer. Now add some numerals around the clock...I used just the four numbers and made an oval blob for the other numbers in between, then added a 'round' inner bevel. Choose whichever font you wish for yours. I used 'Jester' and added a canvas texture to mine and then an 'Angled' inner bevel...finishing with a drop shadow. v 1 h 1 opacity 35 Blur 11.8. Merge visible this layer and your clock layer. Call it 'Clock'
This is what mine looks like so far.
19* Now we need to make the numerals for the thermometer. With
on your tool palette. Place your cursor on any part of the circle until it forms an arc shape...see image below.
I used the Jester Font again, size 14 Bold...
-30-20-10 0 10 20 30 40 50
20* Promote to layer and delete your vector layer with the circle on...you don't need that anymore. Do the same with these numerals as you did for the ones in your clock...then move it into position making sure that it is central. See above. Select None. Merge visible this layer and the thermometer layer, call it 'Thermometer'.
21* We need some hands for our clock, I made mine with the Arrow 30 Preset Shapes
22* Select the hand and add a new layer...fill with black. Deselect and then drag the new layer, which will be your hand shadow, under this one. Making sure that the shadow layer is selected, click on the deformation tool and holding ctrl key down, drag the top upper left node down a little bit. Click 'Apply'. Click on the layer palette and reduce this shadow layer to 40%. Merge Visible your large hand and shadow layers and call it 'large hand' or 'minute hand'. Move into position.....which is what ever time you want it to be....I have chosen 1.51 or 9 minutes to 2. ;o)
23* Drag the small hand layer (hour hand) to the top of the layer palette and go to Image...Mirror. Click on the deformation tool again and holding the control key down as before, make the hand a bit shorter. Then move it into position on the clock and using the rotation handle if necessary . I used drop shadow for this one as it is a slightly different shadow.
We are cooking with gas now so hang in there! Have you been saving?
24* Add a new layer, this will be the 'second' hand. Click on draw
and on the tool palette, choose the Fleur de lis dashed...Antialias checked...Vector unchecked...Single Line...Line width 1....Foreground a colour of your choice....Background null. Now click on Custom, we are going to change it a wee bit. Don't panic, it's not that bad. ;o) First I changed the dashed line to a solid line by increasing the size to 387...next I changed the ball cap end to a narrow end and altered the size to 3.61 but could have done with going a bit smaller still. Now draw your second hand (as in seconds) and then move it into position. Lower the opacity of this layer to 74.
25* Apply a Drop Shadow as before but this time change the vertical to 4 and the horizontal to -6
27* Add a layer. Next choose the Octagon or Ellipse in Preset Shapes
28* With Preset shapes and a white fill, make a circle a bit bigger than for the top nut...this one is to go on the bottom and apply Blade Pro. I used a different preset this time 'brass'. Add a drop shadow...as before but change the vertical to 2 and horizontal to -3. Add a new layer.
29* For the thermometer hand, click on the draw tool
30* Drag the copy of the clock nut that we made up to the top...and position it on top of the hand and other nut. Merge these three layers and call it 'thermometer hand'
31* Draw another circle as before in figure 19*. Apply the text in the same way... Then with Foreground null and Background #AD9070, 3rd colour of the sample, make your little lines. This is how I did mine. Using the Jester font, I did 12 dots size 28 with a space between them. I then lowered the number to 16 and made four smaller dots, which I copied and pasted between each of the big dots, making sure that there are no spaces between any of these. Check to see if it is okay (if it is too crowded, stretch the circle until it fits okay or make your dots a bit smaller...I guess I was lucky with mine as I didn't have to do any of that). Once you are satisfied, promote to layer and delete the vector circle layer. I applied a little of the airbrush at this stage size 10 and with the 2nd colour.
32* Merge visible this layer, the thermometer and hands layer and call it 'thermometer.
Now this is where you get to add some decoration...you may want to add a metalic decor or wood or even keep it the same as the clock base...terracotta. I chose to do this and when I got only a little way into doing it, I could have kicked myself for not picking something quicker. I did so many undo's that if I tried to write it down or do screen captures, this would never get finished. However I will try to briefly retrace my steps for the way I did it...who knows, maybe YOU have an easier way, don't forget to tell me if you do. ;o)
33* I started out with an outline picture of a bird and chose the second colour of my samples filling a segment at a time....this was so I could apply an Inner Bevel to each one to give it that embossed look. I then sprayed a little of each of the other colours and applied the Gaussian Blur as before, doing this for each segment. Then when the whole bird was filled in, I copy pasted, as a new layer, the bird to my terracotta clock. I repeated this method for the flowers...only this time I copied a sample of the base and used this as the fill for the flowers instead...oh why didn't I think of this in the first place? :o( Once everything was in place, I touched up the areas on each layer with the air brush using a bit of each colour, applied the Gaussian Blur and then Merged Visible all layers. Here is my finished Terracotta Clock Thermometer. Now you won't forget to tube
it, will you?
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you run into any problems please let me know...I'll be in the Bahamas! :op
Have Fun! and Email if you have any problems!
Tutorial by Mary Newton aka Lady Oz aka Lady Newtonia © 2002
