Supplies:
Paintshop Pro (I use V9)
Animation Shop
Tube of choice with fire, mine is by Fred Winkler and used with a CILM license
Font(s) of choice, mine are RetroRockPoster and LasVegasOT Fabulous
Filters Mura Meister Copies, Xero Porcelain & Radiance, Eyecandy4000.
Animation Fireroar by MsKris

Open a new canvas, 600x250. Paste your tube onto the canvas and apply Mura Meister Copies set to Wallpaper. Adjust/Blur/Motion Blur set to 111, 100%. Edge Effects/Enhance twice. Add a new raster layer. Now make a foreground/background gradient from a light and dark colour from your tube, set to linear, angle 36, 3 repeats. Floodfill the rasterlayer with this and change the blend mode to Saturation.

Paste your tube again, and place to the right of your canvas, add a dropshadow, -2,-2,57,6. Duplicate the tube and apply Xero Porcelain, set blue to 0, and then apply Xero Radiance at default. Mirror this and set the blend mode to Overlay.***
To the left of your canvas select a rectangle with the Selection tool, make a new raster layer and floodfill with the light colour you picked before. Set the opacity to 70 in your layer palette.

Take your text tool and add some text which goes with your tube in the dark colour. Apply this Inner Bevel, you probably have to change the colour though. Also add a dropshadow.

Happy so far? Then merge visible. Select all, Modify/contract by 10 and invert. Promote selection to layer and mirror. Apply Eyecandy 4000 HSB Noise, use the setting Zebra Stripes, but change the pattern to wrinkled fractal.
Then apply Eyecandy 4000 Gradient Glow, choose diffuse yellow in the settings and change the colour to your light one.

Now add your credits legibly and also add the name, not forgetting the dropshadow. Right click on the tag and copy merged.
Open Animation Shop and paste the tag as a new animation. Duplicate the frames until you have 3. Edit/select all.
Now open the mng file from the zip and resize it like this. (Animation/Resize Animation).

Edit/select all on the mng and copy. Paste into selection on the tag, making sure you're on top of the original fire. Now go to Animation/Frame Properties and set to 15. Save as a gif.

If you also want an avatar, go back to PSP, make a copy of your tag, select a 150x150 square with the crop tool and crop. Add the frame as you did with the tag, add the credits and a name. Save as a png or jpg.

For this you also need this heart string by Cherswitz, and the filters Alien Xenofex Constellation and AAA Frames/Foto Frame. My tube is by Jennifer Janesko, who is also signed with CILM. And my font is Miss Fajardose.

Start with your tag the same as above until you get to the ***. Then come back down here. ;o)

Open the accent tube in PSP and copy and paste on to your tag, resize it slightly and slide it over to the left hand side. Add a new rasterlayer underneath it and select a rectangle with your selection tool so the accent is kinda framed. Floodfill this with the lightest colour from your tube, change the opacity of this to 70 and give the hearts a slight dropshadow.

Close out the hearts on your layer palette and merge the other layers visible. Crop merged opaque. On this layer apply AAA Frames/fotoframe. Width 10, preset dark with gray shadow. Add all credits legibly and merge down. Now also apply the frame filter to the heart string.

Now add your name, I chose a light colour for the stroke and a dark one for the fill. Add a dropshadow of 0,0,100,8 in the colour of your fill. Do this twice. Now we can animate.
Make the layer with hearts active and apply Xenofex Constellation with these settings.

Copy merged the tag and paste in Animation Shop as a new animation. Go back to PSP, undo the twinkles and reapply them, clicking on random seed this time. Copy merged and paste in AS by right clicking the existing tag and pasting after current frame. Go back to PSP and undo and repeat the last step again. Now you should have 3 frames in AS. Click on Edit/Select all, Animation/Frame Properties and set to 15.

To make the avatar, go back to PSP, make a copy of your tag, select a 150x150 square with the crop tool and crop. Apply Constellation once to the layer with the face. Add the frame as you did with the tag, add the credits and a name. I only used the fill and the dropshadow once. Save as a png or jpg.

This tutorial was created 12th November 2010, and is the sole property of ooh...babelicious. Similarity to other tutorials is purely coincidental. Do not copy this or any of my tutorials, or any part of my tutorials, to another site unless you have express permission from me to do so. If you want to share, send the URL, do not direct link or offer on your site. Give credit where credit is due. Do not script this tutorial and offer to others.

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