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Fantasy Fish
Project
Parts and inspiration
supplied by Linda White-Cable
For the original
inspiring images she made, please visit
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This tutorial will be more in the line of a project than a tutorial, because Linda White-Cable has graciously donated all the parts to her fantasy fish and not so fantasy birds for us to use. All you will have to do for this is fill the fish with your own colors, and add highlights with the paintbrush. There are several different kinds of fish for you to choose from on the download page, which I've hosted on nbci because of the large size of the files. |
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will be focusing on one of the fish available for download, the angelfish,
because it seems to be the most complicated of all of them, but the general
rules for the angelfish apply for the other fish as well. In
each zip, there will be a jpg example file for you to use as a guide.
It is only for you to use as a guide. You may not use the jpg for
any other purpose but study. Linda's fish are works of art, and her
copyright. That is why I've put her name across each one.
I've supplied the fish parts in both ufo and psd form so that those who still use version 5 can use them and follow along too. The ufo forms have parts in path format for some of the files. You can easily use the path objects to store in your easy palette, and use for extra shapes. If you still use version 5, you will have to go to edit/trace selection marquee for each one to turn them into path objects again. |
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go to the Fantasy
fish download page to download the angelfish ufo or psd.
Unzip the file, and store it in any folder on your hard drive. You may want to make a new folder to store all of the ufos for this project. Open the angelfish ufo or psd file. Those using the ufo file will find that the parts for the angelfish are grouped. Right click and ungroup them. The different parts of the fish are shaded in different colors of gray. The gray parts are the ones we ar going to color. The black parts should be left black. The ufo file has most of the parts as shapes also. You can drag these to the easy palette to use with the path tool if you like. I recommend moving these black shapes to a new canvas so they are not in your way while working. |
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Now that you
have your ufo or psd open, open a new canvas, 400 by 400. We will
use this to work on because the ufo contains many parts.
Find the large body of the angelfish that looks like this first. We will be using it as a guide for where to place the different parts. Drag this part to your new canvas. |
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Now find the tail part of the fish. It looks like this. |
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Let's
begin to color it. Go to edit/fill. Click the gradient tab.
Use a two color gradient. Change the colors to two colors close together
on the color wheel. I've used blue and lavender. You can choose
any two colors you like that are close together on the color wheel, but
make the first color a very light shade.
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Change to the paintbrush, chalk brush. In the attribute bar, under preset, click the down arrow, and click gritty chalk. Change the color to a dark shade of the same tone as the dark color in your gradient. Change transparency to 75%. You will notice that now the preset will say none. That is normal. Now, using Linda's fish as a guide, shade the bottom part of the tail with the brush. You can click and drag the brush over the parts that should be darker, and just click once on parts where the shading is lighter. Keep working until you are satisfied with the result. You may want to use the burn tool in some areas to darken some parts. You will find the burn tool in the retouch tools right above the paint brush.
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Now go to the other canvas with all the parts, and find the top half of the body. Move it to your new canvas. Fill it with the same gradient as you used for the tail. Again, use the chalk brush to shade, but this time use the same color as you used for the dark color of your gradient, and shade the top part of the piece instead of the bottom. Repeat for the dorsal fin, shading it with the bristle brush using the same settings. |
| No go back to the parts canvas, and get the top and bottom fins and the bottom part of the body. Select all three parts and go to edit/fill. Choose a gradient with a contrasting color to your original gradient. I chose two shades of red for mine. Place these three parts in the appropriate places, and again, paint with the chalk brush using Linda's fish as a model. |  |
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Now it is time to place the black stripes on the fish. You may have to move your parts around a little so that the stripes don't stick out. I found that I did. |
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now have two parts left, the eye and the swim fin. Fill the
eye with green, and the fin with the contrasting gradient you last used.
Shade both of these parts with the bristle brush. send the eye behind
the stripes.
Save your work as a ufo or in your easy palette. |
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Click the image at left to go to the tutorial for making the background. |
