Circus Train

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Although I'm making my train as a Circus Train you can also use it for other purposes,
such as a Christmas Train or as a toy. It's up to you how you want to use yours.

Some of the screenshots in this tutorial have been resized and colors lowered to save on load time,
the images may not look the same as what yours will.

This tutorial is written using PSP7 but should work in PSP6. Note.. that if 6 is used the
position of the tools, effects, and filter will be different or not available with 6.

This tutorial uses vectors and assumes you have a working knowledge of PSP using Vectors and Nodes.

Wood grain pattern needed for this tutorial or you may use one you already have.
Place the wood pattern in your pattern folder in PSP.

Remember to save often!
This tutorial is long. I have tried to provide as many screenshots as possible to make this as easy as I could.
I know that most people prefer a tutorial to be on one page but since this one is comprised of 4 different cars
that will make up the train I decided that one page was just to long, so I have cut it into 2 pages. The first page
is of the engine and the coal car. The second page is of one animal car and the caboose. We will only make one
animal car in this tutorial but the colors on it can be changed to make several other cars to add to your train. Or
you may decide you'd like to make a solid passenger car to add to your train which can easily be done following the
directions for the animal car except making a solid middle with holes for windows done like the window explained
in the box for the engine. Use your imagination and create all sorts of things for your train.

Let's get started first with the engine for our train.
Open a 600x400 transparent

Set your background color to whatever color you would like the base of your engine to be. I
chose green #008000 as mine.

Preset Shapes to Rectangle, create as a Vector and Antialias both CHECKED. Line width does
not matter.

1.) Close to the bottom middle of your palette draw out a rectangle. Click on the Object Selector, then
right click on your palette, click Node Edit. On the right side of your vector add 3 Nodes as
I have in the screenshot below...

This will become the coupler of your train that will connect the other cars.

Take the middle Node and pull it out some. ( in the image above the node that is black, grab
and pull out.)

Now add 4 more nodes, two on the top and two on the bottom. Pull those nodes so that you
form a straight line but with a rounded end. Look at the screenshot below...

Convert to Raster rename as base.

2.)Preset Shapes, same settings as before except change to Ellipse, background color, same as
for the base.
Draw out a tall slender oval at the right end of your base, something like this..

Now let's edit that oval. We want something that looks sort of like a leg and foot. Look at the
screenshot below to see where I placed the extra nodes and how it should look...

When you are happy Convert to Raster, rename as front.

3.) Change your background color to a bright red, I'm using #E20E0E
Preset Shapes, Ellipse. We will be making the steam tank part of the train.

Draw out a long oval that covers a little over half of the base area. Something like this..

Click the Object Selector, then right click on your palette and select Node Edit.
At the right front of your vector add a node on both sides of the one that is already there. Pull
the node down so that it will meet with your green bottom base. Now pull the other node you
placed on the top up so that it is almost to the top of the green front. ( you don't want the red
tank part to be as high as the green front).
Check out the screenshot below to see where I placed mine and how it should look. We want
to leave the tank part looking sort of like a cylinder but we also need it to be flat at the front
and at the back so that it will match up with the front and with where our engine car will be. I
also placed a little dip in the right top and bottom of the tank so that it will look like it goes smaller
as it reaches the front. I will shade that area more to define it later on in the tut...

Convert to Raster and rename to tank.

4.) Change your background to Pattern, select the wood grain I've included with this tut or you
can use a color or pattern of your choice. If you use the wood grain, change the angle to 90 degrees.
Preset Shapes, Rectangle.
Draw out a rectangle to fit behind the tank but not over the back edge...

Convert to Raster, rename as bottom box.
With your Selection Tool set to rectangle, Feather 0. Select an area at the top center of the box, like this...

Hit the Delete Key on your keyboard to remove the selected area. Selections, Select None. This will be
the window.
5.) Now back to the Preset shapes tool same settings and pattern used for the box above, except change the
angle back to 0.
Draw a narrow rectangle on the top of the box. This will be the roof...

