Make a Zine-Style Yule Cat Christmas Card

Choose File → New, keep the units on Pixels, and make the document 1500 wide and 2100 high.

Click the top ruler to drop vertical guides at 90, 750 and 1410. Click the left ruler for horizontal guides at 500 and 1800. The outer guides mark the edges of the night-sky panel. The centre guide helps you balance the layout.

Click Background, set the foreground to paper #EDE8DD and choose Edit → Fill. Click Layer 1 and rename it Night Sky.

Pick the Lasso and draw the panel inside the guides. Run straight down the side guides, but wobble your hand along the top and bottom in small, sharp zig-zags so those edges look torn, not cut.

Set the foreground to spot red #B54134, choose Edit → Fill, then press Cmd+D to deselect.

Click Add Layer and name the layer Sky Dots. Cmd-click the Night Sky thumbnail to load the panel as a selection.

Pick the Gradient tool, set it to Linear, and make a black-to-white gradient in Advanced… (#000000 at the left end, #FFFFFF at the right). Drag from the top edge of the panel straight down to about y 1700. Deselect.

Choose Filter → Halftone… with Dot Size 18, Angle 45 and Softness 1. The dark top turns into big dots and the light bottom into tiny ones.

Cells along the torn edge throw dots past it. To trim them, Cmd-click the Night Sky thumbnail again, choose Select → Inverse, press Delete, and deselect. Open the layer's effects with the sparkle button on its row, set the blend mode to Multiply, close the drawer, and set the layer's opacity to 45%. The sky now darkens towards the top like a cheap screen print.

Add a layer called Moon. Pick the Elliptical Marquee and click once on the canvas without dragging. The exact-size dialog opens. Set From to 145, 575 and To to 515, 945 for a 370 px circle, and press Enter. Fill it with paper #EDE8DD and deselect.

A flat paper-coloured disc reads as a hole punched in the sky, so give the moon a body:

1. Add a Stroke effect to Moon: Width 3 in toner black #1B1919.
2. Add a layer called Moon Shade and Cmd-click the Moon thumbnail.
3. Drag a white-to-#3A3A3A linear gradient from the moon's right side across to its lower left, then deselect.
4. Run Halftone… at Dot Size 10, then trim the dots back to the moon the same way you trimmed the sky: Cmd-click Moon, Select → Inverse, Delete.
5. Set Moon Shade to Multiply at 60%.

Now add a layer called Snow Ground. With the Lasso, draw a gently rolling line across the panel at about y 1650. Then follow the panel's torn bottom edge back to where you started. Fill it with snow #FAF8F3. The snow is slightly whiter than the paper, so the torn bottom still shows.

Open the cat photo in your browser or Preview, copy it, click Snow Ground in Lopsy, and press Cmd+V. The photo fits on the canvas, so it lands at the top-left corner at full size, already selected, with the Move tool active. Double-click the new layer's name and rename it Cat.

Hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right handle up and to the left until the photo is about 1150 px wide (90%). Cmd keeps the proportions. Press Cmd+D to commit the scale.

Drag the photo down and to the right. Its right edge should meet the panel's right guide, and the cat's front paws should sit just above the snow line, at about y 1650.

The cat's back now pokes up near the top of the panel, and its body runs off the right edge. That's the point: a cat too big for the picture.

Pick the Magic Wand, keep Contiguous on, and set Tolerance to 40. Click the white table in front of the cat. Then hold Shift and click each other part of the backdrop to add it:

• the white wall above the cat's back
• the white patch to the right of its tail end
• the grey wall on the left
• the wooden table corner at the bottom left
• the white strip along the very top

Press Delete and deselect.

A few bits of backdrop are left:

1. With the Lasso, draw around the steel cup and the corner of table at the bottom left, press Delete, and deselect.
2. Pick the Magic Wand again (Tolerance 40). Click the grey wall strip behind the ears, Shift-click the grey shadow under the right front paw, press Delete, and deselect.

A thin pale line from the top edge of the wall still crosses the moon. Leave it for now: after the next step it turns pure white and is easy to lasso away.

Choose Filter → Desaturate, then Filter → Brightness/Contrast… with Brightness 10 and Contrast 60. Finish with Filter → Threshold… at 100.

Threshold leaves only two tones, just like a copier pushed too dark. Most of the black cat stays solid, and the sheen on its fur breaks into white scratches. If the shoulder turns into a grey haze of specks, raise the level a few steps.

