Design.CreativeFan » Design

How to Make a Car Advertisement Poster Design

Wojciech Magierski — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 20:49:58 +0000

Creating effective advertisements is one of the biggest jobs for a graphic designer. The advertising industry is one of the largest employers of graphic designers, but creating advertisements requires a mastery of many different skills. From photomanipulation, digital painting, 3D, and vector graphics, graphic designers need to have strong skillsets in order to be able to work on a given project.

In this graphic design tutorial, we’ll cover the essential advertising workflow. By following along with this Photoshop ad tutorial, you’ll see how to take just a simple stock image and build a pixel perfect artwork around it, while also communicating valuable information about the brand to viewers.

If you liked this Photoshop poster tutorial, check out our other graphic design tutorials:

Hope you find this Photoshop tutorial informative!

Final Image Preview

Step 1

First, we need to isolate the photo of Mercedes and put it on a white background. This will give us the base of our advertisement and a focal point to build around. The pen tool or magic wand will work best for this extraction.

Then we start to make the shadows with soft round brush. You can just paint below the extracted car layer on a new layer, based upon where you will place your light source.

Step 2

Invert the background layer using ctrl+i and make a new layer, with soft round brush paint some blue areas behind the car. Alternately you can create your own fill layer with a different color.

After that, we use a smoke brush and add a little mist on the left.

Step 3

To make it more realistic, I decided to add a clouds texture (http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=24208522) on the background.

With the layer mask on, we erase the areas on the bottom right corner.

Next, I took a green grass texture and desaturated it using hue/saturation (ctrl+u) or ctrl+shift+u.

Step 4

I think it is a little bit too dark, so we use the adjustment layer – curves and brighten it up.

On new layer, make the left corner a little dark, the light is not going there so strong, that is why we make it darker. You can paint it with a dark brush and set to Overlay or Soft Light.

I want to make it all in one colour pallete, so we need to use a hue/saturation, colorized check.

Step 5

On the top of the layers we start to adding the trees (http://www.istockphoto.com/stock-photo-1204409-bonsai-tree.php?st=996a73c).

As you see, every tree is blended, so use the curves to make it darker or brighter, and hue/saturation to make it desaturated or more colorful. Don’t forget about the shadows, paint it with a soft round brush just like we did for the car shadows.

Once you’ve added some stock photos, now you can paint the rest with a small brush, use the same colours like the tree and start to paint your wooden root.

Step 6

Now, it is time to make the base. We have a dark and relatively ugly looking grass texture. So we need to search a stock photo, on www.sxc.hu and start to blend the green grass.

Use the layer mask, and erase some areas to fit the texture more.

I found some stock photos of the stones and put it on the bottom of the project, also add one more wooden root on the left.

The same stones I put on the left background, that give as an effect, like the car is staying on rocks.

Step 7

We add the rocks on the background from a mountain texture (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/916133). As you see they don’t fit to the image in terms of color. To fix this, we use the hue/saturation adjustment layer.

I also paint some mist with soft round brush.

The final touch is the flying birds. This is always a good thing, because birds show you the scale of the illustration… the same is with the people on the images. The human eye understands certain sizes for things, such as people, or birds, so they help establish a scale for the eye.

Step 8

Now it its almost done, but the adjustment layers will bring it on the next level. :) First a little more contrast with brightness/contrast and new color pallete with a channel mixer.

Final Image

Create a Black Swan Inspired Movie Poster

Joe Moore — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 18:41:54 +0000

On CreativeFan awhile back, we published a series of Inspirational, Dark and Moody Black Swan Movie Posters, which all were notable for using a variety of design techniques that we’ve covered here, including photomanipulation, texture overlay, and digital painting of makeup.

In this tutorial, we’ll look at how to create a Black Swan inspired movie poster. You’ll see how to manipulate some stock images into a seamless design, add in elements for depth of field, and finish it all off.

If you’re interested in more Photoshop design tutorials, check out these tutorials:

Hope you find this tutorial informative!

Tools used:

Adobe Photoshop
Stock images
Wacom Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Background creation and main stock implementation

Alright so to start off we need to create our new document. I went with (as always) a 2000*3000 canvas. However having said that, if you are using a smaller stock image than me or don’t like working on higher resolution canvas you can use a smaller size. Once you have created your new document we need to create the background. This will be a basic grey to semi grey (almost white) gradient.

Next we need to create a sort of white… aura that will later be behind our figure. To do this grab a large soft brush with an opacity of about 45%. Once you have your brush just go ahead and paint a nice elliptical area in the center of the canvas on a new layer, adjust the opacity if need be. Now we can create another new layer and switch our color over to black, once that is done we can paint over one side of the canvas in the black. Set the newly created black layer to softlight again, vary your opacity if you think its too much.

Now its time to grab our base stock, my female stock is from Stockexpert, however they no longer host/sell stock images so I no longer have a link. You should be able to find similar stock images at Shutterstock, Istock, Fotolia or Deviantart if you look hard enough! Once you have your stock female you want to go ahead and isolate her out using the pen tool. Once that is done free transform the stock image down so it fits nicely in the new canvas.

Step 2: Over painting

Now its time to start over painting our stock image. We will not be adding in some new dramatic details, but rather adding more contrast, highlights and adjustments. So for tutorial’s sake lets take a look at my figure as she is now one last time.

Next let’s set up our brush, we want something small (this is relative to canvas size) and soft with a low opacity (I used 50% again).

To start off we will attack the gloves. As of now the gloves are kind of… blue. Which is fine, but I want them to be black. So create a new layer and paint over all of the gloves, set this layer to color. Then duplicate the layer and set it to softlight at about 50%.

Next up, while on the soft light layer we just created, we can add some highlights to the gloves. This can be done with the same brush just swap your color over to white and paint over the highlights. This will make them bolder in appearance.

Now lets go down to the stomach, which on my image is kind of dull and grey. So to fix this lets create a new layer and grab a skin tone from the stomach that we like, then using our brush we just simply paint over the grayer sections of the stomach, for me this is the right hand side (her left).

