To do this Tutorial, you will need PSP and Animation Shop

both sold by Corel

a Tube

I used art by Ismael Rac

Tubes and license can be found at his Store

Do not use this art without a proper license

MuRa Meister-Copies

Xero-Porcelain

DSB Flux-Bright Noise

Ready?

Let's begin!

New Image 600x250

From your Tube, choose a light color for your foreground and

a darker color for your background

On the Foreground-make a linear gradient

Angle 45-Repeats 3-Invert checked

Fill with your gradient- Adjust Blur-Gaussian Blur-20

Make the darker color your foreground and the lighter color the background

Ellipse tool set to circle-line width 2

Make a small circle -Objects-Align-Center in Canvas

Rasterize- MuRa-Copies-Tiling Feedback

Change the Number to 1 and the Tile Gap to 2

Magic Wand-default settings-click inside one of your circles

Selections-Modify-Select Color Range

Tolerance and Softness-20

Reference Color-Your Background color

Promote selection to layer

Highlight original circles layer-Delete-Deselect

Add a sharp Drop Shadow-1, 1, 100 and 1

Change the Blend Mode of the Promoted Selection layer to Hard Light

Before we add any Art, lets get what we need for our Avatar

Shift+D to copy your Tag

On the copy-Use the Crop Tool to crop out the part you want for your Avi

Set this aside for now

Back to our Tag

Highlight the top layer if It isn't already highlighted

Ellipse Tool -set to circle- same settings as for the little circles

Draw a circle thats taller than your Tag

Objects-Align-Center in Canvas-Rasterize

Xero-Porcelain-Change the blue channel to 0

Drop Shadow-0, 0, 100 and 30

Paste your Tube-Same Drop Shadow

Crop your Tag

Add a 2 px border in your dark color

Now it's time to add your Word-art, Name, CR Info and License # if necessary

Lets merge some layers now and get ready to animate

Hide the background layer, and both of the small circles layers and merge visible

Hide the merged layer and the promoted selection layer and merge visible

Now you should have 3 layers

The background with the circle outlines

The promoted selection layer

The top layer with Art, Name, CR info and Border

Animation

Duplicate Promoted Selection layer twice for a total of three layers

On the bottom layer-DSB Flux-Bright Noise

For this I used Light checked 85% for example at the top of the page

I used Mix checked in the sample at the bottom of the page

Play with it a little to get what you want

Just make sure you use the same settings on all three layers

Then Bright Noise again on the middle and top layers hitting the mix button each time

(or whatever button you used the first time)

Animate as Usual

If you don't know how, I have written a mini-tut on the subject HERE

Let's finish our Avatar

You should have 3 layers

The background

The circle outline border

the promoted selection layer

Merge the circle outline layer down with the background

Highlight the promoted selection layer

Duplicate twice for a total of 3 layers

New Layer-send to Top

Fill with darker color-select all-modify-contract 2-DELETE-Deselect

DSB Flux-Bright Noise- on the 3 promoted selection layers

Same settings as for the tag

Highlight border layer

Add your Name

Animate as usual

Sample Avi

The set that inspired this Tutorial:

I love to see results, so if you try my tutorial, please leave a link

in the comments section of my BLOG

Tutorial idea, tags/avis by Shirley Franklin