Welcome to Tracy's Graphics ©Leopard Skin Seamless Tile Tutorial!!

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For this tut you will need PSP (any version will make this, but I have done it in 7), Eye Candy 4000 (or an older version will do, but the effects will be slightly different) and Simple Filters Half Wrap plug-in - this can be found here.

Ok, down to business... 1 Open up a new image 200x200 with a transparent background. You can do it smaller, but I find this to be better to fit more markings in!

2 Flood fill the whole square with a golden yellow #F4C00C. Then go to Effects>Plug-Ins>Eye Candy4000>Fur and use the following settings making sure the lighting is set at default, and the hair colour is set at the same yellow #F4C00C:



3 Add a new layer and select black #000000 as your foreground colour. Select your airbrush with the following settings:



4 And spray a rough horseshoe-shaped patch like this, using single clicks of the airbrush overlapping to give a bumpy edge, in the middle(ish) of your square. It doesn't have to be exact as you will soon see:



5 Go to Effects>Blur>Gaussian Blur and apply using a radius of 5. Add a new layer. Select a rich orange gold #F4940C for your foreground colour and spray a patch in the middle of the horseshoe. It should now look something like this:



6 Apply the same Gaussian Blur of 5. Make your horseshoe layer visible. And apply the fur again keeping all the settings the same (except uncheck the seamless tile box), change the hair colour to black. Do this again on the orange blob layer changing the hair to orange. It should now resemble this:



7 Turn off the background layer, make the middle layer visible and merge the top two layers visible. Go to Effects>Plug-ins>Simple>Half Wrap. You should now have something like this:



8 Now add a new layer, and repeat the process of adding some more horseshoe shapes, and some smaller splodges of black, being careful not to go too close to the edges. You can use a slightly smaller brush size at this stage - say 30, and about a 15 for the really small splodges. Gaussian blur them at 5. Add a new layer and put some orange in the middle of the horseshoes. Gaussian blur them at 5. You should now have something like this:



9 Now make the horseshoes layer active and apply the fur again, making sure the hair colour is black. And then do the same on the orange layer making sure the hair colour is orange. Merge layers visible and save. And that's it!!



Why not try experimenting with other types of animal skin like zebra or tiger? Have fun. Any problems, e-mail me!