This tutorial was written on January 10th 2003 and © by Lady Oz. You may make a copy of this tutorial or print it out for your own personal use ONLY. Do not send through emails nor put on your own site, but if you would like to LINK to my tutorials please do so. Also what you create belongs to you, I only own this tutorial and wish it to stay on this page. *s*.
*Disclaimer* I got the general idea for this Irish Leprechaun from a tiny piece of clipart on the Internet, I liked the stance and set up so thought that it would make a great vector and shading project. The original was an ugly looking character who looked more like a monkey and a skinny looking runt at that...I've made this one to look more like my Leprechaun that sits in my fern barrel on my patio...sort of jolly and well fed. LOL Shaun the Leprechaun is one handsome dude....to be sure! Aw...shucks...he's blushing now. *s*
Tools you will be needing to do this tutorial are as follows:
Preset Shapes
Object Selector
Draw Tool
Retouch tool
Layer Visibility Toggle
Now finish off Sean the Leprechaun! *s*
Step 27* Make sure all the coat, vest and tail parts fit in together neatly...then if you are happy with the shapes, positions, sizes, colours etc of your leprechaun, now is the time to convert them all to Raster layer. The following is basically how I did mine...you can make yours in whichever way you wish.... I started from the bottom of the image with the large Shamrock.
Selections....Select All...Float....grab the retouch tool
.....Darken RGB...draw some vein lines on your leaves. Then change the Hardness to 0.... Opacity to 30 and Step size to 50....shade in the leaves and over some of the lines to give them depth...paying particular attention to the base of the leaves and around the shoes where the touch the leaves. You can also use the smudge, soften tools etc...play around until you are happy with the effects.
Still in Retouch tools...Lighten RGB...and with these settings add some light areas to the leaves. Then increase the Opacity to 80 for some stronger lightened areas.
Effects...Blur....Soften.
Effects...Noise....Add 12% Uniform
Deselect... ctrl+d It should look something like this one.
You can add a stem under this layer if you wish...though I haven't bothered for this tutorial.
*note...all following steps will assume that you have checked each layer and then converted to Raster....I won't be reminding you on every step..
Save as a PSP file!
Step 28* Select the coat tails layer...grab the darken tool again but change the settings to something like these ones....20-20-30-5-30...shade in the areas where the material will be much darker....
Save!
Step 29* Next was his lower left leg.
Select all...Float.
Effects...Textured Effects...Weave
Gap size 1
Width 1
Opacity 29
Weave colour #FFFFFF
Gap colour #E0D6C2
Keeping selected, add a cut out with these settings:
vertical 2
horizontal 2
Opacity 23
Blur 6
Shadow colour #000000
Deselect....ctrl+d
Grab the retouch tool again and choose 'Lighten down' to add some darkened areas to give definition to the leg...and to add shadows where they may be needed.
Save!
Step 30* Using the Retouch tool...Lighten RGB...in the same way as before, add highlights to both his shoes.
Do the same thing for each of the buckles too.
Save!
Step 31* Click on the body layer and with the retouch tool...Soften...3-30-30-40-50...soften around the edges of the bottom line on both sides. Add some shading and markings to the lower part of the body...see pic below...we will go back to this layer later to finish off the shading...when we have the coats etc in place.
Now select the right thigh and add the highlights and shadows in the same way as before....do the same for the left thigh.
Save!
Step 32*
We don't need to do anything with the shirt....but you may have other plans...go for it.
Select the 'Right side vest' layer and add the shadings and highlights where necessary...if you wish to you can add a texture to it too. Now do the 'Left side vest'....Before we forget...go back to the 'Body' layer and add the shadows under the two sides of vest.
Select the 'Right side coat' layer and add the highlights and shading. Repeat for the left side of coat.
Select the 'Right sleeve' and add the shading and highlights. Now do the same for the right cuff. Repeat for the 'Left sleeve' and 'left cuff'. Select the buttons on both the coat and vest and do the same with the highlights etc.
Look over your image and check to see if you have shadows in the right places, use the soften tool with a small size of about 2 to soften the lines where the coat joins the tails etc. Add dark lines for buttonholes and don't forget the shading around the buttons too. (Cracking the whip again) LOL
This is what we should have so far.
Save!
Step 33*
Select the neck layer and add the highlights and shading.
Now select the right cheek layer....Effects...Blur...Gaussian Blur....6....repeat for the left cheek.
Select the right pupil and with the retouch tool...Lighten RGB...size 3 Opacity 100% add a little highlight...reduce to size 1 and add a bit more...not too much though. Repeat for other eye.
Add a little bit of darkening to each of the eyes...in the white areas.
Grab his nose...ouch!....add highlights etc to this too....soften if necessary. Repeat for the mouth too. Select the head layer and give final touches of highlighting and shading.
Select the beard layer and add the Eye Candy 3 Jiggle filter. See above settings. I added some highlights to his beard after I applied the EC3 and then used the smudge and push tool to shape his beard up a wee bit.
Select one of the eyebrows and apply the EC 3 to this too...adding the highlights afterwards. Now when I tried to repeat all this for the other eyebrow, I got a terrible shape...so I deleted it and duplicated the first eyebrow that I did and mirrored it...ahh...much better. *s*
Select the hat rim and add shading and highlights then do the same for the hat...he's starting to look good now...though he hasn't shut up all the way through making him...full of the Irish blarney he is...to be sure. LOL
Oh...shut up, Shaun....I'm not going to forget your ears at all...to be sure I'm not! Sheesh!
Select the ears and add highlights and shading in the same way as you have been doing.
Save!
Step 34*
Select the 'Stick' layer and add highlights and shading to give it depth...I also added a few other colours to it with the 'Saturation to Target' tool in the Retouch palette.
Now add dark lines and highlights to the left hand to define the fingers and knuckles. Select the thumb and add dark shading. You will need to select the left cuff layer and add some shading around where the hand and stick are....do this also on the stick layer...around the thumb and hand areas.
Save!
Step 35*
Select the 'Right hand' layer and add dark lines and highlights to define the fingers and knuckles.
Click on the 'shamrock stem' layer....make sure that it is above the right sleeve and below the right hand layers....select all...float...add highlights and shading to give it a rounded effect....also don't forget to add the shading under the hand area...the sleeve will need some shadow too where the stem lies across it.
Add lines, shading, and highlights to the shamrock in the same way as for the large shamrock...then place the leaves on top of the stem
Save!
Step 36*
Now all that remains is to make a bow for him to complete his dress....also one for his stick. I used the draw tool to make both of mine...just made a few shapes and put them together....I'll leave that up to you to sort out as I am worn out after this little lot. I think I'm ready for a cup of tea...Irish Breakfast tea that is....with maybe one of my 'Irish style muffins'...yummy!
Now don't forget to make a tube of your leprechaun....I did one without the beard etc too....so now I have Shaun and his son, Paddy...with a grandfather, uncle and a cousin named Paddy, I had to have that name in here somewhere. *s*
I know that this was a lot of hard work but I do hope that you enjoyed doing it...I look forward to seeing your results. Thank you for doing my tutorial. Hugs, Mary
Have Fun! and Email if you have any problems!
