On your duplicate copy of the bunny, change the honey color to a gray (or any cat color you prefer). Using the Object Selector tool, select the belly area and edit Properties. RC>PROPERTIES. Change fill color to gray.

Using the OS tool again, change the fill color of arms, legs, and tail to the same color as the belly. Change the fill color of ears to pink. RC>Properties When the color dialog box pops up, use the eye dropper to pick your color from the existing image (the belly area you changed in the above step). You will then have the exact same color.

Well now, we have a gray bunny, don't we? Now you know how to quickly change the body color of your toons! However, we want to continue on and turn this bunny into a kitty! If you need to enlarge your canvas at this point in order to make room for the cat's tail...do these 2 steps. First, change your background color swatch to match the color you are using for image background (probably white). We change the swatch first because, when you increase your canvas size, the new space will get filled in with this color. Second, select Image>Canvas Size or use the 'Canvas Size' button. Third, enter in new size as follows....

In the Change Canvas Size dialog box that pops up you will see your existing canvas size listed as Current Width and Current Height. There are also 2 boxes where you can enter a new width and a new height. For this image, we only need to increase the width. So change the number in that box in the new width box that is at least 50 pixels larger than your current width. Make sure the number in the new height box is either the same as your current height or is a larger number.

In the lower half of the dialog box are image placement choices. The boxes should be checked to 'center image horizontally' and to 'center image vertically'. Sometimes you'll want to change this setting to a position other than center, but for this image we won't need to.

Shall we change the ears first and start looking more like a cat! *G* Zoom in to enlarge the ear area 2:1.

With the OS select one of the ears. RC>Node Edit

There should see 5 nodes. Two at the bottom, 1 at the top, and 1 in the middle of each side. Select the middle nodes on each side. Hold down the shift key to select both nodes at once. RC>Merge This will merge the middle nodes with the line segment. You should now have 3 nodes, 2 at the bottom and one at the top.

Select the top center node and change the Node Type to cusp. RC>Node Type>Cusp
Now we can turn the round bunny ear into a pointed cat's ear!!

Move the node handles until you have a pointed, triangular shaped cat ear! First, pull the top center node down toward the cat's head, shortening the ear. Also, if necessary, adjust the handles of the other 2 nodes until you have something that looks like a cat's ear.
RC>Quit Node Editing

Do the same for the other ear.

While we're at it, let's do the same for the nose and change it into a triangle shape. Zoom in first. Select the little circle that was the bunny nose. Select the top node, RC>Node Edit>Merge

Move nodes around to enlarge and re-shape nose into an upside-down triangle that looks more like a cat nose than it did before! (see final iamge below)
RC>Quit Node Editing

Now let's change the position of the hands and feet and face the cat straight forward. Select the arm that is behind the cat and arrange the layers to that the arm is on top. RC>Arrange>Bring to Top

Select the leg that's in front....we're going to turn that foot the other direction. With your mouse/pointer, grab the center right node of the boundary box and pull it all the way to the left until the foot turns over itself and points the other way.

If the 2 little lines for the toes didn't come with the foot, select both toe objects (hold shift key down to select more than one at a time, grab the center right node and pull the toes over themselves until they are 'mirrored' and face the other direction. Re-align them with the foot.

At this point your cat should look pretty much like this screenshot. You'll probably have to adjust the size and position of legs, toes and arms a little and there is some fine tuning to do before we're done. For one thing.... that line across half the width of the belly looks funny....and his tail is all wrong!! We'll fix that next! ;-)

First, make some room for the tail on the left side of the canvas. Use the OS tool and drag a selection completely around the cat image...make sure you get all the pieces!! (See how the OS selector can be used just like the Selection Tool!) Now move the cat over to the right to make some room for a tail.

Select the bunny tail for editing. RC>Node Edit Change the Node Type for all nodes to symmetric. RC>Node Type>Symmetric
Pull on the left node to drag on the tail and make it longer. Arrange the other nodes into the shape of a cat's tail. (see finished image)

Add a few hair tufts to the top of the cat's head using the Line tool. Change your stroke color to black and your fill color to Null. Select the Line tool set to Freehand Line, Line Width 1, AntiAlias ON, Vector ON, Close Path OFF. Draw 3 short curved lines at the top of the cat's head as shown in the finished image.

Turn the cat's mouth into a smile by selecting the existing mouth and doing a little node editing. RC>Node Edit
Select the end node and pull the node handle until the straight line turns into a curved smile.
RC>Quit Node Editing

Last step! Accent the belly area.
Select both legs, including the toes, by dragging the Object Selector around the legs to include all pieces. With both legs selected, RC>Arrange>Bring to Top (This can also be done by selecting one object at a time or arrange one layer at a time.)

If you accidentally included the tail in your selection and it's now on top... select it RC>Arrange>Send to Bottom
If you missed the toes in your selection and they have now disappeared.... you'll have to move the leg out of the way! Move leg, select toes. RC>Arrange>Bring to Top Move leg back to position.

Select one of the legs to edit the 'belly line'. RC>Node Edit
Add a node along the line that is the inside line of the leg. Hold Ctrl key down, hover over the line until+ADD appears next to your pointer, then click to add a node. Now take the end node and pull it part way over to side to make a belly line as shown in this screenshot.
RC>Quit Node Editing

Do the same for the other leg.

Do some final adjustments to the size and location of ears, arms and legs, if necessary, and you're done!!!

Save your original in PSP format so you can change colors and make other critters from your FatCat drawing! Use the PSP file optimizer and export your toon as an optimized GIF or optimized PNG. Before saving, use the Crop tool to reduce the canvas size to it's smallest possible size.

If you want to export as a transparent GIF, make sure the background color in your image is the exact same color as the fill/background color swatch. Select the transparency box in the GIF optimizer dialog box that shows the matching color.

I hope you learned a lot about vectors by creating these EggToons and that you get a lot of enjoyment from the toons!

Kate        

Stay tooned for more EggToon tutorials and more characters....!!!