Fantasy Fish
Parts and inspiration supplied by Linda White-Cable
PhotoImpact 6.0
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This tutorial will be more in the line of a project than a
tutorial. Linda White-Cable has graciously donated all the parts
to her fantasy fish for us to use. All you
will have to do for this is fill the fish with your own colors, and add
highlights with the paintbrush. There are several different kinds of
fish for you to choose from. You can download
them here. |
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I will be focusing on one of the fish available for download, the
angelfish, because it seems to be the most complicated of all of them, but
the general rules for the angelfish apply for the other fish as
well. In each zip, there will be a jpg example file for you to
use as a guide. It is only for you to use as a guide. You may
not use the jpg for any other purpose but study. Linda's fish are
works of art, and her copyright. That is why I've put her name
across each one.
The ufo files have
parts in path format for some of the files. You can easily use the
path objects to store in your easy palette, and use for extra
shapes. If you still use version 5, you will have to go to
edit/trace selection marquee for each one to turn them into path objects
again. |
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Unzip the
file, and store it in any folder on your hard drive. You may want to
make a new folder to store all of the ufos for this
project. Open the
angelfish ufo file. In the ufo file,
the parts for the angelfish are grouped. Right click and ungroup
them. The different parts of the fish are shaded in different colors
of gray. The gray parts are the ones we ar going to color. The
black parts should be left black. The ufo file has most of the parts
as shapes also. You can drag these to the easy palette to use with the
path tool if you like. I recommend moving these black shapes
to a new canvas so they are not in your way while
working. |
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Now that you have your ufo open, open a new canvas, 400 by
400. We will use this to work on because the ufo contains many
parts.
Find the
large body of the angelfish that looks like this first. We will be
using it as a guide for where to place the different parts. Drag this part
to your new canvas. |
Now find the
tail part of the fish. It looks like this. |
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Let's begin to color it. Go to edit/fill. Click the
gradient tab. Use a two color gradient. Change the colors to
two colors close together on the color wheel. I've used blue and
lavender. You can choose any two colors you like that are close
together on the color wheel, but make the first color a very light
shade. |
Change to
the paintbrush, chalk brush. In the attribute bar, under preset, click the
down arrow, and click gritty chalk. Change the color to a dark shade
of the same tone as the dark color in your gradient. Change
transparency to 75%. You will notice that now the preset will say
none. That is normal.
Now, using Linda's fish as a guide, shade the bottom part of the
tail with the brush. You can click and drag the brush over the parts
that should be darker, and just click once on parts where the shading is
lighter. Keep working until you are satisfied with the result.
You may want to use the burn tool in some areas to darken some parts. You
will find the burn tool in the retouch tools right above the paint
brush.
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Now go to the other canvas with all the parts, and find the top
half of the body. Move it to your new canvas. Fill it with the
same gradient as you used for the tail. Again, use the chalk brush
to shade, but this time use the same color as you used for the dark color
of your gradient, and shade the top part of the piece instead of the
bottom. Repeat for the dorsal fin, shading it with the bristle brush
using the same settings. |
| Go back to the parts canvas, and get the top and bottom fins
and the bottom part of the body. Select all three parts and go to
edit/fill. Choose a gradient with a contrasting color to your
original gradient. I chose two shades of red for mine. Place
these three parts in the appropriate places, and again, paint with the
chalk brush using Linda's fish as a model. |
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Now it is time to place the black stripes on the fish. You
may have to move your parts around a little so that the stripes don't
stick out. I found that I did. |
You now have two parts left, the eye and the swim fin.
Fill the eye with green, and the fin with the contrasting gradient you
last used. Shade both of these parts with the bristle brush.
send the eye behind the stripes.
Save your work as a ufo or in your easy palette. |
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Click the image at left to go to the tutorial for making the
background. |
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