River Man,
I would probably begin by making a single fish scale in a new layer. To make the scale, I would use the elliptical marquee tool in a moderate vertical ellipsis and fill the selection with a medium gray color or better yet, a gradient. Then I would likely add some noise (Filter > Noise > Add Noise). I might even add a tiny bevel and drop shadow, but not too much since it is only one scale.
Once I had a decent looking scale, I would hold down my ALT key and SHIFT key to drag a copy of my fine looking scale to make another one. ALT allows to drag a copy while SHIFT allows the new copy to be dragged perfectly horizontal. I would position the new one next to and touching the first one, and do this a few times to make a row of scales. I would also make one additional copy of the first scale, drag that layer to the bottom position in the layers palette and "turn the eye off" so I can’t see it, but know it’s there if I ever need a single scale again. Then I would select the original scale and link all other scale layers to it. I would press CTRL + E to merge the linked layers into one, and ALT drag a copy. This copy would be placed on top of the first row of scales with the scale centers positioned over the meeting points of the first row of scales, like bricks in a wall. You could then link and merge these two layers and ALT-SHIFT drag new ones vertically to make the final pattern. Eventually, you may want to rotate the image 90 degrees to make the scale pattern look horizontal, depending on your needs.
Corey 🙂
"RiverMan" wrote in message
I am trying to draw a fish scale pattern and cannot figure out how to do this. I have tried every possible angle and still cannot figure it out. Can someone tell me how I might go about doing this? Thank you!
RM
