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© 1999 by Deborah J. Cook. All Rights Reserved.
Early December and I should be out shopping (or at least online shopping) but instead I decided to avoid the crowds and spend a little time creating a fun seasonal image for my website's home page. I've done the hardest parts for you and "helper" files are available for download. See the sidebar for download links. Give that credit card a rest for a little while and follow along.
My example started as an RGB image, 206 x 377 pixels at 100 pixels per inch, and has a bluish background so you can see what's going on. It is shown at left.
The first object I created was a long narrow rectangle, filled with a red and white stripe. However, before drawing the rectangle, let's set the fill so that the rectangle will be created with the correct fill from the start. Right click the image at right and save it as stripes.gif in your Corel\Custom\Tiles folder. Doubleclick the fill tool to open the fill dialog and then click the bitmap fill button (second from the right near the bottom of the dialog). Click the Edit button to open the bitmap fill dialog and then click the Load button. Browse to Corel\Custom\Tiles and load stripes.gif. Set the fill rotation to 45 degrees as shown at left. Now, select the Rectangle tool, check the property bar to be sure that the render to object and anti-aliasing buttons are pressed, and create a rectangle for the pole.
With the rectangle selected, use Ctrl+D to create a duplicate directly on top of the source object. Open the Objects docker (Ctrl+F7) and click the Lock Object Transparency button. Hint: It looks like a wine goblet at the bottom left of the docker. Use Edit | Fill to fill the duplicate with RGB black (R0- G0-B0). Click the Lock Object Transparency button again to toggle object transparency to unlocked.
Locking the object's transparency will constrain the next action to within that object's "boundary." Without transparency locked, all pixels (both transparent and opaque) on that layer are editable and would be filled when we fill the floating object.
With the black duplicate rectangle selected, click the Interactive Transparency tool from the main Toolbox (it, too, looks like a wine goblet). Hold the Control key and drag with the tool from left to right across about 1/3 the width of the rectangle as shown at left. You've now created dimension for the pole and your image should look like the image at right. Select both rectangle objects and combine them together (Ctrl+Alt+DnArr).
Doubleclick the Fill tool again and set the fill to a uniform gold color (R204-G153-B51). Draw three rectangles at the top of the flagpole, as shown at right. Select the three gold rectangles and combine them together as you did earlier for the flagpole rectangles.
Select the gold object and do a Ctrl+M to create a mask from the object. Go to Effects | Texture | Plastic and apply the filter with the settings shown at right.
Doubleclick the Fill tool and set the fill to a uniform red (R255-G0-B0), and then select the Polygon tool (it's available as a flyout from the Rectangle and Ellipse tools). Create a triangular red flag object. (Click once for the origin point, click again for the second point, and doubleclick at the final point to complete the polygon.) Select the flag and apply the Effects | Distort | Ripple filter set to Period 20, Amplitude 1, Angle 90 and the other options unchecked.
Select the Text tool and type each letter as a separate object (the example uses the VAGRounded BT typeface). Use the object's transform handles (click 2, 3, or 4 times on each object for various transformation states) to "mold" the text to fit the waves of the flag. (If you have CorelDRAW, you will probably find the text object is easier to create using CorelDRAW's Envelope effect.) Your image should now look similar to the one at right.
Next, we'll be creating some greenery using the Image Sprayer brush, but first you'll need to download the Hedgey spraylist (see sidebar). While you're there, download the Lights spraylist too—you may wish to use that a little later. Unzip both files into your Corel\Photopnt\Imglists folder.
Click the New Layer button in the Objects docker (at the bottom right) to create a layer for the greenery. Click the Brush tool and hold it until you see the flyout. Select the Image Sprayer tool and from the property bar click the Load Image Sprayer List button (it looks like an open folder at the far left of the property bar). Browse to hedgey.cpt and click the Open button.
On the Image Sprayer property bar, disable the Orbits button at the far right. Set the Size to 30, Number of Dabs 1, Spacing 18, Spread Out 0, and Fade 0. Paint diagonal stripes of greenery so that your image resembles the one at right. If you won't be adding a sign later, go ahead and complete the entire garland.
I used the Path tool in Bezier mode to draw the notepaper using vector paths. I then selected the Path Node Edit tool from the property bar, converted any straight lines into curves and pulled the object into shape. I created an anti-aliased mask from the path (see the Path to Mask button on the Path property bar). Then I created an object from the mask (Ctrl+UpArr) and deleted the path by using the Node tool to marquee select all path nodes and hitting the Delete key. When the paper shape was completed, I added some slight shading and a turned up edge with the Airbrush tool. The results are shown at left.
Icicles and a drop shadow for the note were created next. You can paint the icicles manually, or you can create them with the free demo of Cutting Edge F/X. The sidebar has a link to the free demo. Guess which method I chose?
Sidebar of Links
Hedgey Spraylist |
Now it's time to create a bit of snow. It is the North Pole, after all! I created a couple of "blob" objects (well, what would you call them?) where I wanted snow and then ran Cutting Edge F/X for Photo-Paint 9 to create snow on these blobs. If you don't have Cutting Edge F/X, you're missing out on some great effects, but don't fret — I've created a free "lite" version of the CEF/X Snowcap effect, and this script will create the snow you need for this project. (Check the sidebar for a download link.) I then deleted the original blobs and arranged the snow objects as shown at left.
Finally, I added a strand of holiday lights, using the red and green lights from the Lights spraylist (see sidebar), and as a final touch added a bit of animation to the image.
You can see the final version at The Photo-Paint Place Gallery. May your holidays be happy and healthy!
Read more articles by Deborah J. Cook along with a short bio.
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