Once the stomach has been cleaned up its time to do a quick overhaul of our shadows/highlights and help bring them more to life. To do this create a new overlay layer and switch back to your black and white colors. Paint over all of the highlighted sections with white and the shadows/darker side with black. Remember that we are using a low opacity brush, so you can go back over sections or do a little white and a little black on a section if need be.

Now that we have done our ‘overhaul’ its time to focus in on the eyes of our figure. Specifically we want to create a sort of… sunken in malnourished appearance. To do this we can start off by painting (with black) around the surrounding area of the eye. Then slowly feathering it out lightly, this is to say that the part of the eye socket closest to the eye should be the darkest and it fades away or feathers as it goes outward. You may want to drop your brush opacity down even more when doing this.

I also went ahead and painted over my eye brows to make them darker as well.

Step 3: Swans

Now its time to add in our swans, or rather our feather tentacle things that will later encompass our figure. To do this we can use a stock image of a black swan located at Fotolia http://us.fotolia.com/id/3976641 . Once you have the stock image go ahead and crop out one of the swans for isolation. Once its been cropped out just isolate it out using the pen tool just like you would any other stock image.

Once it is isolated go ahead and pen tool out the head as well, we will not need this section.

Now grab the top right hand side of our swan and feather out one end with a large soft eraser.

Once you have done that grab a large sized section of the feathers and feather out its hard edge, once this edge has been feathered out with a large soft eraser all you need to do is free transform it down and place it over the previously feathered section, please note that you probably will not be able to do a symmetrical transformation.

Our newly completed swan tentacle!

Now its time to burn it, if you are familiar with our past tutorials you will recognize the poorly drawn light/shadow diagram seen below. So basically (on my canvas) the light is coming from my left, so we need to burn the right hand side. Now if we want to dodge (I don’t suggest it) the blue line represents where this can be done. However as I have said, I would not suggest that you use the blue line as a reference point to how far your burn should ‘feather out’. For the burning I used the same brush we have been using as my burn brush and had it set to burn mid tones at 15%.

Now just drop it over your stock and erase away a section coming off the figure, this way it appears as if it is coming from behind.

Next we can duplicate this layer, free transform it (squish it and make it skinnier) and then drop it completely behind the female layer. Once that is done apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 7px.

You can repeat this on the opposing side if you like.

Now its time to create yet another tentacle. This time a tentacle that’s a tiny bit thinner. So to do this I took the original isolated swan neck segment and liquefied it. By using the liquefy tool along with the forward warp tool (a brush in the liqufy tool) I pushed the neck into a thin line. Once it became a thin line I push on either side to create an S shape. For those of you familiar with our past tutorials this will seem very familiar to how we created our stilts in the previous surreal tutorials.

Once that is done we can duplicate the new thin line and feather out the ends of both. Why feather out the ends of both layers? Well so we can merge them into one big’o loop!

Now that our large thin loop has been created we can merge the two layers together and drop them into our canvas. Place this above your female and erase away the section that leaves the figure as well as the section that goes over the arm. This way it appears as if it is coming from behind and going under her arm. Once that is done create a new layer and use our good old trusty brush to paint a nice simple shadow.

Now we need to continue this thin line. I mean it does not just disappear under her arm right?! So to do this we will once again grab our hoop section, this time grab a small section of it located towards the end of one of the longer sections (not the hoop). Then just drop it in over your figure, have it coming up her belly, behind the first tentacle and the arm. Once that is done just draw out another shadow!

Finally I added in one last tentacle beneath her, this time just another duplicated hoop layer un-blurred.

As of now our canvas looks something like the below image.

Step 4: Feathers

Now we can add in the last little bit to our piece, that is of course, the feathers. The stock image of feathers can be found here on SXC http://www.sxc.hu/pic/l/w/wo/wonsak/690554_60916502.jpg

Just drop your stock images into a new canvas and proceed to marquee out each one (one at a time) and create a brush out of it. Don’t know how to create a brush? Its easy, just make a selection around a feather and go to your edit tab > define brush preset>OK and your done!

Once your brushes have been created its time to grab a feather and get to work! So choose one of the many feathers and set your brush settings up as mine are in the below screenshot.

Now create a new layer above everything else and randomly throw down some black feathers. Once you have done this go ahead and apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 3 or 4 px.

Now create another new layer and start adding in the feathers that will not be blurred.

Now we can add in the final DOF feather. To do this create a new layer and drop in one feather at full size. Once you have done this go ahead and free transform it to about 200% and then apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 5 or 6.

And now we are done! I finished off my piece by adding in some feathers in a circular pattern under all the layers but this is not necessary. My final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and it has helped you understand a few concepts or at least showed you some techniques you did not know. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask! Or if you have any tut suggestions please drop a comment, we are always looking for new concepts!

Create a Wacom Product Advertisement in Photoshop

Joe Moore — Wed, 04 May 2011 20:13:52 +0000

When working as a graphic designer, one of the primary fields you can work in is advertising. Creating high quality print advertisements takes creativity, mastery of your tools such as Photosohop, ability to find and manipulate stock images, and ability to work within the constraints or theme that is presented.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Wacom tablet product advertisement. You’ll see how to take a product image and create a theme for an advertisement, and then how to execute it with a variety of subtle touches.

If you liked this tutorial, you’ll also love these other product ad design tutorials:

Enjoy!

Tools Used:

Adobe Photoshop
Stock Images
Wacom Tablet

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Scene Setup and Panda Integration

Ok so to start off we will need our base wacom tablet stock image. This stock image can be located here:

http://download.microsoft.com/download/d/6/3/d6386816-25e3-430e-ad99-337f081922aa/Wacom_Graphire4_Classic.JPG

Once you have your stock image just go ahead and isolate it out using your pen tool, then drop it into a horizontal canvas of your choosing (I went with 3000*2000).

Once that is done grab your elliptical marquee tool (m on your keyboard) and make a giant circular selection on a new layer. Fill this with red and drop the opacity down to about 8%. Once that is done grab a nice big soft eraser (0% hardness, 300px should work fine) and feather the bottom so it fades away.

Now we have our rising sun!

