This is my take on making glassware, instead of using a gradient fill I'm going to use a waterdrop I made in KPT. I have included two sizes of waterdrop in PSP files for download. To make larger goblet bowls it's better to start with the larger waterdrop. Both files are usable by PSP versions 5 and up.

Open waterdrop.psp and copy the transparent layer. Paste it to make a new image. We'll work on this copy. (This will yield a snifter the size of the one on this page, if you know you will want a larger snifter use bigwaterdrop.psp for this step.)

Apply a horizontal cylinder deformation with a strength of 25.

Apply a vertical perspective deformation with a setting of -60.

You should now have something that rather like those glass ornament eggs they sell in craft stores.

Set the selection tool to ellipse and make sure antialias is checked.

Draw an ellipse starting at the center point (87,43) and drawing it out so the first coordinate pair in the status line is (44,31).

Apply the Cutout filter to the ellipse, making sure the 'fill interior' box is unchecked and the shadow color is black. Set the vertical offset to 2, the horizontal to 5, the blur to 15, and the opacity to 50%.

Expand the selection by one, invert it, and then erase the extra waterdrop above the ellipse. Deselect the ellipse. You now have an image that looks like this:

Now, for a stem and foot.

Make another copy of the transparent layer in waterdrop.psp and paste it as a new image. Click on the deformation tool and compress the waterdrop like this:

That's it for the foot of the snifter, save it as a .psp file to save a step in making more glassware.

Paste the waterdrop into another image and rotate it 45° to the right. Deform it like this:

Increase the canvas size to 200x200 with both boxes checked so the image stays centered. Flip the image and apply a horizontal cylinder deformation with a strength of 99. You should end up with a shape like this:

This is of course much to long for a brandy snifter and not the classic shape either. I'll save a .psp file of it for future goblets before I deform it further however.

Double click on the selection tool, you'll get a dialog window. Set the selection to left=0, right=200, top=0, bottom=100.

Promote the selection to a layer, move back to the bottom layer and hit delete. Now the top of your stem is on the top layer and the bottom on the bottom layer.

Select the deform tool, hold down the Ctrl key and drag the upper corner in to narrow the top of the bottom half of the stem. In PSP5&6 switch to another tool to bring up the confirm deformation box and click 'yes'.

Switch to the top layer and select the deform tool again. Holding down the Ctrl key grab the bottom corner and drag it in so the top of the stem matches the bottom like this:

Approve the deformation (PSP5&6). Merge the visible layers. Select the deform tool and drag the top center handle down to deform the stem like this:

Now we need to add some depth to the bottom of this stem.

With the selection tool set to ellipse and and the antialias box checked make an ellipse at the bottom of the stem like this:

Make another layer and apply a cutout with the same settings as before. Move this layer under the stem layer and then merge visible layers to finish the stem.

Now to put it all together. As you probably noticed the bowl is too small for the size of the foot and stem. Since the bowl has been deformed so often it's better to reduce the size of the foot and stem.

Create a new image 500x500 pixels with a transparent background. Copy the foot image and paste it near the bottom of the image near the center. Add another layer and paste in the stem, place it centered on the foot from right to left but slightly above the center from top to bottom like this:

Add another layer and paste in the bowl of the snifter. Center it over the foot and stem and overlapping the top of the stem a bit.

It doesn't look too bad but the stem and foot are a bit oversized.

Go to the layer with the foot of the snifter and resize it to 80% of the original, make sure the resize all layers box is unchecked. If that doesn't make it a size you like undo it and try another percentage to make it smaller or larger. Once you have the foot the right size resize the stem the same way.

Readjust the placement of the parts and you're basically done.

It still needs some finishing touches. On a new layer above the others add some rim definition with a highlight and shadow. Use the line tool set to bezier, width 1, antialias, color white to trace the rim of the snifter on the forward left curve. Use a medium grey color (lightness 96) to trace the back left curve and the right front curve of the rim.

Add another layer and set your line tool to single line, width 5 and add a highlight on the side of the snifter near the rim. Apply a gausian blur of 2.

The only problem left is that the highlights in the bottom of the bowl and the stem and foot are from a lack of colored pixels rather than from white pixels. Using a very soft brush set to a very light opacity brush these in carefully. If it still seems too sharp use the retouch tool set to soften and full intensity to blur them.

And there you have it, a brandy snifter. Merge visible layers and make a tube out of it if you like, but I find it easier to fill the snifter if you keep it in three parts.

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©2000 Lynn A. Davis