Graphics request

Lately the userbars have become very popular with people. They are mostly putting them in their forum signatures, which is very practical. They are small, but can be used for linking.


First of all, you have to create a new picture. The dimensions are as shown in the picture below.



Next, you must choose you background color. It is best to use the gradient tool and the colors
that would suit the thing you are making a bar for. In this case, I will be using a light blue color going to white (because of the Thunderbird logo)



Now, we must add the diagonal lines seen in all the userbars. To do this, create a new picture, dimensions 6x6 pixels and transparent. Next, use the pencil tool on that picture to create a diagonal line like this.



When you draw that, go to Edit -> Define Pattern and choose the pattern name. Now go back to the first picture and the Pattern Stamp Tool in order to put lines into you picture. Since the lines are too bold, I would advise you to lower the opacity. I use 15% myself, but it's up to you to decide. After doing that, you get something like this.



Now it's time to add the logo to the picture. The logo must have transparent background, so when you put it it should look like this.




Now we've got only two things left. The first one is to add text to the userbar. For this, most people use the Visitor -BRK- font. That's what I'm going to use, too. When you choose the font tool, choose Palettes and do the following. Set the font size to 10pt, turn of anti aliasing, and increase the character spacing to 25. When you write the text, use the stroke option to create a black or white 1 pixel border, depending on the font color
.Here's what you should get.



Then, you should add the elliptic transparent white part. In order to do that, choose the Ellipse Tool, select Create Filled Region and set the opacity to 30% or less to get the best quality. Create a new ellipse with this tool so that it's bottom part is located in the top of the picture.

The final thing to do is to add a 1 pixel border to the whole picture, and do it with around 20% opacity. I hope that there is no need to explain this. And here is the product – Thunderbird userbar.


This is what your finish product should look like:



If you have any further questions or want to comment my tutorial, you are free to do so.

I can provide a link to the 'Template' for it so you have less work, if so please leave a comment and i will upload 1.