Queen of the Ice PTU Animated

This tutorial was written by me on November 4th, 2012. Any resemblance to any other tutorial or tag is unintentional and is pure coincidence. Please do not claim my work as your own and do not post to any other website, blog or forum without permission from me. It is written with the assumption that you have a working knowledge of PSP and its components. It was written for PSP 9.

I recommend that you read through this or any tutorial you are attempting before starting it so you will know what to expect and how to get organized.

As with any of my tutorials when a plugin is required, change only the settings I recommend and leave the others on the default settings.

What you will need to accomplish this tutorial includes the stunning art of Maxine Gadd which can be purchased at Creative Design Outlet HERE.  This truly beautiful kit by Hungry Hill called Ice Angel also available for purchase at Creative Design Outlet HERE. Please, please, please support the arts and DO NOT use Maxine's tubes without a license and certainly do not share her tubes or this kit.  Brush I have supplied HERE. Plugins are Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact, Eye Candy 4000/ Xenofex 2, and Xero.  Font is Aquiline and can be found HERE.

Let's get started...

But first, we need to get your brushes into PSP for use.  It's just a couple easy steps.

 Open the files I provided into PSP.  They're in .png format, you can also use .jpegs.  For each brush go to File/Export/Custom Brush.  Name your brush and click Ok and it's installed in PSP ready for use.

Okay now, start a 700 x 700 new white image which we will resize in the end.  Copy and paste the frost frame into your new canvas and resize it 75% then copy and paste the frost-circle beneath it and resize it 85%, give the frost-circle a slight drop shadow.

Next copy and paste the paper of choice beneath these two layers, I used paper 8.  Resize it 50% and use your eraser brush to erase anything outside the frost frame.  Then copy and paste the closeup of your tube above this paper and resize it 75%, duplicate it and drag the duplicate to the top of your layer palette.  Use your eraser brush to erase any of the tube outside the bottom of your frame.  Do the same for the original tube layer.

Next, copy and paste snowy-tree 1 above your paper layer, resize it 75% and move it to the right of your work...see my image as reference for placement.  Then copy and paste the snowy branch on the top of your canvas, resize it 50% and place it to the bottom left of your frame, duplicate and flip it and then use your Raster Deform tool to rotate it slightly to the left.  Your work should be looking something like this so far:

Now, copy and paste the snowy twig on the top of your canvas and resize it 50%.  Use your eraser tool to erase the part of the twig without the little berries and then duplicate it several times and scatter it over the snowy brances.  Doesn't have to be exactly like mine, just randomly scatter them.  Give each a drop shadow, as well as the snowy branches.

Copy and paste wrap 2 above your duplicate tube layer, resize it 50% and give it a drop shadow.  Copy and paste the ice element below the wrap and resize it 50%, don't forget your drop shadow.

Now copy and paste the lanterns element on the top of your canvas and resize it 50%, give it a drop shadow.  Then copy and paste the snowy tree 2 element on top of your canvas, resize it 50% and place it over your work on the left.  Grab your Selection tool set on Elipse with a 50% feather and select the left bottom portion of the tree and hit delete:

Now to give the tree some dimension, go to Effects/Plugins/Alien Skin Eye Candy 5/Impact/Perspective Shadow and use these settings:

This plugin may require a little practice.  There are just a couple of important things to remember when shadowing is to attempt to make your shadows appear natural and to watch closely all the areas of whatever you're shadowing.  You can view all the areas by moving the little red box around at the top of the window of this plugin...

(You can tweak your shadows by moving the nodes around in the preview window. To move one node at a time hold down your CTRL key. You can move the whole shadow by holding down your right mouse button and clicking in the middle of the shadow.  It's very important to think about how a shadow would be cast realistically and how dark or how light it should be. This plugin is one of my favorites and one I use with nearly every single one of my tags.)

Now copy and paste the halo element on the top of your canvas, resize it 55% and place it on the top of your top tube layer's head, then go to Effects/Plugins/Eye Candy 4000/Corona and use these settings:

Now copy and paste your scroll element above your background layer, resize 60%, place it to the bottom right of your work and then go to Adjust/Hue and Saturation/Colorize and use these settings:

Add your Drop Shadow...
...
Now, above your background layer add a new Raster layer and apply the brush I supplied in the deepest blue in your work.  Apply the brush around the four corners of your work.  You can always use your Raster Deform tool to tweak, resize, rotate your brushes if needed.

Now copy and paste the snowy tree 2 element above your brush layer, use your Raster Deform tool to tweak it to fit into your work nicely.

Copy and paste and scatter around your work the icicle element.  Make it in varying sizes.

Now add your name, give it a fairly dark drop shadow so it stands out.  Add your copyright taking care that it is legal and legible.  For a neat and professional-looking copyright I use pixel fonts, you can google and find literally hundreds of these fonts.  Most work best at size 6 with your antialias set to off...for crisp edges with your regular fonts, set your Antialias to Sharp.

Now let's prepare to animate this.  It's a fairly simple process.Duplicate your frame twice, for a total of three frame layers.  Hide the two top layers and in your layer palette select the original frame layer and go to Effects/Plugins/Xenofex 2/Constellation and use these settings:

Hide the original frame layer, unhide and select the middle frame layer and go to Effects/Constellation and use the same setting only hit the Random Seed button once...repeat for the last layer.

Now open Animation Shop (AS)..File/Jasc Software Products/Launch Animation Shop and then back to PSP.  In your layer palette hide the two top frame layers you applied the Constellation Effect to and unhide the original frame layer.  Hold down CTRL + SHIFT and hit C to copy merged and go over to AS.  Hit CTRL + v to paste a new animation and go back to PSP.  In your layer palette, hide the original frame layer, unhide the middle frame layer and hold down CTRL + SHIFT and hit C to copy merged and go back to AS.  This time hold down CTRL + SHIFT and hit L to paste after current frame.  Repeat the process for the remaining frame layer.  Check your work...View/Animation, resize if you like it, save as a .gif and you're done.

Thank you for trying my tutorial, I hope you had fun and maybe learned something to hone your PSP skills.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns about any of my tutorials.

Blessings

Trese