[Hall of tricks]

In the following steps, we'll add a joint between the nib and the pen and a ring in the middle of the pen.

• Zoom very close on the nib. Using the Path Drawing Tool draw a narrow rectangular shape where the nib is fixed to the pen. Using the Material Gallery, add a gold look to it. I choose Gold 5 from the Metallic section. It's important that you choose the right color now because we're going to copy this rectangle two more times. This way you won't need to remember the color you choose.
• Set the Mode to 3D Round and the Border to 2. Adjust the light so the the glare on it looks nice.
• Use the Transform Tool's Resize command to distribute the joint equally above and below the pen tip.
• Your image should resemble the following.

Now, we'll copy the joint near the middle of the pen.

• While you hold the Ctrl key down, drag the joint we just created to the right. This will create a duplicate.
• Relocate the new rectangle toward the middle of the pen and make it narrower. This will be the ring that hides the gap between the two parts of the pen. (You need to change the reservoir when it's empty right?)
• Make sure again that the ring is equally distributed on the height on the pen.

Now let's make the pen cover. For this, we'll create a copy of the pen and modify it.

• Make sure the Grid is visible and Snap to Grid is On.
• Hold Ctrl and drag the pen below along some grid points.
• Click on Path Drawing Tool then Editing. Delete the two nodes at the far left and turn the resulting curved path to a straight line.
• Select the node at the far right and drag its two handle toward the node a little to flatten the cover.
• Drag the node to the left to make the end less elliptical. Press Ctrl+Shift+R to toggle the grid so that you can view the path more clearly. This is what you're looking for.

Now click the Editing button to view the shape. The main advantage of duplicating the path is that all the parameters are the same for the two paths. You don't need to recall the lighting effects, the Depth and Border settings and so on.

• Hold Ctrl and drag one of the two joints we made earlier in front of the opening of the cover.
• Resize it and make it wider. Use this joint to hide the bevel on the left edge of the cover. PI adds the bevel because of the shape of the path. The joint will hide it so that it looks perfectly cylindrical. Here's how it should look.

Now that you're comfortable with paths and nodes, let's attack the clip on the cover. This will be slightly more challenging.

• Zoom near the cover and use the Path Drawing Tool to draw a rectangular shape about three quarter of the length of the pen cover. Use the Material Box to make sure no Bump map and no Reflection is used for the clip. This is supposed to be using a metallic shinning finish.
• Click Editing to make the nodes appear. Zoom very close to the right end of the clip and select the vertical line. Turn it into a curve by clicking Convert path to curve segment.
• Click the upper node and pull the handle up and to the right to make a round end to the clip. Repeat this for the bottom node. Make sure both handle are symmetrical as shown below.

Scroll to the other end of the clip and draw the mounting shape to fix the clip to the cover.

• Add four nodes to the shape. Two above and two below.
• You'll need to move the nodes away from the clip and turn the left vertical line to a curve. The following image illustrates this.

• When you click Editing to see the complete path, it should look real nice.
• In the Mode list, choose 3D Chisel.

It's now time to assemble everything together. Press Ctrl+1 to view the whole image.

• Using the Pick Tool select the pen, the nib and the two joints. Right-click on the selection and choose Merge as Single Object.
• Select the cover and the ornament at its end and using the Transform Tool, choose Flip Horizontally in the Rotate & Flip section.
• Position the clip on the cover. This is your chance to use the Resize command to change its height and length. Select the three objects making the cover and merge then as a single object.

You may want to increase the height of the the cover a little. Normally, it should be slightly wider than the pen. You can add you name on the pen to personalize it (so nobody steals it from you!!).

If you want to add a sheet of paper to the image, follow these steps:

• Hit Spacebar to select the base image and use the Standard Selection Tool to create a rectangular selection of the same proportion as an 8-1/2 x 11 sheet.
• Choose Format/Frame & Shadow (In PI 5, this command is in the Web menu and is called Frame Designer). Choose Edge Frame Gallery from the Style list. Find the following mask (with the blue border) and click OK.

• From the Edit menu, choose Fill and find a nice color for the sheet. I like to use the Two Colors option in the Gradient tab. Choose anything you like. Click OK.
• Use the Retouch-Burn tool around the edges of the sheet.
• Here's a cool trick I've learned not too long ago. The sheet is an image, not a shape. You can't use Path attribute to it as it stands right now. Choose Object/Convert Object Type/From Image to Path to convert any image to path.
• Now you can click the Path Drawing Tool and use the Material Box or the Material Gallery to add effects to the sheet. Start by choosing 3D Round from the Mode list and set Border and Depth to 0.
• From the Material Gallery, open the Bump group and double-click Paper 2.
• If your sheet of paper is too dark for your taste, select Format/Hue & Saturation and set the Lightness to a higher value (a value of 50 will make it much paler).
• If you need to apply more image effects, convert the sheet of paper beck to an image by choosing Object/Convert Object Type and choose From Path to Image.

The finishing touch. Now, we need to add some shadow and a background to the image. Start by positioning all your objects to way you want. Move and rotate the pen, the cover and the sheet so that the composition looks nice and balanced. Add a light shadow to each object by right clicking on each and choosing Shadow. You should use the same setting for the three objects.

Use the Text Tool to add a quote or one of your favorite line on the sheet. There are many fonts that mimics hand writing. If you have Microsoft Office installed, you should have Lucida Handwriting installed on your computer.

Add a background color under everything. A quick way of doing this is to use the Elliptical Gradient Fill Tool. Choose two colors on the toolbar and drag a large ellipse in your image's background starting at one of the four corners. Here's mine:

For some reason, I often like to add a black border around my images. You can do this easily by choosing Edit/Expand Canvas (called simply Expand in PI 5). Select a dark color and set the four values to something between 3 and 5. I liked making this tutorial, hope you liked it too!