What you will need:

Jasc Paint Shop Pro: You can get a trial version here.
A gradient. I used Nanson's flag gradient which you can get here. Feel free to explore the other gradients there, they are wonderful!
Eye Candy 4000 or 3.1 (Motion Trail). Unfortunately, I cannot find a "legitimate" site that offers the free 3.1 version any longer. If you have PSP7 you should have this filter. If anyone knows of a link, I would welcome it.
My bluestar background you can get here. Right click and save to your hard drive.

Step 1:
Open a new canvas, 350x350, transparent, 16 million colors. Set your foreground color to the mqc flag gradient, angle=0 repeats=2, invert unchecked.


Click on your selection tool, choose arrow 1, antialias checked. Starting at 150,150 draw out an arrow to 320,225 watching your coordinates in the lower left of your window. (see screenshots).

Yours, of course, will be blank with marching ants, *S*. Flood fill with the gradient, and deselect.

Step 2:
I would suggest renaming this layer, but this part is going to go so fast that renaming would be a step that we can leave out this time.
Duplicate your layer by right clicking on the layer in the layer palette or going to layers/duplicate. Go to Image/Rotate/Right/Free 30 and make sure all layers is unchecked. Line up the center parts of your arrow. (See screenshot below.)
Duplicate this layer, rotate the same and line up. Duplicate one more time and rotate one more time. You should now have 4 arrows that look like this:

In your layer palette, choose any layer, merge/merge visible.

Step 3:
Right click on your merged layer, duplicate. Then go to Image/Rotate/Right/90 (all layers unchecked). Line up the layers so that the 4th arrow of the first set is under the first arrow of the second layer. You may need to move the first layer slightly right to make sure both layers are fully on the image.
Duplicate this layer, rotate with same settings and line it up. Duplicate one more time and rotate. You should now have a full circle of arrows. Go to your layer palette and merge visible.
To make sure this is centered, go to Edit/Copy Edit/Paste as New Layer and delete your original arrow star.
Go to Image/Resize. Click on Pixel Size, 180, make sure Resize all layers is checked, maintain ratio is checked and use Bileniar Resample in the drop down box.
If you feel this needs to be sharpened, got to Effects/Sharpen/Sharpen.
Step 4:
Go to Image/Canvas Size and increase your canvas size to 300x300. Make sure you check the horizontal and vertical boxes.

Go back to your layer palette and duplicate your layer. Now for the fun part.
Step 5:
Make sure your lower layer is activated in your layer palette. Go to Effects/Eye Candy 3.1 or 4000/Motion Trail. Use these settings:

• Direction=308
• Length=108
• Taper=20
• Overall Opacity=100
• Smear Color from Edges=checked

Go to your layer palette and merge visible layers.

Step 6:
Duplicate the layer, then Image/Flip. Duplicate that layer, Image/Mirror. Duplicate that layer then Image/Flip. Rename the layers from bottom to top Spoke 1, Spoke 2, Spoke 3, Spoke 4.

If you are still with me, take a break, grab a drink and let's go on to the text.

...Next...

This tutorial was written on April 17, 2003 and is copyrighted to İGraphicButterfly 2003. Any similarites to other tutorials is unintentional. This tutorial may not be linked, copied or sent in e-mail without my permission. You may contact me here.