Now you can leave the roof as is and it looks fine, but I decided I wanted a little pitch on my roof so I
added a couple Nodes to the top middle of my rectangle and angled them up in the front and down in
the back to make my roof look like this...

Convert to Raster rename as roof.

6.) While we still have the wood as our color let's make the the light that will be on the front of our engine.
Preset shape to Ellipse. Draw out a small oval at the bottom of the green front like this....

Now pull the top and bottom nodes in to flatten out the back of the light.
Convert to Raster, rename as light.

Now for our wheels!
7.) Change your background color to the red engine color #E20E0E or whatever color you would like your
wheels to be. Preset Shapes, Ellipse. Draw out a circle at the front of your engine, like this..

Now change your background color to black and draw a circle in the middle of the red, like this...

Convert to Raster and rename as Wheel 1.
8.) Duplicate the layer twice (2 times) and move into position as wheel 2 and wheel 3, renaming as so.

9.) Change the Preset Shapes to rectangle and lets make a bar to connect the 3 wheels together.
Draw a long narrow rectangle that extends from the black circle in the center of the first wheel all the way
to the black circle on the 3rd wheel, like this...

Your train should now look something like the image above. Convert to Raster and rename as bar.

10.) Now to make the engine a smoke stack. With the background color set to black,
Preset shapes Ellipse. Draw out a long narrow oval on top
of the front of the red tank...

Look carefully at the image above to see where I placed extra nodes and how I moved them to get the
look. When you're happy Convert to Raster and rename as smokestack. I also made another smaller
oval behind the smokestack. Why I don't know it just looked like it needed one there *L* Look at the
image below to see it.

11.) Now we need to make the front of our tank so that it looks like the tank is coming out in the front of
the steam engine.
Background Color to red #E20E0E, Preset Shapes, Ellipse.
Draw out an tall narrow oval in the front of the engine. Click on the Object Selector, right click on
your palette and select Node Edit. Now pull the bottom node in so that it meets the front of the green
area. Do the same thing with the top node so that you end up with something like this...

Convert to raster and rename to front tank. Now with the same settings draw another smaller circle
in the center of the front tank. Adjust the nodes just like you did for the larger oval. Look at the screenshot
below..

Convert to Raster and rename to eye.

12.) We need to do a little rearranging of our layers now so that our engine will look better.
You layers should be arranged as follows...

Please save your engine now as a PSP file. You can change the colors on it later if you wish if
you do not merge the layers, to do this go to Colors, Colorize, and playing with the Hue and Saturation
on each layer to find a combination of colors you like.

Ready to make the engine a little more 3D?

13.) Close all Layers except the tank layer.
Make the tank your active layer, Go to Selections, Select All, Selections Float.
Add a new layer.
Make your foreground color #950F0F if you used red as the tank color if not then use a darker color
of the tank color used.
With your Draw Tool set to the settings below place a line in the area on the tank where you put the
dip when making it. Pull out on the center of the line just a little so that it will bend the bezier for form
a curve, set it by double clicking.

14.) Go to Effects, Blur, Gaussian Blur with a radius of 2. Leave Selected.
Add a new layer and apply a cutout using these settings..

Add a new layer and apply the same cutout again but with -3 as the Vertical.
Select None, merge the 3 layers visible with the tank layer and rename to tank. It should look like this..

15.) Now close (make invisible) the tank layer and make your front tank layer the active layer. Go to
Selections, Select All, Selections Float. Add a new layer. Yada yada like you don't already know this!
Apply the first cutout as we did for the tank except lower the Opacity to 28.
Select None, Merge two layers Visible and rename to front tank.
Hide tank front along with the tank layer that is already invisible and make the base visible and your
active layer. Yep you know it, go to Selections, Select All, Selections Float.
Apply and Inner Bevel using these settings..