Threshold turns the leftover backdrop fringe into hard white lines. Before you give the cat a border, clean up three spots with the Lasso and Delete:

1. The white line above the head, across the moon. Stay well clear of the ears.
2. The small white sliver just left of the right front paw.
3. The whiskers that stick out past the left cheek. A grown border would turn them into fingers.

The photo ends in a straight line at the panel edge, which looks cut by a machine. Lasso a torn, zig-zag line from top to bottom about 30 px inside the panel's right edge, include everything to the right of it, and press Delete.

Click Snow Ground and add a layer called Cat Border, so it sits under Cat. Cmd-click the Cat thumbnail to load its outline, then choose Select → Grow… and enter 14.

Fill the grown selection with paper #EDE8DD and deselect. Give Cat Border a Drop Shadow with Offset X 6, Offset Y 8, Blur 10 and Opacity 45, in shadow brown #2A0E0A.

Then click Cat and set its blend mode to Multiply. The white highlights now take on the colour of the paper underneath, so the cat looks printed on the cut-out rather than pasted over it.

Threshold turned the eyes into white rings, so repaint them as a spot-colour layer. Add a layer called Eyes above Cat. Each shape below is an Elliptical Marquee made with the exact-size dialog (click without dragging, type From and To), then Edit → Fill:

• Irises in mustard #D8AB49: from 475, 1101 to 554, 1176, and from 672, 1116 to 755, 1193. If your photo sits a little differently, drag the ellipses over the irises by eye instead.
• Pupils in toner black #1B1919, tall and narrow like a cat's at night: from 508, 1108 to 532, 1155, and from 699, 1123 to 724, 1172.
• Catchlights in paper #EDE8DD, 12 px circles at the top right of each pupil: from 522, 1114 to 534, 1126, and from 714, 1131 to 726, 1143.

Deselect and add an Outer Glow with Size 18, Spread 10 and Opacity 70 in #F2C14E.

Click Eyes and click New Group. Name the group Village, then add three layers inside it, from the bottom up: Houses, Windows and Roof Snow.

On Houses, lasso a gabled house with a chimney. Drag slowly in straight runs from corner to corner; at this size small wobbles read as cut paper, which suits the look.

• a wall about 170 px wide and 110 px tall, standing on the snow at y 1672
• a roof about 80 px high that overhangs the walls by about 12 px on each side
• a narrow chimney on the right slope

Fill it with toner black. On Windows, fill two small rectangles, about 22 × 30 px, in mustard. On Roof Snow, lasso a thin cap along each roof slope, slightly thicker in the middle, and fill it with snow.

Repeat the recipe for the rest of the village:

• A tall, narrow house on the left margin, about 120 px wide with a 175 px wall, a steep roof and four windows.
• A church at the right, with its tower about 30 px in from the panel edge: a 64 px tower about 250 px tall with a pointed spire, a lower nave of about 150 px with a sloping roof, and tall arched windows (rectangles are fine).
• A Christmas tree between the cat's paws, about 210 px tall: four stacked triangular tiers on a short trunk.

Keep all the shapes on Houses, all the windows on Windows and the snow caps on Roof Snow.

Click Roof Snow and choose Layer → Merge Down twice, so the snow and windows join the houses. Rename the result Houses.

Draw a Rectangular Marquee around the chimney house, press Cmd+C, then Cmd+V. Lopsy pastes in place, so the copy sits exactly on top of the original on a new layer. Rename it House Copy. With the Move tool active, click Flip Horizontal in the options bar, then deselect.

Press Cmd+D to commit the flip. Pick the Rectangular Marquee, draw a box just around the flipped house, and switch back to the Move tool so its handles appear. Hold Cmd and drag the top-right handle down and to the left until the house is about 72% of its size, then press Cmd+D.

Drag the copy right, to just past the Christmas tree, keeping its base on the snow line. If it isn't level, nudge it with the arrow keys. Each press moves 1 px, and Shift makes it 10 px.

Choose Layer → Merge Down to fold House Copy into Houses. Add a Stroke of Width 6 in paper #EDE8DD. The houses stand in front of the black cat, and without an outline they melt into it.

Add a layer called Snow Drift. Lasso a wavy band across the panel that covers the bottoms of the houses, from about y 1664 down to y 1712, and fill it with snow. Now the houses look planted in a drift instead of sitting on a line.

Add a layer called Snowfall above Snow Drift. Cmd-click the Night Sky thumbnail so the snow stays inside the panel.

Pick the Spray tool and set Size 300, Density 3, Opacity 100 and Softness 0. Size is the width of the spray cloud. The dots it drops range from about 3 to 18 px, which is right for snowflakes seen from a distance. Set the foreground to snow and drag six or seven slow horizontal passes across the panel, from top to bottom. Deselect.

