When designing creative masterpieces, there occasionally comes a time when you need to chain down your creations.  This is particularly an issue with horror-themed images, where you really don't want your monsters to look like they are roaming about freely.  The creation of chains sounds simple enough, but getting a decent 3D effect can prove to be elusive.  This tutorial details a comprehensive method for creating chains and chain links of almost any size, and even gives a few examples of how they can be used to their best effect.
 

Step 1: Create a new document with a transparent background layer. I like to work with lots of space, so I've gone for a 600x600 pixel canvas. Use the Elliptical Marquee Tool make a decently-sized circular selection, holding down the SHIFT key as you drag it out so that it keeps equal proportions.  Edit > Fill this circle with a solid black color. Without losing your selection, run Edit > Copy and Edit > Paste to duplicate this circle and move it a little to the left so that the two circles are overlapping a little. Note: If you don't have them on already, you may find it useful to go via View > Rulers and turn rulers on with snap enabled.

Step 2: Swap over to the Rectangular Marquee Tool and draw a box connecting the upper and lower edges of the two circles.  Edit > Fill this with black.  You should now have a flat oval shape like in my example image to the left.

Step 3:  Merge all your layers together so that you only have one layer containing your new custom shape surrounded by a transparent area.  Press down CTRL on your keyboard and click on the layer in the layers palette (with any marquee tool selected), to create a selection around your link shape. Pick Select > Transform Selection from the main menu and then, holding down the CTRL+SHIFT keys on your keyboard, resize your selection to something like 75% of its original width, and 58% of its original height.  Press DELETE on your keyboard and admire your nice chain link shape. Name the layer something inspiring like link1.   :)

Step 4: Lose your selection and invert your link color via Image > Adjustment > Invert.  We only used black before so that we could see what we were doing. Open up the layer styles dialog via Layer > Layer Style > Inner Glow, and enter in the settings on the right.  When you have done this, click OK.

Step 5: Make sure the link1 layer is selected and hit CTRL+T to transform the shape. Right click in the bounding box and choose perspective.  Then move the top of the bounding box inwards until it looks something like my example on the right. Press ENTER on your keyboard to finalize the change when you are happy with it.

Step 6: Press D on your keyboard to reset your foreground/background colors, and X to swap them around so that black is the new foreground colour.  Create a new layer on top of your link1 layer and name it shadow.  CTRL+click on the link1 layer in the layer palette, grab the Gradient Tool, set a linear transparent-to-black gradient, and drag it across the selection in the new shadow layer.  Set the opacity of the layer to around 45%.  Its only an optical illusion, but you should now see a nice shiny link. Merge the shadow layer and the link1 layer together, renaming the combined layer link1 (again). Right click on this new layer in the layer palette and duplicate the layer, naming the new layer link2.    Press V on the keyboard to select the Move Tool and drag the new link to the right till the inner edges of the links are touching. Now rotate the new link by choosing Edit > Transform > Rotate 180° from the main menu.

Step 7: Lose any active selections you may have via the use of Select > Deselect.  Make the link2 layer active and click the add layer mask button at the bottom of the layer palette. CTRL+click on link1 in the layer palette to make a new selection in the shape of the first link, and then run Select > Modify > Contract with a setting of 1px.   DO NOT LOSE YOUR SELECTION.  Bring out a Brush Tool and give it a large hard-edged tip. Select the link2 layer mask in the layers palette (NOT the layer itself), and with the foreground color set to black, "paint" in the selection where the two links cross at the bottom.  This will delete the overlap and create the impression of 3D.

Step 8: Make another copy of the link1 layer called link3 and place it directly beneath link2. Move it a little to the right of link2 so that the inner edges touch. Select the layer and CTRL+click to get a selection, contract the selection by one pixel. Select link2 and make sure you've clicked on the layer mask box rather than the image box and again paint black down the bottom of the link inside the selection. You should end up with a nice link chain like this:

Step 9: And that's it!  Now all you have to do is make copies of link2 and link1/link3 and move them along as required to form bigger link chains.  You can then color them, scale them down, or add textures as needed. This is exactly what I did to make the chains in the image below, also adding a slight drop shadow underneath them for a little depth. I hope you found this tutorial useful!

- Tutorial written by NeoLokie

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