Easter hen or chicken.

© Louise G

You will have to use my birdbody, birdfoot, wing and tassel shapes for this tutorial. 
Get it here and zip it up in your PSP Shapes folder.
Some have asked for the teardrop shape, here it is. Zip it up in your PSP Shapes folder.

Start with a New Image 300 x 300, transparent. New Layer. Call it Body.
Fore- and background yellow color. I used #FEE832.
Preset Shapes, birdbody. The one you got in the zip.

Make it  about 160 x 147.       

New Layer. Call it Heart. Preset Shapes, Heart1.
Make a small heart about 40 x 40. Place the heart at the top of the tail.

Layers, Merge, Merge Visible. Call the layer Body.
Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the body. Click inside it.
Now you have the body selected. Effects, Cutout, with these settings.

Deselect.

New Layer. Call it Head. Preset Shapes, Ellipse.
Fore- and background, the same yellow color as before.
Make a circle about 90 x 90. Keep Shift down while you drag.
That makes the circle round. Put it on top of the body.
Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the body.
Click inside it. Effects, Cutout, with the same settings as before.

New Layer. Call it Leg. Orange color: #FAAC60. Draw Tool, with these settings.

Make two legs about 8 x 70. Layers, Arrange, Send to bottom.
Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the body.
Click inside it. Effects, Inner Bevel, with these settings.

New Layer. Call it Foot. Preset Shapes, birdfoot. The same color as on the legs.
Make the foot about 60 x 20. Deformation Tool. Turn the foot a little and put it in place.

Duplicate and put the other foot in place. Close all layers but Foot and Copy of Foot.
Merge, Merge Visible. Call it Feet. Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the feet.
Click inside it. Effects, Cutout as before, but change the color to #B35D09. Deselect.

Put on Layer Legs. Retouch Tool, Soften 5.
Soften a little at the ends of the legs so it will blend better with the feet.

Layers, Merge, Merge Visible. Call it Legs.

Stand on Layer Body. New Layer. Call it Collar1. Use the Preset Shape Tassel3.



Now you are free to use just any color you like for the collar. I used as below.
Foreground #FAF1A5, solid color and Background, #FFB752, Sunburst gradient.

Click on Edit and make the settings as shown.

Make the collar 135 x 115. Place it under the head.
Now change Fore- and Background with eachother by clicking on the arrows.

New Layer. Call it Collar2.
Make another collar, 100 x 90 and place it on top of  Collar1.
Use Deformation Tool and push and drag the collar of your choice.
Stand on Collar1. Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the collar.
Click inside it. Effects, Cutout as below.

Do the same with Collar2.

It now looks like this.

Layers, Merge, Merge Visible. Call it Body.

New Layer. Call it Eye. Black color on both Fore- and Background. Preset Shapes, Ellipse.
Make a circle  14 x 14. Keep Shift down while you drag.
Effects, 3D effects, Inner Bevel, Round. Put the eye in place.

New Layer. Call it Beak. Preset Shapes, Teardrop. Brown color on both Fore- and Background.
Make the beak 25 x 40. Deformation Tool. Turn the beak a little upwards and put it in place.
Layers, Arrange, Send to bottom. Erase a small part at the tip of the beak.
Airbrush1. Black color. Make a line at the center if the beak.

Stand on Layer Body. New Layer. Call it Wattle. Red color on both Fore- and background.
I used #FF2711. Preset Shapes, Teardrop. Make a drop about 25 x 45. Put it just under the beak.

New Layer. Call it Comb.Preset Shapes, Heart1. The same red color as before.
Make a heart 40 x 40. Place it on the head. Just above the eye. Deformation Tool.
Turn the comb a little and put it in place. Layers, Arrange, Send to bottom.

Layers, Merge, Merge Visible. Call it Body.

New Layer. Call it Scarf. Preset Shapes, Heart1. Any color you like.
Make a heart 145 x 142. Place it like I did.

Selection Tool, Circle. Make a circle that covers this area.

Delete.

Selection Tool, Ellipse. Make an ellipse that covers this area.

Delete. You can now use Deformation Tool to turn the scarf to your liking.

New Layer. Call it End. Preset Shapes, Teardrop. make a drop about 25 x 60.
Put it in place. Deformation Tool. Turn the end a little. Duplicate. Image, Mirror. Put it in place.
This is what we have got so far.

Now it is time to give the scarf a pattern. Stand on layer Scarf and look at your Patterns,
to see if there are some nice patterns to use.
You may have to scale the patterns down to get a small pattern-fill.

Get the Bucket and Flood Fill with your choice.
Stand on Layer End and copy of Layer End and do the same filling.

Stand on Layer Scarf. Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the scarf and click inside.
Effects, Cutout with these settings.

Since I chose a blue pattern, I used a darkblue shadow color.
You can use a dark color of one of your colors on the scarf.
Do the same cutout with the ends of the scarf, but lower the Opacity to 55.

If you want to decorate the scarf, make a New Layer.
I made a dot with Preset Shapes, Circle. Both Fore- and Background blue color.
Then I duplicated that layer as many times as I needed.

Close Layer Body. Layers, Merge, Merge Visible to the rest. Call it Scarf.
Now you can make different scarfs to the chicken if you like.

New layer. Call it Wing1. Preset Shapes, Heart9. White color on both Fore- and Background.

Make a heart 115 x 125. Deformation Tool. Turn the heart.
Selection Tool, Rectangle. Mark half of the heart. Delete.
I have made the background dark, so you can see better what to do.

Deformation Tool. Push the marked node upwards, to make the wing a bit narrower.

New Layer. Call it Wing2. Use an other color. I used orage.
Make the same heart a little smaller in size
and do the same procedure with it. Put it inside the first heart.

Close all layers except Layer Wing1 and Wing2. Layers, Merge, Merge Visible. Call it Wing.
Duplicate this layer and use Deformation Tool to drag and push the wing part to fit inside the first one.

Duplicate this layer and use Deformation Tool to drag and push the wing-part to fit inside the second one.

Close Layer Scarf and Layer Body. Layers, Merge, Merge Visible to the rest. Call it Wing.
Now you can use Deformation Tool to manipulate the wing to your liking.
I just made my wing a little higher. When you are finished, go to Effects, Sharpen, once.
Make sure your Layer Scarf is on top. Close it.
Stand on Layer Body. Layers, Merge, Merge Visible to the rest.
 

Ka, ka, ka, ka. Here I come.

If you like another color on your chicken or hen you are free to do so.
You can also give her more feathers, like this one, or use her without a schal.

Tutorials