Once the ‘sun’ has been created its time to move over and start dropping our pandas in. I used pandas from shutterstock but you can use whatever you can find. In fact if you wanted to you could use something else, apes maybe? The below screenshots show what my pandas look like. Once you have your pandas (or animal of choice) you just want to pen tool all of them out and then just drop them all over the tablet as I have done below.

Now lets take a look at one of the pandas. Whilst they are cute and all… they look a tad bit dull, to fix this we can quickly pant over them using a small hard brush. Keep in mind that we are not trying to paint over the entirety of the panda, we are just trying to bring life to the panda!

My panda looks like the below screen shot.

Now grab a hard small brush similar to mine in the below screenshot and paint away. Keep in mind that the pandas are not solid blocks of white and black, they are hairy! So make strokes that blend together and that interweave.

Now my panda looks like the below screenshot.

Once we have painted over our pandas its time to add a tiny bit of shadow beneath him. I say tiny because when looking at the pen which is laying on the tablet there is virtually no shadow. So set your brush up as mine is in the below screen shot with an opacity of about 20% and paint a shadow beneath the panda on a new layer.

Now its time to create the reflection for our panda, however this will be a tad different than our last tutorial demonstrating reflections. To begin duplicate your panda and flip it vertically, then apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 8, finally using the eraser we used prior feather out the edges of the panda. Once all of this is done, drop the opacity to about 20% and erase away any sections that go off the tablet.

Now we can repeat this process with the remainder of our pandas!

Step 2: Vegetation!

Now its time to start painting our grass in, this will be similar to the last time we painted grass but with a few differences here and there. To start off grab the same brush that we used prior and choose a semi dark green. Do a few ‘starter’ strokes to define the area you wish to encompass with your grass. Next switch over to a lighter green and fill this area in with some smaller strokes and then switch back to the previous green and add some smaller strokes with this as well. Now continue doing this (on a much smaller scale) so it looks like the small strands are bunched together and the larger strands are sticking out amongst the fray.

Finally you can add a very low opacity reflection on the tablet from the grass in the same manner that we did the pandas.

Now repeat this process everywhere you want to add a little vegetation to the scene.

Next up its time to add some larger foliage, a tree or two to be exact! So grab a tree stock that you like, I used a banzai from shutterstock, isolate it out and drop it in behind your grass. Once that is done give it a nice large reflection just like we have drone prior.

And then if you want, do it again as I have done.

My scene now looks like the below screen shot, minus the cropped rising sun.

Now its time to add some bamboo, this is a wacom bamboo mock advert isn’t it? You can find bamboo stocks all over the net on Deviantart, sxc and various other sites. Mine are from Shutterstock and look like the below screenshots.

Now we can repeat the tree process using our bamboo, just isolate them out, place them behind the grass and add a reflection.

Now we can add in some large scale bamboo tops, that is to say, the leafy part. You of course don’t have to use bamboo for this if you do not want to. I choose to do so just due to a mistake partly. My stock is from shutterstock and looks like the below screenshot. You just want to isolate this out and drop it under your tablet.

Step 3: Various stock implementations, extra details and finishing touches

To start off our miscellaneous section we will begin by dropping in a building. My building (like the other stocks) is from shutterstock and looks like the below screenshot. You can find a very similar building on Sxc or DA. Isolate your building out and plop it under one of the trees you put in earlier. Like everything else this will need a reflection!

Now lets add some color to the tablet! To do this grab the same small brush and create a new layer with an opacity of 45%. Using the red that you used for the sun just fill in some areas on the tablet, like the Wacom logo and some small lines on the pen.

Now after looking at it for a bit, I think the canvas is just to plain. So to bump things up a bit create a semi-grey to white gradient as the background. This will help to break up the blandness of the canvas and make the entire thing that much better.

Now we can grab some birds and isolate them out and drop them in around our trees.

Once that is done we can grab the wacom logo from: http://www.carbonation.com/wacom/images/wacom_logo_newK.gif and the bamboo logo from http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1171/533782044_4a0df43d30.jpg (the text only) and drop them both into our document. Set both layers up as a multiply and place the wacom text above the bamboo text to create our mock up logo.

And now we are done! I added in some kanji work around the logo to finish mine off and you can too, or you can leave it as is. My finished image looks like the below screenshot.

Manipulate a Dancer Illustration in Photoshop

Joe Moore — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:09:26 +0000

One of the most popular design styles of the past few years is to create interesting effects around a stock photo of a dancer or a person in motion. The motion offers a unique base around which to build creative elements.

In this Photoshop tutorial, you’ll see how to manipulate a single stock image in Photoshop to create a dance illustration.

If you are looking for more of the best Photoshop tutorials, check out these posts:

If you have any questions or suggestions, let us know in the comments!

Tools Used:

Adobe Photoshop
A stock image

Final Image Preview

Step 1: Scene Setup

Ok so to start off, we need to create our background and our new document. Now like almost all of my tutorials the resolution is up to you, however I still suggest something large (I will be using 3000*2000) and now we need to make the background. To create the background choose a light grey and make a grey to white gradient, I went with the circular gradient with white in the center expanding into grey but whatever you like should work just fine for this.

Now we need our stock image! You can use any kind of model you like, I went with a dancer picture which can be seen below. Once you have your stock you will need to isolate it out using your pen tool and drop it into your scene.

Step 2: Simple Background Aesthetics

Now to start building our scene up with some easy tricks. The first of which will be to help lessen the negative space in the scene by creating something for the background. So create a new layer under your model and make a large colored circle (I went with pink). You can do this by using the circular marquee tool and then just filling it. Once you have made your circle turn the layers opacity down to about 20%.

Now we can create another new layer under the figure for our shadow. To create the shadow grab any old brush and just draw it out. Once you have loosely (very loose in my case) drawn the shadow just apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of about 15 depending on how large your shadow area is going to be and how condensed you want it to be.

Once you shadow is done we can make a duplicate of our figure and turn the opacity to 0%. Once you have done this go to the F on the layer toolbar and select ‘stroke’. Once you have done that set your stroke dialog up as mine is in the below screenshot, then just decrease the opacity and move it around a tad to the left or right.

Step 3: Figure Aesthetics

Ok now its time to start my favorite part! The sketching! So at this point you will want to grab your 3px hard brush and get started!

