*** Created as a reply to a request at roxydollboard ***

Create spike brushes in PSP:

Open an image - preferably something abstract... run a search for abstract in gettyone to download some nice images. Like this one:

Next use the freehand tool

with the tool options set to "point to point"

to create a star selection (after you clicked all the points, double click on the image to close the selection):

Now go to the "edit" menu and choose "copy".

Then open a new image with a white background and make sure it's twice as big as that selection you just copied.

Now go to the "edit" menu again and choose "paste as new layer".

You should get something like this:

Now go to the layer pallette (it should be floating in the work area) and right click on the new layer you created and choose duplicate:

Then go to the "image" menu and choose "rotate":

Then in the degrees box choose how many degrees you'd like to rotate the duplicated layer. Here I chose 45 (make sure "all layers" is *NOT* slected):

After the layer was rotated, go to this layer in the layer pallette and change the blending mode to "hard light":

This should be the result:

Now you can repeat this again as many times as you like - duplicate the layer, rotate it, change the blending mode... Until you like the result enough to turn it into a brush. This is what I created:

Now resize the image to so that its width and height are no larger than 255 pixels (doesn't have to be 255x255, but can't be larger than that). After you resize you might want to sharpen the image a bit.

Now go to Jen's Tutorial to learn how to create the new brush.

Now use it...

Or, do something like this...

Use the brush and stamp it using a few colours:

Then choose the colour white and stamp the brush in white all around and above the colour image:

Then crop all the white areas, resize to 255x255 pixels (or less) and sharpen and then create a new brush that can do this:

OK - I hope this was clear :-)

Vered

*Bonus - PSP spike brushes created for this tutorial - download here.

Please Note:
I mostly use Photoshop... so I ask forgiveness if there are easier ways to create this...
I am always open to suggestions.

Return to vbrush.