Creating an Egg Shape in Paint Shop Pro

Although bird eggs do come in slightly different shapes, they do seem to follow a pattern of a slightly pointy end with a somewhat thicker base.

This is how I created a pleasing and regular egg shape.

Open a new image 600 X 600 with a vector background.

View >  grid , guides, and rulers ticked.

Make sure your grid values are 100 horizontal and 100 vertical.

Place Guides in the following positions:

Vertical at 175 and 425

Horizontal at 330

Select your ellipse tool.

Make sure you have selected ellipse not circle in the tool bar.

Foreground null, background color of your choice.

Draw an ellipse  from  x:175 y:100  to x:425 y:500

Select the pick [object selector] tool and zoom in and make any minor adjustments to make sure your ellipse is plum within the grid and vertical guides:

Object> convert to path:

Select the Pen tool - your nodes will become  visible:

Zoom in and Click on each of the lateral nodes and holding down your left mouse button  pull each one straight down to your horizontal guide:

If you wish to have your egg a bit more "pointy", click on the node at the top and adjust the "arms" to make them shorter.

When you are happy with your shape, give your egg shape a name.

Select your egg with the pick tool [or object selector]

Right click and Export>Shape [Or File> Export > Shape]

I usually use the same name as I have given the shape as this makes it far easier to find it again when I want to use it.

If you wish to place it in a particular folder within your PSP shapes click on the little file icon to open the file location box [yes I have a LOT of folders:) ] :

To use your new shape simply select it from your dropdown list of PSP preset shapes:

I used the egg shape with a soft pink brown gradient and added shading and texture:

You can download a zip  with a .pdf version of this tutorial and gradient jm_brown_egg_1 HERE

You might also like to look at this tutorial, using an egg shape.

Please feel free to comment and post any queries.