So basically what you want to do hear is to just trace, doodle and shade in random sections with different colors. I used black, white, pink, cyan and green for my colors. Starting with green and white then moving on to the other colors but your color selections can be whatever you like, just make sure they complement one another. And remember we are going for a traditional doodle/sketch look so don’t worry if yours looks rough!

You can also play around with other filters/tools while doing this. For example I smudged my green lines in the below screenshot.

Ok so now that you have sketched all over your stock its time to move on to the next step which may not be necessary or viable on your piece but we will go over it regardless just for the sake of learning!

So what we are going to do is duplicate the cross on my figures necklace. So to do this in a cool way we will, isolate out the cross, drop it on a new layer and set it as an overlay layer at 100% and then under this layer on a new layer we will just fill in the cross. This way the solid cross that we just filled will have the shadows and highlights from the overlay cross and it will allow us to manipulate the colors much easier than with the standard hue adjustments.

You can also see where I drew (poorly) little loops to connect these new crosses to the original necklace, which you can add to yours if your doing something similar.

Now lets add some more color like effects. To do this just create a new layer above your figure and draw a bit patch on it in a color that fits with your piece (I went with blue). Then just apply a large Gaussian blur and set the layer up as a screen layer.

My document now looks like the below screen shot.

Now lets add some more to our figure! So grab one of your splat/brush stroke brushes ( see our tut on these here : http://design.creativefan.com/combining-custom-brushes-for-wild-effects-in-photoshop/ ) and throw down to in two different colors (I used dark purple and blue) then set them up as an overlay layer.

Now using some of the brushes just throw a few brush strokes on a new layer under your figure and some on top of your figure.

Step 4: Custom shapes

Once your brush strokes are all laid down we can move on to the next section, that being creating the dynamic swirly shapes! To do this start off by making a new document (you don’t have to but I find it easier) and then just using your pen tool make a quick random loop like shape. Then once you have your shape fill it with your desired color!

Now unlike our previous tutorials where we tried to create a light setup that related to the background this time we can just go all random. Just burn/dodge what you think looks good. Because in the end if you think it looks good, what else matters? If your having trouble at this step, or don’t know what im referring to I suggest you take a look at one of our tutorials that covers this in full, which can be found at: http://design.creativefan.com/create-colorful-ornamental-text-photoshop-tutorial/

Now we can create a new hue adjustment layer. This can be found in the layer drop down under adjustment layers -> hue and saturation. Once you have create a new adjustment layer and set it up to your desired color then just edit it like you would any mask! For example erasing a line would create a line in a different color and painting a line would do vice-versa. I used the pen tool to create my color swirls but you can just marquee them out or just paint them on, whatever is easier for you!

Now just drop it into your dance picture. The idea here being that part loops behind the figure whilst another part stays on top of the figure creating a 3D like illusion. As you can see in the below screen shot, I put a ton!

Now we can repeat the process of making our swirly shape but this time just make a sphere which is a thousand times easier. Just lasso out a sphere, fill, burn, dodge and color! If your sphere looks a tad flat you can spherize it with the spherize filter located in the deformation drop down in your filter tab. But if you do this be sure that you have it set to 100% on both axis’!

Once the shapes are in lets do some more fine tuning. So head over to your layer tab and choose create new layer > Fill layer > Pattern layer and then just grab a scan line pattern. Once you have done this just make some random selections or random brush strokes etc… which will be your scan lines. You can use your polygon lasso here to make various weird shapes or some brushes you have lying about its up to you. I used a splatter brush as well as the poly lasso.

But don’t be afraid of just using one type of pattern! For example below you can see I used another pattern, a black halftone to be exact.

Next grab your poly lasso and just make a few rectangles and triangles in various shapes all over your figure. Then just copy and paste these sections of your figure on to a new layer. Once you have done that just move them around to create some abstract dispersion. Also if you wanted you could use the displacement filter for this, however keep in mind that doing it that way gives you a thousand times less control!

To finish off our piece we will need to add in something more, something to help bring everything together. That will be light stocks! So we will head over to SXC and grab this stock and drop it into our document. http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1114780

Once you have dropped the light stock into your document apply it as a screen beneath the figure. Then duplicate it and place it above the figure. Erase out the parts you don’t like that are on top of the figure and ta-da!

Now we are done! I finished my piece off with a bit more drawing and some graffiti work and my final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial and maybe learned a thing or two! If you have any questions regarding a technique don’t be afraid to post a message and ask!

Create an Amazing Abstract Heart Surreal Photoshop Tutorial

Joe Moore — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:55:12 +0000

In this surreal Photoshop tutorial, you’ll learn the entire workflow from start to finish of creating an incredible surreal abstract artwork. Starting with just a single photograph, you’ll learn how to apply adjustments to bring it into an easily workable color scheme, as well as then using the pen tool to create amazing surreal shapes. Then, you’ll learn how to finish it off with a few other effects and another stock photo, for an incredible surreal artwork.

This is sort of a follow up tutorial to our previous surreal Photoshop tutorial, Create an Unbelievable Surreal Abstract Artwork with Photoshop. If you’re curious as to the sort of results you can achieve with these techniques, check out these two interviews with established surreal abstract artists:

Enjoy the tutorial!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!

Tools Used:

Photoshop CS
Various stock images

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: First Step In Stock Manipulation and Background Creation

To start off we will need to grab a stock image, you can use whatever you like but i would suggest using a stock image that focuses in on the face since this is the main part of our piece.

My image looks like the below image and was found on Shutterstock.

Next we can grayscale this by pressing CTRL SHIFT U on our keyboards.

Now we need to start isolating out our shapes that we will use to create our piece using the pen tool. At this point is is essential for you to take your time and make smooth curves. You don’t want any blocky shapes! If your having trouble doing this you can find a great tutorial for the pen tool here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DzpT8POAME

So start off by making a selection around the eye/nose as I have done in the below screen shot.

Next we can make a new selection around the jawline and mouth.

Once you have done this you can move over to the opposing eye if you want. I just duplicated the original eye, flipped it and removed the nose. But this is up to you, its going to be your piece after all.

