Traveling Ladybug

Supplies:

Ladybug pattern and tube HERE

Font of choice (pick a nice fat one that will show the pattern well)

Animation Shop

Open your pattern and tube in psp and minimize.

Open a new transparent image 600 x 300. You might need more or less space, depending in the size of your name.

Click on your text tool, select your font, create as vector, stroke 1, size depends on your name. Click on your blank canvas and type your name. Do not click apply yet and don't worry if it doesn't have the pattern or the colors don't match. We're going to change it.

Highlight your name in the text entry box. Click on the background box in your materials palette.

On the window that pops up, click on the pattern tab and then on the drop down box and select your ladybug pattern. It should be the very first one in the list. Angle 0, scale 100. Click ok. The background (fill) of your name has now changed to this pattern.

With your name still highlighted, click on the foreground box and change that color to black. You can also change the size of your name now too to make it smaller or larger. Click apply when done and it should look something like this.

Go up to Objects, Align and click on Center in Canvas.

Add a drop shadow by going to Effects, Drop Shadow and use these settings or your own choice: 3, 3, 40, 5, Color Black.

Unminimize your lady bug tube. Copy and paste as a new layer onto your image with your name. Ctrl m to mirror it, so it's going the correct direction. Add same drop shadow as you did your name.

Use the mover tool (looks like a 4-way arrow) to move the lady bug up to the top of the first letter of your name. If the letter has two parts to it like mine does, move it to the first part.

Add a new raster layer and add your watermark if you use one. Click on the raster 1 layer and flood fill with white.

Use your crop tool to crop off any excess space, but leave a little room around your name (1/4 to 1/2 inch is good). Draw your box around your tag, when you have the borders were you want them, double click inside the box and it'll crop off the rest. It should now look like this.

Press ctrl shift c to copy merged. Ctrl v to paste as a new animation in animation shop. Drag out the sides of the image in animation shop so you can see all the frames. This makes it easier to see the tag and all the frames you're working with.

Go back to psp and using your mover tool again, move the ladybug to the next letter in your name. Or in the case of a name like mine, the next half of the letter M.

Again ctrl shift c to copy merged. This time when you go to AS, ctrl shift L to paste AFTER current frame.

Continue moving the lady bug to the next letter and copying and pasting after each move until the lady bug has been moved to the last letter and you've pasted it into your animation in AS.

Go back to psp and ctrl m to mirror the lady bug again. Move it back over the last letter but you'll notice it's now facing the opposite direction it was before. Again ctrl shift C to copy and ctrl shift L to paste after current frame.

Now you're going to repeat the process you did before with moving the lady bug to each letter and copying and pasting after each move until the lady bug is at the very first letter again and you've pasted that into your animation.

Now if you play the animation you'll see your lady bug traveling back and forth across the top of your name but it's going super fast. Let's slow him down. Press ctrl a to select all frames. They'll now all have blue boxes around them. Press alt enter to bring up the frame properties box. Change it to a slower speed such as 30.

Save your tag and you're done. Congrats!

©Queina 2007. All rights reserved. Any simularities to any other tutorials is purely coincidental.