Select None. Hide your Base, make your box layer visible and your active layer.
Selections, Select All, Selections Float. I applied the same Inner Bevel as I did for the base except I
changed the Ambience to minus 12 on my box layer.
Select None.
I then made my roof the active Layer and applied the same Inner Bevel to it.

16.) I still thought it needed something to make it look a little more 3D, so I went back to my box layer
and copied it. I then paste it as a new layer below my original box. (hide original box so you can see better)
I used my Deformation Tool to resize it, bring in the sides and bringing up the bottom, I also thought that it
should be darker since it would be the inside of the box so, I went to Colors, Brightness and Contrast and
lowered the Brightness to minus 35 and the Contrast to minus 28. Check it with all layers visible and see
what you think. Here is what mine looks like now...

Now hide all Layers Except the box, the inside box, and the roof Layer merge them visible renaming
to Box.
NOTE... If you think you may want to add an engineer or something to the inside of your train engine
at some point then Do Not merge the layers together, skip this step and go to the next one..

17.) Hide the box Layer/layers (if you did not merge them), make the front layer visible and your active layer.
Apply an Inner Bevel using these settings..

18.)Make your Smokestack your active Layer, apply a Inner Bevel using the Preset Round setting. ( go into
inner bevel and click the drop down menu and look for a preset called Round) The settings are already done
for you.
Do the same Inner Bevel on smokestack 2.

19.) Make your eye layer you active layer. Go to Selections, Select All, Selections Float. Add a new layer.
Apply a cutout using these settings..

Select None
Close all layers except the eye and cutout layer and merge visible, rename to eye.

20.) Make Wheel 1 your active Layer. Apply the round preset Inner Bevel (like you did on the smokestack).
Apply the Round Preset Inner Bevel to the other 2 wheels as well.
21.) Make the bar Layer you active layer and apply the Inner Bevel Round preset but change the width to 4 and
the shininess to 69.
22.) The only other layer we haven't done anything with is the light layer. Make it you active layer, go to Inner
Bevel, reset ( click on the presets again and chose Round) the round Preset, then change only the Ambience
to minus 15.

You are now finished with the engine for you train!

You can merge all layers visible and export as a tube to later add the other cars to if you wish or if you plan to
add an engineer to your train just save as a PSP without merging the layers.

Now on to making the coal car for the train!

23.) Open a 600x400 transparent. Set you background color to a pretty purple yeah purple seems like
a bright color for a Circus train! #C00CC2 is what I'm using! *L* Yeah I know coal cars are usually black
but hey this is a circus train so it should be colorful, right?!?!

24.)With you Preset Tools set to rectangle, Create as a vector and Antilias both CHECKED. Draw out an large
rectangle on your palette. (note: leave an area on both ends of your rectangle large enough for the front and
back to have couplers so that you can later connect your train together, also remember to leave enough on
the bottom for your wheels, gotta have wheels.)

Click on the Object Selector and then right click on your palette and select Node Edit.
Place a Node in the center of the top. Then place two Nodes on both sides of the center one you added.
It should look like this...

Now take the middle 3 Nodes that you added and pull down on them to form a dip at the top, something
like this...

Now lets make the front coupler. Remember how we made the one for the engine? Well this is basically
the same way.
Add 3 nodes just above the left bottom node, like so...

Pull out on the middle Node that you added. Look at the series of screenshot below to see were to add the
other nodes..

Now go to the rear of the car, (the right end) and lets make the rear coupler in the same way but make it a
little lower to the bottom than you did the front one. You should end up with something like this..

25.) Now this next step may seem weird at first but believe me it is the best way to make sure that your train
will connect together once it's all finished. Go to Windows, Duplicate. This will duplicate your window.
We will now be using this duplicate to finish our coal car, but first go back to the original coal car. Select
Node Edit and pull those 3 Nodes back up so that you have a flat top once again. Now pull up on those
Nodes to make the car taller, but still leaving it straight across the top. (we just need to add a little height
to the coal car so that we can use it later to make our animal car)You should have something that looks
like this...