Now just continue making shapes from some of the plain skin sections. You don’t need to make anything overly complex for this to work out, you just need some simple curved shapes.

My shapes look like the below screenshot.

Now that we have our shapes, and face selections, its time to get started on the background. So start off by creating a new document at your desired resolution, I went with 2000*3000 but you can use whatever you like. However keep in mind that you can always size a piece down, but enlarging it is another story!

Once your new document has been created its time to fill it with black. Next we are going to create a spotlight like gradient, to do this just use any sized paint brush (on your current layer) and paint something similar to what I have done in the below screenshot.

Now just Gaussian blur this a few times with a radius of 250px and you should have something that looks similar to my gradient in the below screenshot.

Next we need to add some texture but we aren’t going to add a texture we will just simply apply a noise filter. So to do this, create a new layer and fill it with black again, now go to your filter tab select noise>add noise. Once that is done set your document up as mine is in the below screenshot.

Apply this filter about 3 times and then set the layer as an overlay with an opacity of 8. This will create a faint grain to the image and add a slight sense of depth when paired with the blurred background.

A close up shot of my background now looks like the below screen shot.

Step 2: Face and shape manipulation

Now its time to drop our shapes in, we will start off with the face.

On the left side is my finished face section, on the right hand side is the original cut out.

Now as we have discussed in our previous tutorial located here http://design.creativefan.com/create-an-unbelievable-surreal-abstract-artwork-with-photoshop/ these curvy shapes protruding from the face are created using the liquefy filter, more specifically the forward warp brush in the liquefy filter.

So to create these shapes I grabbed and pulled these sections with the forward warp brush, this is exactly what you want to do. For a better explanation please see the below screen shot.

So as displayed with my beautifull arrows I pulled up on the nose making an S shape as I pulled. I then did the same process on the check bone. Nothing too complex just some simple pulls and your done! So go ahead and open up your liquefy filter and start pulling on the sections you want to distort, once you have finished we will move on the lighting correction.

Now that your face Is been pulled its time to contemplate how to burn/dodge this to create a 3D like effect. This again, is something we have discussed preciously in another tutorial located here http://design.creativefan.com/create-an-unbelievable-surreal-abstract-artwork-with-photoshop/ But for everyone who has not seen that tutorial we will cover it again here.

Looking at the above image you can see the arrows are colored according to that representation. Obviously the purple light from above shines down on the face and highlights certain areas (the red arrows) and some are left dark/darkened (the green). This may seem very elementary however it’s the key to creating the 3D look we want. Its also important to take into consideration the sections that are not in hidden from the light but are still burnt, like the top green arrow. This is because other sections are above it preventing the light from hitting it, sections like this usually are bent/curved sections and it important that you handle them correctly.

To create the burnt/shadow areas grab a nice sized soft brush (I used 150px) and set your burn tool to midtones at 14%. Just gently go over these areas. It may take a few passes but that is ok, its much easier to darken something up more than to dodge it (dodging can lead to texture destruction). Once you have successfully burnt these sections set your dodge tool up the same way and dodge the top sections (my red arrows). Finally you can switch your dodge tool over to highlights, turn you brush size down and go gently over some of the sections closest to the light.

Now we can add in the rest of our face and look it over.

You can see that the sections are done exactly the same. The highlights and shadows are again represented by green/red arrows and appear to be hitting the same kind of sections as before. This is something you defiantly want in your piece.

Now lets look at one of the loopy sections from the previous image. This demonstrates exactly what I meant by burning sections that were blocked from light. However I did not burn it completely, why? Well by not burning this section entirely, in fact by slightly highlighting this section you can create a sense of realism and depth, the shape is blocked from the bulk of the light however compared to the rest of the shape it should be the brightest section. Again this is something you should keep in mind when burning and dodging your sections.

Now let’s pull over one of the shapes we created previously. I used the below shape (granted I cut a hole in it with the marquee lasso).

The red arrows represent where I pulled this shape (or pushed) with the warp forward tool in the liquefy filter. As you can see its nothing very exciting but that’s the point. You don’t need to make an extravagant selection or pull and push on a shape to create a great piece all you need is a little now how! So grab one of your shapes and liquefy it up!

I placed this shape beneath the jaw line as seen in the below screen shot.

Below is the shadow/light setup.

As you can see we need to burn this in order to create a shadow for the face, this can be done the way we burnt everything prior just maybe a little darker than before. Also since none of the edges are in the direct light there is no need to highlight any of these sections, in fact you can just simply burn all of your edges. I did however highlight a little bit of the shape towards the certain, this was done for realism but for more of an aesthetic value, the shape would appear far to flat all burnt up and dark. Like wise the hole was highlighted on one side, again this was not so much for the realistic value as it was to create the depth of a 3D shape. These are all things to take in to account when doing your piece, what looks good and what looks real.

My face now looks like the below screen shot.

Next we can just add in another section and adjust it as we have done previously. My new shape is the t shaped section I created previously and it looks like the below screen shot.

Now its time to get the hands in! I used a set of hands from Deviantart which were provided by Nykolai, it’s a wonderful collection and is located at http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/stockart/?qh=§ion=&q=hand#/dh4p3w

So now go ahead and grab some hands that you like, isolate them out and repeat the above process to them. I used the same hand just flipped and then I played with them differently. They look like the below screen shots.

As you can see in the above screen shot, the green arrow represents where I grabbed and then pulled the edge of the arm using the liquefy filter. This is something that you will want to do even if you aren’t using the same hand! Also you can see that I have burnt and dodged the hands accordingly, this is something that you defiantly want to do otherwise they won’t appear as if they fit into the rest of the scene.

Now just continue adding shapes in and setting them up as we have done previously. My process looks like the below screen shots.

As you can see in the below screenshot, the highlights and shadows are the same as they were before! Keep everything the way it should be and you will wind up with a much better final picture!

Once you have added in enough large shapes to fill up your canvas to your liking we can move on to the next step.

Step 3: Heart incorporation and final shapes/processing.

Now its time to add in the heart. This is the only colored section of the piece. You can find the heart I used on Shutterstock and it looks like the below image.

All you need to do is isolate the heart out, burn/dodge it accordingly and drop it in!

