If you already have a nice mortared rock pattern, then just DL the sels zip (8kb). If you would like the pattern shown in the screenshots (the darker one), click here (this one also has the sels in it; it's 306kb). Here's the pattern that's shown in the top header image (284kb). Both patterns are in BMP format, should anyone wish to extract them to their patterns folder under PSP for future use; they're royalty free.
David Navarro has granted permission to use his bark pattern, which can be found here. You might also wish to check his 'man-made' textures, which can be found by using the NEXT button at the bottom of the linked page, to find more rock patterns to use for the well. He has a very interesting site if you care to look around *S*
1. 300x350 transparent. Load any rock pattern you wish into stroke (foreground), and any bark pattern you wish into your fill (background).
2. Load the first sel (01 - Back of Well.sel); expand sel by 15, fill with your choice of rock. Mirror it so when we add the front, the rocks won't be exact duplicates of each other (trust me LOL).
Reload the original sel, and invert it. Erase the bottom and sides all the way to the sel. Deselect and then erase the top part using the mortar gaps to tell you where to erase.
Once you've got your back well cleaned up, duplicate the layer and adjust the brightness to -255 (negative) to make it black. Colors | Adjust | Brightness/Contrast and drag the first slider all way to the left to set it to 255.
Gaussian Blur 10, reload the original sel again, invert it, delete key to clean up the outside. Merge visible and rename back if you wish.
3. Add a new layer; switch your stroke and fill so that the bark is on top, the grain should be vertical (up and down...can't give the angles since you might be using a pattern with a different orientation). Load the second sel (02 - Both Poles.sel) and fill.
4. Add a new layer; change the grain of the wood to horizontal (sideways). Load third sel (03 - Top Pole.sel) and fill. We'll fix these up after we add the front rocks *S*.
5. Add a new layer; switch your patterns back to the rock fill. Load the fourth sel (04 - Front of Well.sel), and expand by 15; fill with the rocks. Reload the fourth sel, invert it; erase the bottom and sides. Deselect and clean up the top in between the mortar like you did on step 2 (back of well).
Here's a guide on what it should all look like so far:
5. Highlight your layer with the 2 poles, and lock your layer transparency (make the red X disappear):
Repeat with top pole layer also.
6. Apply a cutout with these settings:
- V&H: 0
- Opacity: 100
- Blur: 6
- Color: black
Click on top pole layer and use the shortcut combo Ctrl+Y to repeat the last action (upper case is NOT neccessary; I type it that way for readability). Unlock both pole layers transparency locks. Feel free to add the locked transparency cutout to the front of well also. The reason for doing the cutout this way is to avoid the nasty glow that the normal cutout leaves (and also to decrease the number of steps in the select/invert double drop shadow technique).
7. Highlight the side poles layer; add a new layer, and load both poles sel again. Add a drop shadow with these settings:
- Vertical: 0
- Horizontal: 1
- Opacity: 100%
- Blur: 3
- Color: black
8. On the same layer, load top pole sel, invert it and hit delete key.
9. Highlight top poles layer, load *both poles* sel. Erase out the left Y's portion of both the side poles, so that it appears like the top pole is sitting in them correctly.
Making sure the top pole layer is the top layer, you may merge visible now. Go ahead and rename this layer since you're almost done, and will be tubing on different layers to finish it how you'd like.
10. Lock your layer transparency on your newly merged layer, load your rope tube (I think everyone should have this included as a psp tube; please notify me if I'm mistaken *S*). Make the Scale 20, Step: 5.
Draw a few angled rope lines on one of the side poles, and on the top pole too. Now UNlock your layer transparency and draw the rope from where it connects between the top pole and the side pole. Draw another rope line from the top pole to where you'll place your bucket.
In the bottom image; I made that bucket, but in the top image, I used a tube *S*....not sure from where though (I only use tubes that don't require linkbacks 99% of the time, as I do not wish to place linkback image(s) all over my pages *S*). If you wish to learn the metallic bucket I made, let me know and I'll write it up for you *S*.
You're done with this tutorial, please feel free to decorate your well however you'd like. I used techniques from all over the PSP tutorial world to decorate the example images (thanks to all the wonderful tutorial writers that share their tutorials freely *S*).