Spray dots vary in opacity, and the faint ones look grey. To make them all solid, pick the Magic Wand, untick Contiguous, set Tolerance 12, and click an empty part of the layer. Choose Select → Inverse, Edit → Fill with snow, and deselect. Turn Contiguous back on.

White dots on a black cat read as spots, not snow. With Snowfall still active, Cmd-click the Cat Border thumbnail (the border covers the whole cat), press Delete, and deselect. Do the same with the Houses thumbnail so no flakes cover the windows.

Add a layer called Snowflakes. Pick the Brush, open the brush settings, and set Size 5, Spacing 10 and Hardness 100, with no scatter or jitter. Click the snowflake button (Radial Symmetry) in the options bar and set Segments to 6.

For each flake:

1. Cmd-click where you want its centre. With symmetry on, this moves the symmetry centre instead of painting.
2. Drag one arm straight up from the centre, 35–50 px long.
3. Halfway along that arm, draw a short branch up and to the right, then another up and to the left.

Every stroke repeats six times around the centre. Make four flakes in the empty sky: one above the moon, one above the cat's back, and two down the left side. Keep them clear of the roofs. Click Radial Symmetry again to turn it off.

Collapse the Village group, click it, and click New Group. Name the new group Title.

Each letter of YULE CAT is a card of coloured paper with one big letter on it. For the first one:

1. Add a layer called Card Y and use the Rectangular Marquee's exact-size dialog to make a card from 108, 118 to 300, 330.
2. Fill it with card white #FFFFFF and deselect.
3. Pick the Text tool, choose Abril Fatface, set Size 190, and set the foreground to toner black.
4. Click on the card, type Y, and press Tab to commit.
5. Switch to the Move tool and nudge the letter with the arrow keys until it's centred on the card. (The text layer is named after the letter. It merges away in the next step, so don't worry about its name.)

Choose Layer → Merge Down so the letter and card become one piece of paper. Draw a marquee a few pixels bigger than the card. With the Move tool, drag the small round rotate handle just outside the top-right corner until the card tilts about 4° to the left. Press Cmd+D to commit.

Make the other six cards the same way. The card you just tilted is still the active layer, so each Add Layer puts the next card right above it. For every card:

1. Add Layer, then a Rectangular Marquee from the corners below, filled with the card colour.
2. The Text tool with the font, size and letter colour below. Click on the card, type the letter, press Tab.
3. Centre the letter with the Move tool's arrow-key nudges, Merge Down, then marquee the card and tilt it with the rotate handle. Press Cmd+D.

YULE runs left to right at the top. CAT sits lower and ends at the panel's right edge:

• U: Bungee 150, snow letter on a red card, from 318, 132 to 506, 322. Tilt 3° right.
• L: Alfa Slab One 170, mustard letter on a toner-black card, from 522, 110 to 694, 318. Tilt 2° left.
• E: Shrikhand 170, black letter on a mustard card, from 712, 136 to 900, 330. Tilt 5° right.
• C: Ultra 160, snow letter on a black card, from 802, 296 to 1012, 500. Tilt 5° left.
• A: Rubik Mono One 150, red letter on a white card, from 1026, 284 to 1212, 488. Tilt 2° right.
• T: DM Serif Display 200, black letter on a red card, from 1228, 300 to 1402, 506. Tilt 3° left.

The tilts alternate in direction and stay small. Ransom-note type looks chaotic, but the best examples are carefully balanced: every letter has about the same visual weight, and nothing tips over.

Click Card T and choose Layer → Merge Down six times, so all seven cards become one layer. Rename it Title Cards and give it a Drop Shadow: Offset X 5, Offset Y 7, Blur 6, Opacity 40, in shadow brown.

Slip. Add a layer called Slip Beware, fill a white #F8F5EE rectangle from 92, 64 to 452, 124, and type beware the on it in Special Elite 44, toner black. Centre it with arrow-key nudges, Merge Down, tilt the slip 2° to the left, and give it a small Drop Shadow: Offset X 4, Offset Y 5, Blur 5, Opacity 35. The slip slightly overlaps the top of the Y card, as if it was glued on last.

Scrawl. In the empty paper under YULE, type (Jólakötturinn) in Rock Salt 62, spot red. Rock Salt's lowercase is drawn as small capitals, so it reads like a quick marker note. Type the accented letters with your keyboard's accent keys, or copy the word from this page and paste it.