Now just go back to adding in your shapes, this time focusing on smaller shapes that will add more of a depth to your piece (not a literal depth, but an aesthetic depth).

Now we can grab a few of our shapes (whichever ones you like the most) duplicate them and apply a Gaussian blur. Move these shapes around your canvas and vary the blur. You will want some large shapes and some small ones to create a nice sense of depth, like wise your Gaussian blur should range from a radius of 5px to 12px.

And we are done, there’s more you can add to your image to beef it up more but as of now it’s a finished piece and a very nice looking one at that! My final image looks like the below screenshot.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and wound up with an image you like! Or came out with knowing a few new tricks! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Also, if you have any ideas for future tutorials please say so!

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Create an Unbelievable Surreal Abstract Artwork with Photoshop

Joe Moore — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 22:06:03 +0000

In this Surreal Photoshop tutorial, you’ll see how to create an incredible surreal abstract artwork with stylistic influences from traditional artistic masters combined with modern, digital and 3D techniques. You’ll see how to analyze a light source and identify where to place highlights and shadows, as well as how to use the pen tool, burn tool, dodge tool, liquify tool and others.

Additionally, you’ll see how to implement a stylistic concept and execute an image around a specific theme, as well as working with depth of field and other ideas.

Let’s get started!

Tools Used:

Photoshop
A few stock images
Wacom tablet (not required)

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Document setup and Beginning manipulation

So first off you will need to find a stock image for the background. You should choose one that has a defining light source this will make things much easier. You can find plenty of stocks on Sxc.hu, you should also use the maximum size possible.

My stock image is from Shutterstock and looks like the below screenshot.

Once you have your background image its time to take a look at it and figure out your light source. Take the below screen shot as an example, the white arrows (however crudely drawn) represent the beam of light while the black shows where the image will be the darkest.

Next its time to find our model stock, again if your not looking to purchase a stock Sxc.hu would be your best bet, however you can find great stocks on Deviant art as well. Much like your BG image, for the model you will want one with a direct light source, this of course is not exactly required but it will make things much easier as you go along. My stock image looks like the below image and like my BG stock it can be found on Shutterstock.

Now we need to start the beginning of the manipulation process. To do this just use your pen tool to isolate out the face. We will be using the pen tool a lot in this tutorial but we will not cover it due to the fact that they’re in such an abundance of pen tool tutorials out there. A great video tutorial on using the pen tool can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DzpT8POAME

My isolated face looks like the below image.

Now its time to look at our face and its light setup, we will again use the crudely drawn arrows as a reference.

Now its time to take out our burn tool, the burn tool can be accessed on the keyboard by pressing the O key.

Once you have the burn tool selected you will need to set it up as I have done in the below screenshot. Take into account the size of your face when selecting the size of your brush, however no matter what size you use make sure it’s a soft brush!

Now just use your burn tool around the hard edge of the face, be sure not to burn it to much, you don’t want and large black areas! Also take into account the light map we did previously when doing this step. After doing this I painted over parts of my face to tone down the highlights. My face now looks like the below image.

Now just move/free transform your and place it as you like. I would suggest placing the face as close to the primary light source as possible.

Step 2: Shape Creation

Now its time to start our shape creation, you will want to have a base texture. Im using a part of my models skin, you should use part of your models skin if possible, if not you can look on Sxc.hu or Deviantart for a skin texture.

Once you have your base texture you will need to grab your pen tool and make a random shape. Make sure your shape has no hard edges, they should be as smooth as possible. Once you have your random shape you will need to go ahead and make it into a selection.

My selection looks like the below screen shot.

Now just copy and past it into your scene! Place this close to the back side of your face, it will be the first and main element of our piece.

Now zoom in and grab your circular marquee tool. With the marquee tool selected go ahead and make a quick selection somewhere in the shape, once you have made the selection go ahead and erase out this selection.

Now let’s look at our light setup once again. The tiny arrows on the bottom left represent where the least amount of light should be present. This should be the darkest area of the shape. The white arrows are obviously where the light should be hitting the shape, making it the brightest part of the object.

So now its time to take the burn tool back out. This time we will start off with it set to burn shadows. We want to start burning the shape from the bottom right (or what your darkest side should be) and then go inward.

Now we can switch the burn tool over to burn only midtones, now you should finish burning the rest of our object. Keep in mind you want the shadow on the shape to fade or ‘gradient’ as it does in a natural setting.

Once you have done this we will repeat this process using the dodge tool Start with the tool set up to dodge the midtones and then finish off the edges by dodging the shapes edges with the dodge tool set to highlights.

My finished shape looks like the below screen shot.

You can see in the below image how my shadows and highlights fade together similar to that of a gradient. This is exactly how you want yours to look.

My document now looks like the below image.

Now we make another shape. This time we will use a simple shape (yet again with our pen tool).

The shape, on its own, is not very interesting at all. However with some simple tweaking we can turn this lonely blob into a whole arrangement of shapes. Say for instance if we applied a twirl filter at about 75 the image would turn out something like the below image.

Now this is all fine and good, but its not exactly what we want and there is no real control over how the object will turn out. A much better solution would be to use the Liquefy filter. The liquefy filters dialog looks like the below screen shot and is quite simple to use.

The main tools we will use in here are as follows:

The forward warp tool, much like a super powered smudge brush it is my tool of choice in the filters dialog.
The Reconstruct tool, name says it all here, use this brush/tool to revert any changes done while in the liquefy dialog.
The Twirl tool, much like the twirl filter, using this grants more control over your object thought; allowing you to apply it to certain sections of the object at a time.
The Bloat tools, using this will allow you to increase the size of your object, or the portion of it.
The pucker tool, you can use the pucker tool to shrink down sections of your object as you see fit.
The Turbulence tool, This tool basically just causes the edges of your object to become rippled. Not the best tool for our objects but its fun to play with none the less!

Now we can take a look at the settings for each of the tools. All of the above tools are applied similar to a brush in that you select one and paint over your object with it, this makes the entire process much easier since you are familiar with the start brush dialog.

Brush size, the name says it all here, up the size or down the size to change the size of your brush.

Brush density, this is essentially how hard your brush will be pressed.

