Dark Guardian

Supplies Needed

1 tube of choice – I used the artwork of Janna Prosvirina which can be purchased from Digital ArtHeaven.  You must have a license to use.

Font of choice – I used Parseltongue here

Plug Ins used:

Mura’s Meister – Cloud

Tramages – Tow the Line

Greg’s Factory Output Vol. II – Pool Shadow

Xenofex 2 – Constellation

Animation Shop

This tutorial was written assuming you have working knowledge of PSP. 

~♥~ Let’s get started ~♥~

Open up a 600 x 250 image.

Flood fill white.

New Raster layer.

Select All.

Copy and paste the image layer from the tube Into Selection.

Lock the layer by clicking on the icon at the top of the layers pallet.

Adjust/Blur/Radial Blur:

Spin checked.

Use Default settings.

OK.

Duplicate this layer.

Mirror

Change the Properties to Lighten.

Color Pallet:

Foreground: #646572

Background:  #b6c0ce

New Raster layer.

Apply Mura’ s Meister – Cloud.

You’ll already have the correct colors (from setting your color pallet) so just click OK.

Change the Properties of this layer to Hard Light.

Close out your white background.

Merge Visible.

Reopen your white background.

Duplicate the merged layer.

Apply Tramages – Tow the Line -

Match your settings to mine:

Make your Freehand Selection Tool active.

At the top where the settings are for this tool, be sure the following settings are:

Selection Type: Freehand

Mode: Add (Shift)

Feather: 25

Smoothing: 0

Section out 2 areas where the light lines are:

Selections/Invert

Tap the delete key until you have a nice feathered effect of the areas you chose.
Deselect.

Change the Properties to Soft Light.

Lower the Opacity to about 34.

In your Color Pallet, switch the colors so the dark color is now your background color.

Close out the foreground color.

Make your Rectangle Tool active:

Mode: Rectangle.

Create a thin strip about 10 pixels wide by about 200 pixels long.

Objects/Align/Center in Canvas.

Convert to Raster layer.

Click on it with your Magic Wand (be sure to change Feather amount back to 0!)

Effects/Text Effects/Blinds -

Match your settings to mine:

Free Rotate Right 45 degrees.

Click anywhere outside of it with your Magic Wand.

Selections/Invert

Apply Greg’s Factory Output Vol. II – Pool Shadow –

Match your settings to mine:

Deselect.

Duplicate/Mirror/Flip

Merge Down

Both Strips should now be on the same layer.

Effects/Edge Effects/Enhance

Color Pallet:

Make your lighter color your background.

Close out the foreground.

Make your Symmetric Tool active.

Mode: Draw Stellated

Create on Vector checked

Number of Sides: 6

Radius: 49.21

Round Inner and Round Outer Unchecked

Line Style: Solid

Width: 2.00

Miter Limit: 15

Near the center of your canvas create a small star.

Objects/Align/Center on Canvas.

Convert to Raster layer.

Adjust/Add Remove Noise/Add Noise:

Uniform checked

Noise: 30%

OK

Apply Mura’s Meister – Copies:

Choose Wallpaper (Perspective)

Use default settings

OK

Erase the stars you don’t want to keep.

Color Pallet:

Foreground: #2a242a

Background: #6e5e5a

Make your merged background layer active.

Type the words “Dark Guardian” over and again until the words run across your canvas – see my tag for reference.

Convert to Raster layer.

Change the Properties to Soft Light.

Duplicate 3 x’s for a total of 4 word layers.

Rename the layers – DG1, DG2, DG3, DG4

Highlight DG1 layer.

Apply Xenofex 2 – Constellation:

Match your settings to mine:

OK

Highlight DG 2 layer.

Apply the same effect accept hit the Random Seed button once.

Repeat the above step with DG 3, and DG 4.

Close out all DG layers 2, 3, and 4.  Keep DG1 Open.

New Raster layer at the top of your layer’s pallet.

Flood fill with #5e5f6c

Select All

Select/Modify/Contract:

Number of Pixels: 2

OK

Tap the delete key.

Flood fill with #dde1eb

Selections/Modify/Contract by 2.

Tap the delete key.

Flood fill with #5e5f6c

Selections/Modify/Contract by 1.

Tap the delete key.

Deselect.

Make your Magic Wand active.

Zoom in on the frame you just created and click on the light colored area.

Apply Greg’s Factory Output Vol. II – Pool Shadow:

Change the settings to match mine:

OK


Copy and paste your tube as a new layer - see my tag for reference.

Color Pallet:

Foreground and Background: #3a3840

Type your name.

Give it a slight Inner Bevel:

Duplicate your name layer and move it slightly to the lift and up a little.

In your layers pallet move this name layer below the other.

Change the Properties to Soft Light and lower the Opacity to about 18.

Add your credit.

Copy Merged.

~Time to Animate~

Open up Animation Shop.

Edit/Paste/As New Animation

Back in PSP.

Close out DG 1 layer.

Open up DG 2 layer.

Copy Merged.

Carry into AS.

Edit/Paste/After Current Frame.

Back in PSP.

Close out DG 2 layer.

Open up DG 3 layer.

Copy Merged.

Carry into AS.

Edit/Paste/After Current Frame.

Back in PSP.

Close out DG 3 layer.

Open up DG 4 layer.

Copy Merged.

Carry into AS.

Edit/Paste/After Current Frame.

View your animation.

If you’re happy then save.

   

I’d love to see your results.

Email me!

Hugs,

Bev