Easy Mouse

This Easy Mouse is one of the EggToon character tutorials created especially for beginners to the vector tools in Paint Shop Pro 7. This tutorial is one of a multi-part series. If you've come directly to this page and haven't reviewed the explanation of the Vector Tools or how to create the Egg Preset Shape, you should probably start there first...this tutorial will not repeat those explanations. The Vector Tools tutorial gives beginners an easy to follow guide to the location and purpose of the various vector tools in Paint Shop Pro 7. The Egg Preset Shape is a custom-made preset shape used as the basis for every EggToon character.

Before we start, let's review the following program notes:

This tutorial was written for Paint Shop Pro version 7. Users of version 6 should be able to follow along, however some tools or tool names may be different. This tutorial is not suitable for PSP5 and older versions, which do not have the vector tools.

In this tutorial I will ask you to right click (RC) to select most of the menu choices or will call out the standard menu choices. You can do many of these same actions using keyboard shortcuts or buttons on the Tool Options Palette. In fact, quite often there will be at least 3 different ways you can do the same action in Paint Shop Pro. For example, clicking the Node Edit button has the same effect as right clicking to select 'Node Edit'. Today we'll use RC and the pop up dialog boxes. After a while, you may decide you prefer one of the other methods and you'll settle in to your own way of doing things.

In accordance with the new terminology used in PSP 7, the foreground and background color swatch boxes will be referred to as Stroke for the outline/foreground color and Fill for the background color.

No textures will be used in this tutorial, so you can set both texture Styles boxes to Null Ø.

If you are using a pen tablet, you can right click using the clicker on the side of the pen.
If this doesn't seem to work, you may have to change the tablet settings.

Please note: By following these step-by-step instructions you will be creating a copy of a copyrighted graphic. The resulting copy will belong to you, for your own use, however, copies should not be sold or distributed as original work (such as those CD collections of tubed images made by copying other people's tutorial art)!! The purpose of these tutorials is to teach you techniques so you may create your own original art! Do not be satisfied with copying others!! The image becomes an original when you make significant changes to it, so it is no longer an identical copy! Changing just the color doesn't count!  ;-)

Permission is herein granted for individuals to save or print this tutorial for personal use only...please do not distribute by email or otherwise. Too many free tutorials have been taken offline because of copyright abuse! We don't want to see them all disappear, do we?

Most of the text and images for this tutorial are located on a second, printer friendly page, however, I would prefer you linked to or bookmarked THIS start page, not the following page. Thank you! Any changes to tut will be noted here.

Note: After surveying many tutorial users...it seems the majority prefer tutorials that are on one long page rather than multiple short pages...and I agree! This makes it easier to print out or save for offline use...however, it also means it will take a little longer for my tutorial pages to load...please be patient!