[TRANSLATION NOTE: Marie-Sarah has graciously translated this tutorial into French. Thanks Marie!!!!! You may find the translation here.]

[ALSO, Japhe has done a wonderful pixel tutorial based on Elton. You may find Effel the Elephant here.]

I have always loved elephants, such magnificant creatures. The inspiration for this little guy was a tiny piece of embroidery that I saw. He looked so adorable I just had to draw him, so here he is. This tutorial uses selections, shading (optional), and a bit of simple drawing. I am also providing you with a lot of screenshots to guide the way.

Oh, and I named him Elton because he reminds me of a guy I used to know, many moons ago. Now go figure! lol

My heart psp file. You may download it here.

Step 1. Open a new image 400 x 400, background color of your choice.

Step 2. You'll load my selections and for each, you will do the following steps:

• Add a new layer

• Load the selection

• Flood fill with black

• Contract by 2

• Flood fill with color #288AC3

Load the selections in the following order:

• leg3
• leg
• leg2
• ear1
• ear2
• body
• trunk
• head

leg 3	leg	leg2
ear1	ear2	body
trunk	head

Step 3. Make the head layer active and erase the line crossing over the trunk.

Step 4. Make the body layer active, and erase the lines that cross over the legs, like this.

Step 5. Make ear layer active. Set your foreground color to black and your background color to null. Choose your draw tool, freehand line, size 2, and draw a line to define the ear, such as I have done.  Do the same on the other ear.

Step 6. Make  either ear layer active. You can flood fill it with color if you wish, but I did mine with shading.

Set your foreground color to #FF0000 and your background color to #FDD5D5. Choose your selection tool and draw around the ear - then click inside gently. You'll see the marching ants around the selection. 

Add a new layer. Choose your airbrush, with these settings: shape round, size 20, hardness 30, opacity 30, step 25, density 30. Spray color similar to mine.

Step 7. Choose your retouch tool, smudge brush and use these settings: shape round, size 25, hardness 25, opacity 30, step 25, density 100. Smudge colors around until you have something you like.  You can always spray more color too and smudge some more. Repeat this step to the other ear.

Step 8. If you want to do some shading of the body, now is the time to do that.  This is an optional step but I think it makes it look better.  If you want to shade, you'll need to apply it to each layer separately.  Use the same technique as you used on the ear. Here's how mine looks after shading.

Step 9. Make the head layer active. Add new layer.  With your selection tool, draw a small oval for the eye.  Flood fill with black, contract by 2, fill with white, and rotate it into place.  Duplicate this layer and mirror it for the other eye.

Step 10. Add a new layer. With selection tool, circle, draw a small circle to go inside the eye.  Flood fill with black.  Duplicate this layer, and mirror it for the other eye.

Step 11. Make your head layer active. Set your foreground color to black and your background color to  #288AC3.  Using your draw tool, freehand line, line size 2, draw some little tufts of hair.

Step 12. Add new layer. Set your foreground color to black and your background color to null. Choose your draw tool, freehand line, size 2, and draw some eyelashes and eyebrows.

Step 13. Make trunk layer active. Add a new layer.  Draw some lines on the trunk.

Step 14. Make any leg layer active. Add a new layer.  Draw some definition to the knees.  Repeat for the other two legs.

Step 15. Now you'll just add whatever you wish to his trunk. If you want to use my heart, just open up the file now, copy and paste it as a new layer. Move the layer underneath the trunk layer but on top of the body layer.

Step 16. Duplicate this layer and place it on top of the trunk layer. Decrease the opacity of this layer to about 50% so you can see through it. Then erase the overlaping bit on the top.

 

And that's it. Done!  Hope you enjoyed this tut.  As always, your feedback is welcome!