Santa's head

© Louise G

This is a Santa with a little silver in his beard.

This tutorial uses some Vectors.

You have to get my hair-tube here. Zip it up in your PSP tubes folder.
Get my seam here. Put it in your Psp Styled Lines folder.

Save often!

Start with a New Image 200 x 350, transparent. Fill it with black color. Call it Black. Close it.

New Vector Layer. Call it Cap. Preset Shapes, Rounded Rectangle. Fore- and Background #FF4040.
Antialias checked. Create as Vector checked. Make the rectangle 80 x 170.
Object Selector. Node Edit. Rearrange the nodes like I did.

Right click and Quit node Editing. Left click on your Image.
Right click in your Layers Palette and Convert to Raster Layer.

Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the cap. Click inside it. Keep the "ants" dancing.
New Layer. Make some shading, with a darker red color, the way I did.

Blur, Gaussian Blur 8. Deselect. Merge Visible. Call it Cap.

New Vector Layer. Call it Rim. Preset Shapes, Rounded Rectangle. Fore- and Background #F22E2E.
Antialias checked. Create as Vectors checked. Make the rectangle 95 x 50.
Object Selector. Node Edit. Make some new nodes, like I did. Keep Ctrl down while you add the nodes.

Right click and Quit node Editing. Left click on your Image.
Right click in your Layers Palette and Convert to Raster Layer.

Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the cap. Click inside it. Keep the "ants" dancing.
New Layer. Make some shading, with a darker red color, the way I did.

Blur, Gaussian Blur 7. Deselect. Close Layer Cap. Merge Visible. Call it Rim.

New raster Layer. Call it Seam. Draw, as shown below.

Use Point to Point Line to make the seam.

Stand on Layer Seam. Erase the stitches above the line.
Put on Layer Black. So you can see better while you erase. Zoom the Image also.
 

Stand on Layer Rim. Erase the red part you see at the arrow as well.

Close layer Black and Layer Cap. Layers, Merge Visible. Call it Rim.
Put on Cap Layer again. Now it is time to see if you are satisfied
with the shape of your cap. If you are not, use Deformation Tool to
drag and push the nodes to your liking, then Layers, Merge Visible. Call the Layer, Cap.
If you find the rim-part a bit jagged, use retouch Tool Soften on the edges.

My cap looks like this now. I pulled the top out a bit.

New Layer. Call it Head. Preset Shapes, Ellipse. Fore- and Background #FACFB2.
Antialias checked. Make a circle 85 x 85. Keep Shift down while you make the circle.
Drag the Layer under Cap Layer.

Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the head. Click inside. Keep the "ants" dancing.
New Layer. Airbrush 3. Red color. Put some red on santas cheeks. Gaussian Blur 9. Deselect.
Keep Layer Cap and Layer Black closed and Merge Visible to the rest. Call it Head.

New Layer. Call it Eye. Preset Shapes, Ellipse. Black color on both Fore- and Background.
Create as Vector NOT checked.  Make a circle 10 x 10. Effects, Inner Bevel, Round.
Put the eye in place, a little bit under the rim of the cap. Duplicate and put the other eye in place.

New Layer. Call it Nose. Preset Shapes, Ellipse.  Color #F7B48F on both Fore- and Background.
Make a circle 23 x 23. Selection Tool. Make a rectangle around the nose. Click inside it.
Effects, Cutout

New Layer. Call it Mouth. Preset Shapes, Crescent. Color #FD9F8D on both Fore- and Background.

Make it 12 x 14. Deformation Tool. Turn it and put it in place.

The face looks like this now.

Close Layer Black and Layer Cap. Merge Visible to the rest. Call it Head.

Now to the beard. Use my hair tube, scale 50, and put the hair around Santas cheeks and jaw.

New Layer. Call it Beard. Put Beard Layer on top of Cap Layer.

New Layer. Call it Top. Preset Shapes, Triangle. Red color on both Fore- and Background.
Make four triangles each on separate Layers. Turn them after your liking, into their positions.

Drag those Layers under Cap Layer.

If you are satisfied with what you see, Delete Layer Black and Merge Visible to the rest.

 Now to the decorations. You can use anything you like, Preset Shapes, dingbats, something of your own.
New Layer. I used a Preset Shape and colored it.

When you are finished with this, Layers, Merge Visible and you are done.

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