..: Glassy Critters Tutorial ~ Part Two :..

Open a new image 300 x 300 with a white background. Retrieve each of the critter parts that you've saved, one part at a time. Just open the window containing a part, Selections>Select All, Edit>Copy, make your new canvas active, Edit>Paste As New Layer.

We want each part on its own layer so that we can move, rotate, deform, resize, flip, mirror and just generally man-handle each bit into what we need and where we need it.

Don't be afraid to squeeze, push, shove or pull your saved shapes using the deformation tool... these little bubbles that Robin created are almost indestructible... lol!

It's difficult to give a step-by-step illustration at this point since I have no idea what each of you are in the process of creating, but I'll use the teddy bear that I came up with to share some tips.

As you can see, I've used unaltered bubbles (just different sizes) for the bear's ears, head and body. The arms and feet were realized using the steps outlined in Part One of this tutorial. So... now you know that there's no need to deform absolutely everything! ;-)

The most important thing to remember is that the critter parts cannot "jut into" one another. If they do, I guarantee that you will not be happy with your finished critter. For instance, the legs that I had for this little guy were blunt-ended and stuck up into the "body" bubble. So I made the body bubble layer active, clicked on the selection tool, Selections>Select All, clicked once on the body to bring the marching ants in tight and while that selection was still active, I clicked on each of the leg layers and hit the delete key on my keyboard. Ditto with each of his arms. Or, if you're an ace with the eraser, you can go that route.

It's okay to have a part "on top of" another part... such as having a wing laying across the body of a bird... but bits and pieces that jut into other bits and pieces need to be removed. (I hope this is making some kind of sense...)

Something else to keep in mind is the light source. Once I had created (and trimmed) the bear's left ear, I duplicated that layer and then mirrored it. Fast and easy, yes, but the highlight became mirrored as well... and it wasn't very credible. Try to keep the highlights on the same side of the critter whenever and wherever you can. Especially if they are large highlights. The bears legs were simply duplicated and mirrored, but they seem natural because the highlights are limited to the very tip of his toes. Same goes for his arms. But you wouldn't want to have his head on backwards or anything.

Okay... I'm boring myself to tears so I can only imagine the ennui you guys are suffering.... lol! Let's git at 'er!!

Once you have your critter all built to your liking, hide the background layer and merge the remaining layers visible. Duplicate your merged layer, set the layer blend mode on the duplicate layer to Dodge and bring the opacity slider for that layer down to 30. This gives us a little more sparkle to play with.

And again, hide the background layer and merge the remaining layers visible.

Make sure the merged layer is the active layer. Click on the Selection tool, go to Selections>Select All, then click your mouse right on top of your critter. (Don't worry if some of the lighter areas of your critter become selected along with the outline... that's not a problem.) Go to Selections>Save to Alpha Channel. Click Ok twice and get out of there.

Create a new layer above your merged critter. And here's where you continue to "do your own thing". Fill this layer with a colour, a gradient or a pattern.

If you use a colour or gradient on this layer:

After the fill, go to Selections>Load From Alpha Channel and select your finished critter selection.

Go to Selections>Modify>Feather and give it a feather of 2.

Go to Selections>Invert. In all probability, your original selection will have vanished... not to worry... just hit the delete key on your keyboard (once). Set the layer blend mode on the fill layer to Color and adjust the opacity slider down to 50 or so... see what grabs your fancy.

If you use a pattern on this layer:

After the fill, go to Selections>Load From Alpha Channel and select your finished critter selection.

Go to Selections>Modify>Feather and give it a feather of 2.

Go to Selections>Invert. In all probability, your original selection will have vanished... not to worry... just hit the delete key on your keyboard (once). Set the layer blend mode on the pattern layer to Hard Light and adjust the opacity slider down to 80.

All that's left to do is to replace the white background layer with a colour or effect of your choice (be aware that these critters are extremely transparent, so choose your background carefully), merge layers and resize (if desired) and then set them to graze somewhere beeoootiful! lol!

If you are still reading, thank you so much for your patience... I hope you have fun with these little critters! :-)

< < Back to Part One

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