DESCRIPTION: Use your own tiled jewel-coloured painting as the basis for making a jazzy child's pendant using the Standard Selection Tool and Button Designer.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Save as ufo file often.

1. Open a new document (Ctrl N), white background, 600 x 600 pixels. Select your paintbrush with settings in the Attribute Bar of size 50, transparency 50, soft edge 50. Click on the colour box to bring up the Ulead Color Picker.

2. Paint all over your page using different colours but of the same strength. Do this by leaving the colour saturation choice as is and moving only the colour slider to pick a different colour. Leave white areas throughout your painting - this will show up as gloss later.

3. After painting, use your Standard Selection Tool with the settings below to select an area you like. Make sure Fixed Size (400x400) is ticked and Anti-aliasing is ticked in the Options box as well. Hold your mouse or tablet pen down until you like what you see, then release. Ctrl R to crop.

4. Apply Effect / Simple / Quick Tile... so the colours merge more. Mine now looks like this:

5. Grab your Selection Tool again and clicking the "+" and unticking the Fixed Size box use any of the Shapes in the drop-down box on the Attribute Bar to add to your selection as shown below. Make your own shape if you like. (You can also click the "-" button to make holes in your pendant plus click on Options and Draw from Center.)

6. Selection / Convert to Object or Ctl Shift O to make your final result into an object. With the Pick Tool drag it into the workspace to create a new document. Drag over to the open Easy Palette for safe storage.

7. Web / Button Designer / Any Shape and use the settings below. The main ones were the default for me. Scroll through to find the pattern I've arrowed.

8. The Necklace Part:
As a child I used to love the plastic balls that you could link to the next one to make a necklace. Make little balls from your painting using the same method above. Use the Draw from Center option and make a row of say 6 circles. Selection / Convert to Object and Duplicate (Shift D) and add to the end of each segment. Use the Transform tool to move the circles into line and Format / Hue & Saturation to give more colour. Even use the Button Designer on the circles (on the right below) to create a 3D effect. Have fun with it.

9. Object / Select All Objects (Ctrl Shift A) and drag your finished pendant over to the Easy Palette to keep. Object / Merge All. Press F4 on your keyboard to bring up the Image Optimizer to save your image to show online.

Thank you for trying out my tutorial :). I trust you've enjoyed it.

Hillie © 2006