26.) Convert to Raster save this image as a PSP file unmerged naming it carbase.psp
That way if you get tired and want to continue later you want lose it. You can either close the window
or leave it open and minimize it for later use.

27.)Now back to our duplicated copy which is now our coal car! *L*
As you can see it's still as a vector layer but you can't edit it any longer. Convert the layer to Raster,
rename to coalcar.

28.) Set your Preset Tools to Ellipse, create as vector and antilias both checked. Set your background color to
a bright green *L* I'm using #51E751
Draw out a circle for the front wheel. Convert it to Raster. Change the background color to a bright
orange #F9830F and draw out a circle in the center of the green circle almost as large as the green one
to make the center of the wheel. (check screenshot down below) Convert to raster. Change your background
color to black and make a smaller circle in the center of the orange.
Convert it to Raster. With the black circle your active layer go to Selections, Select All, Selections, Float.
Apply the Preset Round Inner Bevel ( you may need to reset the settings on the round by click in again
in the preset drop down menu). Now make the orange circle your active layer, go to Selections, Select All,
Selections, Float. Apply a cutout using these settings...

Select None..
Make the green wheel your active layer, Apply an Inner Bevel using these settings..

29.) At this point I chose to copy and paste as a new layer my 3 wheel layers so that I could use them for other
cars for my train. I did not merge them together because I wanted to be able to change the colors on the
different sections of the wheel later. So if you think you would like to do this also, copy and paste each of
the 3 sections of wheel as new layers and save them in PSP format to use later. Now once I did that, I
merged my wheel layers visible and duplicated the wheel layer and moved into position as my rear wheel.
Now make your coal car layer your active layer and lets do something with it. go to Selections, Select All,
Selections, Float. Add a new layer. Make your foreground color a slightly darker color than what your car is.
Since mine is purple I'm using #830987 Use the Draw tool with these settings..

30.) Below is a screenshot of what I want you to do with the draw tool, look it over carefully and do yours
the same way...

See how I followed the contour of the car shape at the top to make it look as if it's a 3d car? I also traced
around the whole box area except for my couplers. Now once you have that done. Select None, and merge
visible the line layer with the coal car layer.
31.) Now lets make some chunks of coal for our car. Preset Shapes tool. Background color black, foreground
closed. Create as a vector UNchecked. Add a new layer naming it coal. I decided to play around with the
different shapes. I drew out some small pentagons, hexagons, octagons, dodecagons. Then applied the
round preset to them in Inner Bevel. I then copied the layer and pasted as new selections to fill my car.
Once I had it filled I then used the eraser tool to remove any coal that was hanging over the sides and didn't
look like it belonged. Once you have the coal in your car, hide your two wheel layers, layer 1 and merge
your car visible. Here is what mine looks like...

I thought the car needed something else. With my car layer my active layer I selected it, then added a new
layer. To this layer I used the Draw tool set to size 4, Bezier Curve, foreground color white. I made a
curved line at the top of my car, I then copied that layer and paste it as a new selection close to the bottom
of my car. I then made both lines selected and took then to Effects, Textures, Sculpture with these settings..

Feel free to experiment to find a pattern you like. I then added a drop shadow to my lines Both V&H
set to 0, Opacity 100, blur 3.5.

Hide layer 1, and the two wheel layers and merge visible. Go to Selection, Select All, Selection, Float once
again.
Apply a cutout using these settings..

Add a new layer and apply another cutout with the same settings except with minus 4 for both V&H.

32.) Merge Visible all layers except Layer 1 and the two wheel layers. (Note we are leaving the wheel layers unmerged
so that we can adjust them to connect our cars together later. Save as a PSP file.

Here is my engine and coal car put together...

Wahooo!!! We are half way through with our train!
When you are ready lets move on to making the animal car and the caboose!

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