With the scrawl's text layer active, pick the Move tool. Handles appear around the text without any selection. Drag the rotate handle at the top right about 5° counter-clockwise. The text stays live, so you can still fix a typo after rotating it.

Add a layer called Tape. With the Lasso, draw two short strips about 100 × 35 px, each turned at an angle, with zig-zag ends where the tape was torn off the roll:

• one across the left end of the "beware the" slip, clear of the letters
• one over the top-right corner of the T card

Fill them with tape #E6DCBF and set the layer to 80% opacity, so a little of what's underneath shows through.

Lift the panel. Before the notes go on, give the red panel the same paper lift as everything else. Click Night Sky and add a Drop Shadow with Offset X 4, Offset Y 6, Blur 8 and Opacity 35 in shadow brown, then do the same on Snow Ground. You'll see it under the panel's torn bottom edge.

Slip. Collapse Title, click it, and click New Group. Name the group Notes. Add a layer called Story Slip and fill a white #F8F5EE rectangle from 112, 1730 to 812, 2006. It overlaps the bottom of the snowfield slightly. In Special Elite 34, toner black, type these four lines, pressing Enter after each of the first three:

• The Yule Cat of Iceland prowls
• on Christmas Eve and eats anyone
• who got no new clothes.
• Wear your new socks!

Centre the block on the slip with arrow-key nudges, then nudge it about 8 px higher to make room for an underline. Merge Down, tilt the slip 1.5° to the left, and give it a Drop Shadow with Offset X 4, Offset Y 6, Blur 6 and Opacity 38.

Gleðileg jól is Icelandic for Merry Christmas. Add a layer called Label and fill a toner-black strip from 836, 1752 to 1396, 1852. It straddles the bottom edge of the panel, so it looks stuck across both papers.

Type GLEÐILEG JÓL! in Rubik Mono One 44 in off-white #F2EFE6. If your keyboard doesn't have Ð, copy it from this page and paste it into the text. Centre the text on the strip, Merge Down, tilt it 3° to the right, and add a tight Drop Shadow: Offset X 3, Offset Y 5, Blur 4, Opacity 45.

Tape. Add a layer called Tape Bottom and lasso three more torn strips in tape colour: one on each top corner of the story slip, and one over the right end of the label. Set the layer to 80%.

Underline. Add a layer called Marker. Pick the Brush, Size 7, Hardness 90, in spot red, and drag a slightly wobbly line under "Wear your new socks!". Let it drift up a touch at the end, the way a hand does.

Sign-off. Add a layer called Sign-off Strip. Lasso a torn-edged strip under the label, from about x 878 to 1384 and y 1892 to 1978, and fill it with white #F8F5EE. Type love from all of us, xo in Rock Salt 30, toner black, centred on the strip. Merge Down, tilt it 2.5° to the left, and give it the same small shadow as the slip.

Collapse Notes, click it, and make one more group called Photocopy. Add a layer called Toner and fill it with mid-grey #808080. Then run:

1. Filter → Add Noise… at Amount 100, Mono
2. Filter → Gaussian Blur… at 3
3. Filter → Threshold… at 120

Start from mid-grey, not white. Add Noise only moves pixels about 50 levels either way, so on white nothing would ever get dark enough to catch. The blur clumps the noise, so the threshold leaves irregular blots instead of single-pixel salt.

Pick the Magic Wand, untick Contiguous, set Tolerance 10, click a white pixel on Toner, press Delete, and deselect. Turn Contiguous back on.

Even speckle everywhere looks like a digital filter. A real copy gets dirtier towards the edges. Pick the Eraser at Size 520 and Opacity 75. Drag a loose zig-zag down the middle of the card, one straight pass from top to bottom, one sweep across the title and one across the bottom notes. Drop the Size to 300 and wipe the left end of the story slip too, so no specks blot the first letters of the lines. Then set Toner to Multiply at 55%.

Copier edge. Add a layer called Copier Edge. Marquee a strip from 0, 0 to 80, 2100 down the left edge. Drag a linear gradient from #3A3633 at the left edge to white at the right edge of the strip, then deselect. Set it to Multiply at 60%. It's the shadow you get when the copier lid doesn't quite close.

Scanner streak. Add a layer called Scan Streak. Marquee a 12 px strip from 1446, 0 to 1458, 2100, choose Select → Feather… at 5, fill it with #8A8580, and deselect. Set it to Multiply at 45%. Keep it in the margin, away from the art; a hard streak through the cat looks like a rendering bug.

Paper grain. Click Background and run Add Noise… at Amount 6, Mono.

Save with File → Save Project, then File → Quick Export PNG.