Brush pressure, this is how much of the said effect should be applied at each stroke, think of it as the opacity for your brush tool (or flow for that matter).

Using your liquefy tool its very easy to take a shape like we had previously (before the twirl filter was applied) and turn it into something entirely different. I used the forward warp tool to create the below object.

But this is not exactly what we want. Take a look at the below screenshot using our previous shape. We want to use the forward warp tool to push in the sides (making it thinner) and then pull out the bottom, once that is done we will pull the top section on either side to increase its width and then push down on it to create a flat surface. When pulling down try and make your shape as long as you can, this will make things easier later (after all its always easier to crop something then to increase the size of it).

After doing this my shape looks like the below image.

Now we will take our eraser and erase the top section that was pulled out. Once that is done use your eraser tool to split the top section down the middle, stop about 1/3 of the way down.

Once that is done just round off your edges were you previously erased, this can be done with the eraser tool or the pen tool, the choice is up to you. Once that is done simply liquefy it once more this time pulling the two strand apart (again with the forward warp tool).

Now size it done and place it on the bottom section of your face. This will be its ‘support beam’. Erase one of the ‘arms’ we created previously right were it meets the face, this should give it the appearance of going behind the face. Be sure to free transform your object if necessary.

Now we can yet again look at the light setup. This time our setup is a little different because we need to burn (or create a shadow) the support beam where it appears to be going around/under the face.

Once you have located where the light should be hitting and were your dark areas are proceed to burning and dodging the respectable areas.

Now we can create a new layer underneath the support beam layer this will be our hole. Once you have created the layer make a small selection using your marquee tool as I have done in the below screen shot.

Fill this with black. Now grab your dodge tool (set to midtones) and set your brush up similar to mine.

Now switch over to your background layer and dodge around the side of the hole that faces your light source. This will give your hole a sense of depth as well as making it appear much more realistic.

Once you have dodge this area you can switch back to your beam layer and select the burn tool. Now we want to burn the stick at the entrance to the hole, as if its fading away into the dark abyss.

My stick/hole now looks like the below screen shot.

Step 3: Shapes continued

Now its time to start on some more shapes for our face. This time we will go back to the oval like shape we used previously. Once you have created the shape again just apply the twirl filter like I did (75+).

Once that is done liquefy your shape. This time using again the forward warp tool. You will want to push the shape out and make it longer and then push it in on itself to make a thin line. Once that Is done go ahead and push upwards/downwards in the middle to create a hump like shape in the middle of the object.

Now we just need to place it on our face and burn/dodge it accordingly. I placed mine under the face but over our ‘main’ object. This gives the tube shape a sense of depth as if it is coming out of the face and rapping around the ‘main object’. To do this just place it under the face layer but above the main shape layer, then erase out any sections that go off the main object.

Once you have done this you can repeat this process, this time make one of the ends of the tube like shape larger and curved. I duplicated the previously created tube shape and used it to make the process quicker. I also placed it in the same manner as the first tube shape.

Once you have your two tube shapes pasted in its time to look at this from our light source yet again. As seen in the above screen shots these two tube shapes do not cast any shadows on the main object. This is not good since in reality there would be some shadow. To create your shadow just switch over to a small brush and paint some black under both of the shapes (on a new layer) and then Gaussian blur them.

Now we can take one of our previous shapes (tube 1 or two) and duplicate it again. This time just drag it over to the other side of the main object and round off the end. This way it appears as if tube 1 or tube 2 is leaving the other side of the main object.

Rounding off the end of this shape can be done with the pen tool or the eraser tool, the main idea is that we do not want any hard edges. If yours is too thin feel free to liquefy it once more to increase the diameter of the object.

Now we can go back to our pen tool and our base material and make a new shape this time we want something long with nice curves but thicker than tube 1/tube 2. You want your shape to have a blob head that slims down into a thin tail. If your having trouble creating something you like don’t hesitate to throw it into the liquefy filter!

Now we can drop it into our document and place it wherever you like. Mine is on the back end of the main object.

Once you have placed it take a moment to look at your light sources yet again. I know it may seem ridiculous to keep looking at your objects/scene this way but this is the most crucial part, the correct burning/dodging is what creates the ‘3D’ like appearance of your shape.

As you can see the light source/shadow areas are quite obvious. However the tail is curved upwards facing the light source on my image, thus making this section not pitch black it should have a slight highlight.

Once you have taken your light source into account and decided where the shadows will fall you can go ahead and dodge/highlight as we have done before with the same setup and in the same order (burn midtones -> shadows, dodge midtones -> highlights). Keep in mind we want to create the same gradient effect that we have had on our previous shapes.

My shape now looks like the below image.

Now we can create another shape similar to tube 1 or 2. This time we will have it standing straight up and curving around our newly created object.

Once you have your shape created/placed/burned and highlighted we can continue on to create a hole for it just as we have done with the previous hole.

To make it stand out more I duplicated tube 1, sized it down, colored it red (using the hue and saturation jitter) and placed it behind this new shape. You don’t have to do this but it’s a good way to make things more interesting.

Now just continue making shapes! Create a few more tubes shaped objects to fill up some of the gaps. The next few images will show you my process of placement as well as coloring etc…

An important factor when doing this is the light sources that we discussed previously. Take for instance the below screen shot. Notice the red tube coming out of the hole? See how its darker in the hole and fades to a brighter shade as it emerges?

This is an important factor when placing/creating your shapes. You want it to be as realistically lit as possible. So any shapes emerging from an behind another object should have a shadow cast from that said object.

The one shape I have used that has not yet been discussed is present in the last screen shot, the orb. The orb is the easiest shape of all to create. To create the orb use your circular marquee tool and make a perfect circle.

Now look at your orb and how the light should be hitting it. Once you have done this just burn it and then dodge it as you did all your previous objects and ta da!

My orbs look like the below screen shots.

Once you have created a sufficient amount of shapes its time to create the final effect, the shadow. The entire face/object mesh should be casting a shadow on the ground. To create a shadow simply draw some black lines with your brush tool loosely around and then Gaussian blur them!

