Digital Painting A Planet With Paint Shop Pro 8 - Part II

Project Information: • Skill level: Intermediate • Corel^R Jasc^R Paint Shop^TM Pro^R 8 • General tips

This is the second part of a two part tutorial. In this part of the tutorial you will add a gaseous vapor ring around the planet that you painted in part one. If you haven't completed part one of this tutorial, you can use any image of a planet that is on a transparent layer.

You will want the vapor ring to appear to be circling the planet. Therefore you will need to paint some of the ring behind the planet and the other part of the ring on top of the planet.

Step 1. Open your image of the planet that you created in part one.

Step 2. Create a new transparent layer. From the Menubar click on Layers > New Raster Layer and accept the default values in the New Raster Layer dialog box. Now you are ready to paint the part of the vapor ring that will be behind the planet.

Step 3. Paint with the Airbrush Tool. Click on the Airbrush Tool icon and set the Tool Options Palette to the following values.

Brush Tip: Dry Brush Angle
Size: 100
Step: 10
Density: 100
Rotation: 45
Opacity: 100
Blend Mode: Normal

PPlanet1

Examples 5 - 7

Step 4. Set a color for the vapor ring. Click on the top colored square (Foreground and Stroke) on the Materials Palette which will open the Material dialog box. Choose a color for the vapor ring. For the example I used C0C0C0. Now place you mouse pointer at the top edge of the planet and click along the top edge. (Example 5) You do not want too heavy of a vapor ring here because this will be the part of the vapor ring that will be in the distance and behind the planet. When you are happy with the look, it is time to move this layer of the vapor ring behind the planet. Click Layers > Arrange > Move Down. (Example 6)

Step 5. Paint the top layer of the vapor ring. Now you are ready to paint the top portion of the vapor ring. You will want to paint this on another transparent layer. This part of the vapor ring will be in the foreground and therefore would be more visible. Paint this part of the vapor ring a little heavier then you did in the previous step. Repeat Steps 3 and 4. But this time you will paint along the bottom edge of the planet. Also you will keep this layer as the top layer. This part of the ring will stay on top of the planet. (Example 7)

Step 6. Remove the black background. Now that you have completed the planet it is time to remove the black background layer. This is an important step if you plan to turn this image into a picture tube. Go to the Layers Palette and right click on the layer named Background. Choose Delete from the drop-down list.

Now you have a completed planet with a vapor ring. Save your image again in Paint Shop Pro format (.psp). This will retain the individual layers of the image and allow you to use your image in several different ways. You can use the planet by itself, the vapor ring by itself, or the planet and ring together. If you think that you will be using the image frequently, you can export (save) it as a picture tube. How?

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