I select the
pen tool because I need to trace around the border of the sign
Tracing around
the sign is very simple. Four clicks of the mouse.
Selecting
a bright yellow color and a thick brush, I clicked on the Stroke Path
button in the Paths palace. This will trace around our pen path with the
current foreground color. By using various opacities, and brush diameters,
we can get a nice glowing effect around the border.
We use the brush
tool to lighten the interior of the sign. (All this is done on a separate
layer above the two sign layers). This enables us to erase any undesirable
strokes. I used a really fat (100 pixel) brush on a low opacity setting
to gradually build up color.
The
final image is simply beautiful. I added some small touches such as a
reflection of the sign on the hat of the happy little minifig (simply
using the overlay mode and a fat brush to add the accent), and also a
reflection on the street. These little touches make the image look much
more natural.