Sleeping Bag Tutorial

 by Storme Designs.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You will need  Paint Shop Pro.

This tutorial assumes you have some knowledge of PSP.

It was created in Paint Shop 7.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

I was creating a graphic for a cat group and thought I would put

this easy tute on line.  The size is up to you.  I like to work on a

large area and can always resize the graphic to your liking later.

I started with a 650 by 650 graphic, or you can use 700. You'll

want a larger graphic if you want to slant it.  If you just want

it sideways or up and down, then it won't matter.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Please save your graphic often as you work in case your

computer shuts down for any reason.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 Click on Layers, then New Raster layer and accept the default.

settings. I always work on a new layer for everything.  It makes

 correcting or changing your work easier.  You can rename your

original layer, background and your new layer, bag bottom.

Select the color you would like your bag to be, then click on

 your shapes tool.      The shapes

tool is the blue rectangle and red circle as shown above.  Now

I chose the preset shape, Button 009. Check antialias and set

to 1 width.  If you don't have that button preshape, just use your

round rectangle preshape setting.  Draw a sleeping bag shape in

the middle of your graphic to the size you want your bag to be.

You can add 2 to 4% Noise, uniform to help prevent dithering etc.

I did it originally and forgot, when making below.

Click on Layers in your tool bar, then click on duplicate.

We are going to click on the eyeglasses in our layer palette and turn

this layer off.  You can rename it top layer.

Go back to your bag bottom layer, make sure it's the one you are working

on and Click on your magic wand tool       and

 click in the middle of your graphic.  You should now have it selected

with animated dashes going around the graphic.  Click on Layers

and add a New Raster Layer. Name this layer cutout 1.

You can use the settings I used below or adjust for the color

you have selected. For a darker color, I'm using dark blue, we

select a lighter shadow color, if you are creating a light color

bag, you want a darker shadow color of your bag.

As you can see my bag is dark blue and my shadow is a lighter blue, almost

purple of the blue.  My vertical and horizontal are set to 4, opacity is

68 and blue is 23.8.  Next, create another new layer and name it

cutout 2, you can see my named layers in the graphic above too.

Use the same cutout settings as above, but change the vertical and

horizontal to   - 4 (minus).  You can change any of these settings

to any look better with your bag.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Go to selections and click on selections none. Now you go to your

layers palette and click on the eyeglasses on your background

layer.  This puts a red x on that layer. Your bag top layer

should still be clicked off with the x too.

Please note your bag top would be above the cutout 2 layer!

Click on any of the other layers and to to Layers, and merge visible.

You can see my layer cut out 2 is clicked on and highlighted in blue.

Rename your merged layer bag bottom. 

Go to Selections and select none.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 Click on your top bag layer and click off the x.

Click on your selections tool next and set it to rectangle.

  Antialias checked.

We are going to make a rectangle over the top quarter part of

our bag, where we would have a pillow or our head, as below.

It doesn't matter if your rectangle goes past your bag, just select how

much of your bag you want to use as the head or pillow part.

Click on the little scissors in your tool bar, as shown in the graphic

 above, to cut off the selection or hit your delete key or go to

edit and cut.   Click selections, then select none.  Choose your

magic wand too and click in the middle of your top bag.  The rest

of the top of the bag should be selected.  If not go to selections,

select all, then float to select.  Add a new raster layer and

name it cutout 3 and add the first cutout as above.  Add

a cutout layer 4 and do the second cutout with the vertical and

horizontal  in the minus as above.  Click off the glasses in

all other layers except the top bag and the 2 cutouts and

with one of those layers highlighted go to layers, and merge

visible.   Save your graphic now as a paint shop tube for

future use. 

To add a graphic you want to be sleeping

in the bag such as yourself or a cat if it's for a cat group, as

mine is.  Click on your bag bottom layer and add a new layer.

On the new layer place your graphic where you want it.

You can rotate it or use the deformation tool to fix it in place.

Save this as a paint shop tube for future use or put your name on

it to use as a tag. Save it in the format you would like.

You can resize as needed.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You can add a pillow by making a small square in a slightly

different color and adding the cutout effects again.

Your bag is done!   Hope you enjoyed making yours!

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

If you want something different, you can click on your

bottom layer and flood fill it with a pattern, use a drop shadow,

cutout or whatever you like for something different.  When you

 select the bottom only the middle part is selected, due to the

cutouts we used, which makes this workable.  If your selection is

uneven increase your magic wands tolerance to 1 or 2.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

You could also leave your top uncut and use the page curl in

paint shop it's under geometric effects.  Some plug ins create

page curls too. You would curl up slightly the top of your bag.

Then you would select the underneath part of the curl.

You may have to increase the tolerance or expand your selection,

the click on cut.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

Please feel free to write and let me know if tried it.

If you need help write also.

Also let me know if anything needs correcting.

Check our main Tutorial page for new Tutorial listings at

 Storme Millennium Tutorials.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

This tutorial can be copied intact without the backgrounds with

credit to Storme Designs,

 http://mystyqcat.tripod.com/

Any of the graphics can be copied for your use,

but you must provide a link back to our site.

We have a new Descriptive Index of our Tutorials at Tutorials.

Our Site Index is at Storme Millennium Index.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>