Bow

You can do this in Photoshop or PSP If you know your tools you shouldn't have any probs.

You will need Eye Candy Impact's Glass effect and AV Bros Curl Pro 2.1 or 2.2

1. I started with a 1000 x 1000 pixel canvas. Use your selection tool and draw a rectangle like it shows below.

2. Fill your rectangle with a medium grey. this way you can save it in grey scale and colorize it to what ever colors you would like.

3. You can unselect the rectangle. Go to your plugins and choose the AV Bros Page Curl 2.2 the Curl 2.1 will work too. Use the settings below.

4. I used my Photoshop CS 3 to do my bow... but in PSP you would go to your deformation tool and choose the Mesh warp tool. In PS-CS 3 I went to Edit/ Transform/ Warp. and adjusted the bow like below. I love my PSP but Photoshop CS3 offers some better options for warping, also for shading and highlighting as I show you later on down in the tutorial.

5. Using my burn tool * the arrow is pointing to it* in a LARGE size brush.. I swipe one time from top to bottom on the bow loop. This darkens right below the highlighted hump of the loop. In PSP you use the Lighten and Darken Brush tool.. the left mouse button is the lighten.. the Darken is the right mouse button

NOTE: One thing to explain... in PSP when you use the burn tool its like it really burns it.. you know what color anything is when its burning.. kind of a brownish dark color.. In Photoshop when your using the Burn Tool it uses the existing color.. and makes it darker shades... even a light pink.. it will make it darker pink.. so in Photoshop its really BY FAR is better than in PSP... when your shading and highlighting.

6. Using the Dodge tool *arrow points to it* and also using a smaller brush I swipe the top of the loop to highlight the raised part of the loop.

7. I now go to EDIT/ Free Transform or deformation tool in PSP and turn the bow loop like below.. this will be the top left loop of the bow.

8. Duplicate this loops layer. and if in PSP mirror it.. or in PS-CS3 you would go to EDIT/free deform.

Pull the loop over to the right side, so it will look just like the left side loop.

9. Keep doing this till you have the 4 loops.

Here is with the four bow loops.

10. You can decide if you just want your bow to have 4 or 6 loops at this stage.. if you want the 6. then duplicate 2 more times and position like the below samples.

The bow directly below.. I used the burn tool to darken under the edges of the top loops..

In this sample... I am adding a 5th bow loop, made it a lil smaller.. with the deform tool, positioned it over the other bottom two loops

Below is with all 6 loops.. Notice I darkened below those two top loops.. to give the bow more dimension.

11. Add a new layer on top of all the others. use your round selection tool and draw you a circle.

12. Fill with the medium gray you used on the bow.

13. I used Alien Skin Eye Candy Impact's Glass on the circle in the middle. Here are the settings below.

14. I think Photoshop CS 3 colorizes things better also.. so if your in PS go to IMAGE/Adjustments/Hue and Saturation.

If your in PSP you can find colorize under Adjust/ Hue and Saturation/ Colorize

15. This is the Bow in Red.

16. You are NOT limited to just a circle in the center.. Below I used preset shapes and applied the EC Impact Glass to them.. Then colorized the bow to orange.

Now if you want to put a ribbon on your bow... here is how I did it..

17. I filled a rectangle selection with the same grey and used the free deform on it.. deformation tool in PSP.

Turn it as shown.

18. Used the point to point selection and cut out a section of the bottom of the ribbon. You CAN use the AV bros curl pro and just curl the end if you wanted to.

19. Using the Dodge and Burn tool I put shadows on the ribbon. Remember the high part is light.. the lower or deeper parts is dark.

20. I used the Edit/ Transform/ Warp.. or deformation tool Mesh warp in PSP on the ribbon and shaped it like below.

21. Added a new layer.. I selected the ribbon.. then filled the new layer.. with in that selection to black.. so it was same shape as the ribbon. this will be a realistic shadow.

22. Used the Warp on the shadow this time..

Pushed in the right top. Pulled up and out with the bottom right corner.

23. Now use the Gaussian blur on the shadow layer.

24. Lower the opacity of the shadows layer to 32% or so. That's IT!!! You colorize it just like you did the bow.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial..

TOODLES.