♥ Of Dragonflies and Dreams ♥ Animated Tutorial

This tutorial was created with Animation Shop 3 and PaintShop Pro X4 but can be done with other versions and/or programs.

Supplies:

Artist's Tube of choice: I am using the gorgeous PTU work of Carla Morrow. Please DO NOT use his/her images without the proper license or permission. You can find this tube here

Scrap Kit of choice: I am using the wonderful PTU kit Fantasy by BLT Dezignz. You can find this kit HERE

Mask of choice: I am using mask WSL_mask5 by WeeScott Lass and you can find it HERE

Fonts of choice: I am using PF Tempesta Five for the © and ( font ) for the name/text.

Filters of choice: MuRa's - Copies

Animation of choice: We will be making our own.

Ok, grab a cuppa, and a munchie, and let's go!!

Please remember to SAVE your work often, RENAME your layers, and if you feel you have really messed up.... Remember that UNDO is your bestest friend!!

Abbreviations

C/P – Copy and Paste

DS = Drop Shadow

MV – Merge Visible

AS – Animation Shop

Create a new Image 1000x1000, Transparent background. 72Dpi.

C/P Flower5 to center of canvas. Resize way down.

C/P the gem and position it in the center of the flower. Hide Bottom layer, and MV

Go to Effects>Plugins>MuRa's>Copies with the following settings.

Edit>Cut Edit>Paste as New Layer. This will center your new frame on the canvas.

C/P Bow 1. Resize down and position on top of the frame.

C/P Ribbon 1. Resize it down and put at the top but under the frame.

C/P leaves. Resize and place on the lower left under the frame. Duplicate and move this set of leaves just up a bit. Go to Ajustment>Hue/Saturation>Vibrancy. Bring the vibrancy of the leaves up so a setting that looks good to you. On the lower leaves bring the vibrancy down just a bit.

C/P Flower6 resize as needed and position on the of the lower leaves.

C/P Flower4 resize and rotate as needed to fit just above Flower6. Change the vibrancy of this later to what you like best. Either up or Down.

C/P the Dangle. Resize down and place on top of the two flowers..

Click on these last layers individually and erase any parts that are inside the frame with your eraser tool.

C/P your tube into the center of the frame Duplicate and drag the layer under your frame layer. On the top tube layer, erase sections of the tail to make it look as though the tail is curling up from the underside of the frame to up over it. Do the same with the upper right wing.

C/P the dragonflies from the tube where ever you wish.

Open the paper you wish to add to your mask and the mask itself. C/P your paper as new layer. Drag all the way to the bottom. Layers>New Mask Layer>From Image. Select your mask from the drop down menu. Close all layers but the mask layers. Merge Down. Open layers.

With your sparkle brush. Add sparkles where ever you want them. Duplicate layer and add a colorful shadow with a large blur set to hard light. Duplicate the original layer again and set to hard light.

Take one last look at your tag and add anything else that you wish to add.

Select all layers (CTRL+click on each layer) Crop to Layer Opaque. Resize shortest size to 750px. Sharpen each layer. Add your © and your name with any effects that you wish to add.

If you do not plan to animate. Stop here an save as png. You are done!

If you are going to animate. Continue on.

Please remember, there may be other ways of doing this, but this is the way that I know how, and I'm not saying that is the absolute right way!!

Add a new layer. Flood Fill this layer with whatever background color you wish to use. My blog is a very dark grey, so I am using that as my background color.

Open Animation Shop and minimize for the time being.

In PSP C/P the middle dragonfly tube layer as a new image. Zoom in to about 3 or 400%

With your lasso tool or other custom selection tool that you are comfortable with, Make a selection around both of the wings. Go to Edit>Cut.

Then go to Edit>Paste As New Animation.

Back in PSP deselect the wings and copy the body. In AS paste as new animation.

One more time.... In PSP Copy MERGED your tag, paste as new animation in AS. You can minimize PSP. We are done with it now.

Back in AS. Go to File>New. Make the width and height 300x300px and make sure that Transparent is ticked.

Now duplicate this so that you have a total of 21 frames. To do this click on the Duplicate Frames button.... it looks like this.

 If you look at the bottom of the frames window it will tell you how many frames you have so far.

When you see frame 17, click on that and hit Duplicate Frames 3 more times and that will give you a total of 21.

Do the same for the Dragonfly body and your tag. Minimize those three for right now.

Working on your wings. Go to Effects>Insert Image Effect with the following settings.

You should now have 21 frames of the wings.

Are ya with me so far? It really isn't hard once you get used to it.

Ok, Maximize your Blank animation and the dragonfly body.

On the dragonfly body click on the first frame and go to Edit>Select All>Edit>Copy.

Now be careful with this next part. Don't click on the canvas until you are sure that you have the body where you want it...... If not you will have to repeat these last few steps.

On the Blank click on the first frame and go to Edit>Select All>Edit>Paste>Into Selected frames. The body will kinda be like stuck on your cursor. Hover your cursor where you want the body to be placed. Make sure that there will be enough room for the wings. Click once. Now all 21 frames should have the body. If it looks ok you can go ahead and close the OLD body frames.

Now, do the same thing with the wings. Select first frame, edit select all edit copy.

On the new body frames click on first frame etc....

Hover the wings over the body and match it up to where the wings would naturally be placed on the body. Click. Now all 21 frames should have the whole dragonfly. Press the play button to view your dragonfly in action to make sure you pasted the wings ok. If not, just UNDO and retry it. The play button looks like this

Now lets crop the transparent pixels.. Click on the crop tool and drag. You know how it works :) Don't get too close as to chop any of the animation off though.

Now follow the same steps as above to get the dragonfly on your tag. I wanted 2 but I didn't want them going in the same direction so I selected all frames on the dragonfly again and mirrored and rotated it.. Now play your animation to make sure that it runs smoothly. Got it? Great!! Just hit save and follow the prompts through the animation wizard!

That's all Folks!! That is all there is to it! I know it seems hard but just keep practicing and you will have it down in no time!! 

This tutorial was created by me, Mary Oakes aka Ariez Moon, on 11/10/2014. Any similarity to any other tutorial is purely coincidental. Please abide by my TOU and the TOU of Artists and Designers that you may use.

I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial, and I hope that I did not do too bad of a job writing it. If you have any problems, questions, comments, or suggestions just give me a hollar in my Cbox, or connect with me on FB. I will get back to you as fast as I can.

As always, Happy PSPing.... and Photoshop too :) !!