this is too much fun not to share! i hadn't made them in over a year and almost forgot about their existence but was reminded by something and my first thought was: great for making a beginner tutorial. so here it is! (now in edited version, sorry people for messing up first time!)


step 1. make a new image in a suitable size (bigger than maximum brush size if you want to use it as a brush). i prefer making the paisleys on transparent background, but that's just my personal taste.

step 2. open one or more pictures with patterns and colours that you like and make three to four circle selections from them (of course you can use fewer than three or more than four, but i think you will find three to four circles in your blob looks just detailed enough). scale down the circles to brush size if needed.

step 3. pick a circle that will make your outline, copy it and use it as a brush. scale brush to suitable size, paint it once in the top centre of your image. scale down brush size a little and copy circle number two and repeat procedure. get the second circle in the centre of your first one - if you're very fussy about symmetry i suggest you paint your circles in separate layers and use guides, but i don't bother anymore. repeat the procedure with your third and fourth circles. if you painted in separate layers you can now merge all layers.


step 4. now comes the fun part! open iwarp. set it to "move" with distortion radius at about 70, distortion rate about 50. from the centre of the circle, pull straight down till you get a rounded teardrop shape. repeat if you want your paisley blob longer.

step 5. set distortion radius to about 30, lower distortion rate to about 30 as well and again pull straight down from the centre til your blob gets a drop shape.

step 6. start moving the apex of the blob to the left or right to make the characteristic comma shape of a paisley unit. if you want the blob more rounded use a high distortion rate, if you want it sharper use a low distortion rate. finish off by smoothing your blob out (unless you like it a bit rough) by moving areas in or out til you get a clean contour. if you like chaos in your patterns you can always whirl the centre of your blob, or try to whirl the "tail" of it. click ok when you're finished.

step 7. if you want to use it as a brush, i suggest you auto crop your image. otherwise, you can just sit back and enjoy the sight of your fun, bohemian paisley blob and think of what pictures you'll use for your next one!

Thank you very much. We seem to have similar tastes. I used to have a Fender Stratocaster guitar that was bubblegum pink with metallic silver and green paisley on it. Always loved a paisley.

Very nice idea AnMal. cool

erisianalways happy to meet people who sees the excellence of paisleys . you don't happen to have a picture of that guitar?

mollythanks molly! i hope you show the results if you try it!

I don't have a picture of mine but it was the same as these. http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=pai ... &sp=-1&sk=

that's sooo cool! music played on a pink paisley guitar just can't be bad

AnMal, I tried your tute, and by the time I got to the iWarp I screwed up royally. I have never liked that filter and I can never get it to do what I want ever. I won't be posting it but I will try it again later.

thanks for the tute.

That is very cool.

Big fan of paisleys. Tried to find a program to automatically generate these but alas never did. Cool result by the way.

do we have some Prince fans in this thread ?

i know i was a HUGE Prince fan

molly: i hate the iwarp tool normally, but it seems to work with me on the paisley blobs. i took a look at my tutorial again after reading your post and realised it may be all my fault if your paisley blobs didn't work out well. i've made a huge glaring mistake! to begin with, i wrote distortion rate instead of distortion radius and then i didn't write my settings for the distortion rate. will go back and edit at once, so help is on the way

You also said pull down from the center but when I do that the whole thing goes out of shape. I just hate that tool. I wish we had the one that PS has called liquify, it is a dandy.

molly: hmm... that's strange. this always works for me. what size is your circle? if it's a really small one maybe you should lower the radius and see if that helps. but the iwarp tool can be a real pain - haven't used photoshop in ages and don't remember liquidify, but i love inkscapes sculpting tool and really wish gimp had something like that.

rod: thank you! i love this way of making paisleys.

lylejk: oh another paisley friend ! i hope someone invents that paisley tool, we really need it!

esper: prince? i get that blonde feeling again. i was never into prince and that's probably why i don't see the connection.

well Prince was the origin of the paisley rage in the mid 80ies, he even had a suit printed with paisleys



also his label was called Paisley Park

I always though Prince was an odd ball.

he sure is

He is an odd ball but some of his songs are cool

Molly
how do you you pick the colors and turn them into a brush?
that's where i stopped following your tutorial

this is harder than it looks! Iwarp is hard to use, but with practice it can be a pretty cool effect! Nice tutorial.

I love paisley. This is my try at it. It leaves a lot to be desired but I had fun making it.