Draw a Simple Shape: Heart, Sakura
You could freehand draw these simple shapes, but if you want an "easy" way that gives you more freedom than using a someone's brush, there is one. We'll start with the heart because that will lead up to the sakura, even though there already is a custom heart shape included with Photoshop. This is done using CS2, but should also work with 7. For just the sakura, do steps 1-4, then 9-15.
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1. New canvas, whatever size you want. Select the "Ellipse Tool" with "Paths" on. |
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2. Go to your Paths palette (Window » Paths), click "Create a New Path"
 , name it "Heart".
On the canvas, hold down shift, draw a prefect circle path.
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3. Click on the "Pen Tool"  , hold
down CTRL and click on the path. Anchor points (the boxes) with handles should appear.
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4. CTRL click on the bottom anchor. Perfectlly horizontal handles should appear on either side. Click on one handle, and slowly slide it straight into the anchor. Do the same for the other handle. |
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5. CTRL click on the top anchor. As with the bottom anchor, also side the two handles straight into the anchor. Make sure only the top anchor is selected (it will be filled in), drag it down so that it is horizontally inline with the two side anchors. |
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6. Now it's a heart but it's very flat. Pull the two side anchors up and down and pull the side anchors in and out to achive the heart shape you want. |
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7. More playing with the anchors can get funkier heart shapes. It also looks somewhat like a flower petal. |
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8. Stroke it, fill it, make it shiny - do whatever. Mine is a very plain example obviously. |
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9. Now for the sakura. Repeat steps 1-4 from above. Drag the two side anchors to be inline with the top anchor, then drag the top anchor straight up so that the top is nicely rounded. |
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10. Fill with pink. (pen tool , right click,
"fill path") On the Paths palette, click somewhere outside a path to deselect the path.
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11. Now click the "Rectangle Tool", on a new layer with "Fill Pixels" and "Anti Alias" on. Hold down shift and draw a square. Edit » Transfrom » Rotate, Rotate it 45 degrees. |
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12. Move the box layer so that it is in the middle of the pink shape, with the top 2/3 half sticking out. |
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13. CTRL+Click on the box layer, click on the pink shape layer press delete. Hide the box layer. Sakura petal - done. =) Cheap trick huh. |
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15. Arrange 5 petals in a circle for a sakura. This is how I made my sakura brushes, so if you're too lazy you can download the brush set here. |
Questions? Comments? tell me!