Wavy Lily - forum set tutorial featuring UVD

You can see what the forum set looks like at the bottom here. 

This tutorial was written on February 2nd 2012.
Supplies needed:
I used a tube called Lily from Unholy Vault Designs. She was with PTE when this tutorial was written. This gorgeous tube will be released on Friday February 3rd.

Plugins:
Mura Meister Copies
DSB Flux - Bright Noise
Eye Candy 5 - Perspective Shadow

To animate:
Animation Shop or Photoshop, which ever you normally use.

A font of choice. I used "CM Old Western".


Open up a new image 600x600
Add your tube and use Mura Meister Copies - Wallpaper Rotate at default settings. Make sure the whole canvas is covered (duplicate, flip/mirror if you have to).
Go to Adjust - Blur - Radial Blur with these settings:

Add Effect - Edge Effect - Enhance

Change your background colour to a contrasting colour and activate the rectangle tool. Add a rectangle that goes across the entire canvas. Center it in canvas. Duplicate the line twice and move the lines so it looks like this: 

Merge those 3 lines together and use image free rotate left with 45 degrees. Use your pick tool and stretch the rectangle so it goes outside the canvas, like this: 

Convert to raster.
Go to Effect - Distortion Effects - Wave and use these settings:

Duplicate this layer so you have 3 layers in total. Add DSB Flux - Bright Noise, intensity 34 and on Mix. Repeate this for the other 2 white wave layers, but click on Mix once for each layer.
On the top wave layer, select all, float and defloat. Add a new layer and floodfill with a contrasting color. I used black. Move this layer below the wave layers and deselect. Move the black waves a little bit down and to the right. See my sample for placement.
Add a drop shadow on all the wave layers: 0,0,100,8

Higlight the bottom layer and paste a close up of your tube, and move it to the top left.
Remove any part of the tube that goes below the white waves.
Change the settings on the tube layer to Luminance (or any other suitable blend mode) and opacity to 50%. Merge down.
Duplicate the bottom layer and add VM Toolbox - Radial Mosaic at default settings. change the opacity to about 30% or what ever looks best.

Duplicate your tag by clicking Shift and D. Set this aside for now because we'll use this for the forum set siggie.
Back on your original tag, crop it to 600 wide and 550 high (or smaller), using the crop tool. (I did this height because of the tube I was using.
Add your tube and place it on the right side of the tag. Add a blurry drop shadow.I used Eye Candy 5 - Impact - Perspective Shadow with the Blurry setting.

Add a new layer and floodfill with one of your contrasting colors. I used black. Select all, contract by 5 and click Delete.Selection Invert and contract by 1 and floodfill the area inside the selection with your other contrasting color. I used white. Deselect and add a drop shadow: 0,0,100,8.

Add your name and copyright to the tag.

SIGGIE/BANNER:
Over to the one you duplicated earlier.
Make a custom selection like this:

 Go to Image and choose Crop to Selection.
Add your tube and place it on the right side. Add the same blurry drop shadow as you did earlier.
Add the same border you did on the tag (the one with 2 contrasting colours) and the same drop shadow; 0,0,100,8

Add your name and copyright.

AVATAR:
Click shift D and remove the tube layer. Crop to 150x150 and add the same border and drop shadow as you did with the other 2.
Add your initial and copyright. (You don't need to add the copyright if you didn't use a tube for the the background)

Animate all 3 as usual.And here is what the forum set looks like:

I also made some snags which you can grab HERE.