Read this before starting this tutorial!
This tutorial was created by me for Lorrilee of Simfully Yours (who has shared exclusive rights to this finished design & may use this on any site she is a part of). With her suggestion I decided to share it with you but there are some exceptions to the finished product.

This tutorial is an original creation. I hold all copyrights to the finished images I created (excluding the texture which was originally created by Lorrilee of Simfully Yours) . You may use the final image you created for your own personal use. NO profit may be gained what so ever, via money exchanged or barter. That means this canister object cannot be placed on a Paysite without prior permission from me.. I know you are asking yourself:

Q. I followed your tutorial, I own the copyright to the image! After all I DID it!

A. Not so! Who owns Mickey Mouse? Who owns Precious Moments? There can not be 1,000,000 copyrights to a single image! Effects you learn from the tutorial Yes those are yours! The image itself, if you learn how to make something then no! The original creator holds the copyright to that image once it is placed in tangible form.

If you find this or other tutorials on this site useful and they help you with your creations, please provide a link so others can try them..


This tutorial is done using PaintShop Pro 7, but can be done with versions 5 and 6. If you are new to PSP, please familiarize yourself with it a little, you can also check out THIS PAGE which gives basics of the tools I use in this tutorial.

After helping Lorilee of Simfully Yours "simmize" a set of canisters she drew in PSP, I thought it would be a good idea to share the information. The basics for doing this simple one-tiled object can be used on a variety of other objects that you draw from scratch as well. You just have to adjust it to what you are doing.

This tutorial WILL NOT cover how to make z buffers! I am sorry, but I cannot give z buffer tutorials. For informaton on z buffers I suggest visiting 7DS

Since we are doing a set of canisters, I chose a food processor to clone because I am not crazy about decorative items that don't have a purpose, yes I am weird, lol!

Begin: Open tmog and select the food procesor, hit the clone button and export using these settings: Just Change Colors unchecked and One Zoom, One Channel checked. We export this way so that we let tmog create the a and z buffers. They aren't always perfect this way and I have more information at the end of the tutorial about this proecess.

Next: Open your paint program and get the image you are going to simmize, in this case it is the canisters.jpg that Lorilee sent me. You don't want an image too large or too small, just a nice workable size to begin with. You also want the image on a transparent background. If it is not, then you must select the background of the image, invert, copy and past as new image.

Next: We must now distort this image. The canisters look great as they are with a nice width and height but once you skew this image to simmize it, the width becomes much wider and doesn't look as nice. So we must take our deform tool: and make our canisters just a little bit thinner, like this:

Next: Now I resize my canvas (if you haven't already a lot of room to work with around your image). I need lots of room so I go to Image/Resize Canvas, like this:

Next: Ok, the canvas is good, now I want to cut the very tops off the canisters. The reason I do this is because Lorilee has a cute little top on it with a pink handle, but once I simmize that top will not work. So I must cut it off and later created a new one. So using my selection tool set at rectangle and anti-alias UNCHECKED, I select the very tops of each canister, copy and paste as a new image and set that aside. I set this aside because I want to use those little pink handles later. So this is what the image looks like that you set aside for later use:

Next: Now we must start simmizing the canister set. So using my selection tool again, I select the very first canister to the left, which is the tallest. I draw a square around that canister and copy and paste as new image. Now that I have that piece of canister I reside the canvas so I have room to work with. This is what you should have now as a new image (setting the canisters image aside and just working with the piece we just copied):

Next: Working on the piece of canister we have now, use your finger tool, drop down option set at Push (7th option down) and settings at size 1.

Next: First select your canvas and then Selections/invert so marching ants are around your canister piece. Gently and carefully push the pink over the black, kind of like erasing. You could also use the paintbrush tool with the same color pink as the canister. Either way works. So now your canister piece should look like this:

Next: Now deselect the canister. It is time to skew this piece. So go to Effects/Effects Geometric/Skew, like this:

Next: We have to set the settings, so set the horizontal to 0 and the vertical to -27, like this:

Next: Go back to your main canister image and skew that like you just did this side piece except use Vertical 27 this time. So now your main canister image should look like this: (also you can see how the image has widened after skewed)

Next: Go back to your side piece you just made and copy that and then paste as a new layer onto your now skewed main canister image. Once it is pasted, move it around and line it up on the left side of the canisters to create a side for the canisters, like this:

Next: Before we go any further, we must get our layers box in order. Go to your layers box and rename the bottom layer BASE and the newest pasted layer SIDE. To rename layers, just right click on the layer and click Rename.

Next: Now we are going to make the tops. Create a new image, 300 x 300, transparent background. Using your selection tool, just draw a blank square, any size will do just don't make ti too big or too small. Now floodfill that square with black (since that is the color of the canister tops) like this:

Next: Now deselect the black square and go skew it. But this time we skew it like a rug, first skew horizontal 45 , vertical 0. Then go back and skew it horizontal 0, vertical -27. Your black square should now look like this:

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