To finish my piece off I duplicated some of the previous shapes and blurred them to add depth, then dropped in a moon and some birds. It looks like the below screenshot.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and wound up with an image you like! Or came out with knowing a few new tricks! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Also, if you have any ideas for future tutorials please say so!

Create Custom Shapes for an Amazing Asian Inspired Abstract Artwork

Ya Izidoro — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 23:15:49 +0000

Creating custom shapes can be a powerful way to add a personal touch to an artwork, and they can allow you to control the composition completely. While you can use 3D programs for this task, as we have demonstrated in several previous tutorials here on Design.CreativeFan, it’s also great to use Photoshop and Illustrator to quickly create shapes with patterns and 3D styles that are perfect for digital art.

In this tutorial, you’ll be walked through how to create shapes and combine them together to create an amazing Asian-inspired artwork.

If you liked this tutorial, check out our other tutorials:

Tools Used:

Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator

Final Image Preview:

Step 1 – First, I started by creating a file size of 1407 x 2214 (I usually open an A4 sheet and crop it to a good size.)

Step 2 – Next, I added a Gradient > Radial Gradient. Here, I choose a gray to white gradient as seen below.

Step 3 – Now, I know what my composition will be, so I added a shadow. To do this, I pressed F5, chose a soft brush and set the color to black and 30% opacity. I put some more shadows on the side to give more depth at the bottom, but with the opacity lower.

Step 4 – Next, I used a soft brush to paint a little white down the center of the piece.

Step 5 – Here, I started to add some shapes (three white and one black with a pattern of stripes), which I’ll cover how to create now.

5.1 – Well let’s start with the top shape first. Take your pen tool to create something like this and paint it black.

5.2 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.3 – Then I applied this pattern in Soft Light layer mode.

5.4 – Now, our shape looks like this:

5.5 – Then, create a new layer and make a black ball with your circle shape tool.

5.6 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.7 – Now, let’s get the white shape, so as before, make a similar shape and paint it white:

5.8 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.9 – Again, create the ball like this:

5.10 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.11 – Almost done, now let’s make this shape, do a format similar to the pen tool and fill it with black.

5.12 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.13 – Again, create a circle:

5.14 – Then go to Blending Options and enter the following settings:

5.15 – Then I duplicated the first shape that we made and decreased the size.

Step 6 – Some more shapes can be made in Illustrator and Photoshop, put some underneath and on top of the main shapes from above.

6.1 – So let’s see how to create some of these shapes. Well, first begin by creating two white balls with black border, a big ball and a smaller ball using Illustrator.

6.2 – Then we’ll use the Blend tool to create the other shapes. First click on the blend tool, then click the big ball followed by the small one.

6.3 - Double click on the icon to open the tool options, and choose Specified Steps with 15 spaces.

6.4 - Use the direct selection tool, click on the Points> Convert to round the corners.

6.5 - Then move the way you prefer and voila!. (In my work ”God’ ‘I basically duplicated, turned and inverted the colors of the same object).

Step 7 – It will look something like this with the shapes. For the shapes I didn’t cover, it’s just a simple matter of using the pen tool and a Gradient Overlay in the layer styles. Experiment and have fun!

Step 8 – I added some red dots, and a larger center, with a shade of red.

Step 9 – I created a line with the red balls, and added a white shape with a white glow around them.

Step 10 – Apply a 3d elements and delete the parts that you do not want, and then apply a white shadow. I have used the 3D balls from K3nzus, you can find them here: (K3nzus.deviantart.com).

Step 11 – Add some red lines, use the Liquify to distort, duplicate, and mirror it, then add a shade of red, and then erase the central area.

Step 12 – Add the symbol in Japanese which means ”God’ ‘in two work pieces, a red ball in the biggest center, and a larger red symbol in the upper right corner.

Step 13 – Work is going well, so this is what we have so far.

Step 14 – I painted several times with the brush near the Japanese symbol, you can use a simple splatter brush.

Step 15 – Now the effects. Create a new layer and to to Image -> Apply Image. Next, go to Filter > Brush Strokes> Spatter. Place the Spray Radius to 13 and Smoothness to 8.

Step 16 – Erase some parts and boat underneath all the shapes and duplicate twice.

Step 17 – Join the 3 layers this way so they fit together.

Step 18 – Place the layers from above under the composition, and we’re done! Here’s the finished work, you can add a noise in the background, I chose to keep it as is.

Create a Cosmic Space Girl 3D Photo Illustration

Joe Moore — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:50:28 +0000

In this tutorial, we’ll be putting together a variety of techniques from previous tutorials, including a 3D wireframe from our Liquid Explosion artwork tutorial, custom brushes from our Wild Effects with Custom Brushes tutorial, as well as some new techniques involving photographs, textures and fractals. Combining techniques is one of the best ways to achieve varied and interesting results in your digital art, and it really helps with your experimentation and creative process when you can rely on a variety of techniques.

This tutorial is jam-packed with techniques and tips for you to apply, so let’s get to it!

Tools Used:

Adobe Photoshop
3DS Max (not required)
Fractal stocks, you can supplement your own

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Background creation

Ok so to start off we need to create our document. You will need to base this off of your stock image size. I will be using a 2000*3000 size canvas, but you can use whatever you like. Once you have your document open fill it with black and create a new layer. Fill the new layer with black just as we did the first layer.

Now we need to apply a noise filter which will be the base for our stars. To do this go to “Filter”>”Noise”>”Add Noise” and set yours up as mine is in the below screen shot.

Your star field should look something like the below screenshot now.

Our next step is to edit the levels for our star field. Doing this will get rid of the grey stars and help open up some negative space so they don’t look so clustered and awful. So go ahead and press “CTRL L” on your keyboard to open up your level editor and set yours up as mine is in the below screenshot. The three triangles are in order of right to left, black level, gray level and the white level. I have moved the grey level over closer to the black level. This will result in the grays becoming whiter. The white level was then moved to closer to the grey level which means the white spots have become even whiter.

Your star field should now look something like mine in the below screenshot.

Go ahead and click the layer mask button on your layer tab, it should look like a square with a circle in the middle. Now we can apply another filter, this time one called “Difference clouds”. Basically it will render some cloud like blobs in black and white causing our stars to only be seen where the white clouds are on the layer mask. To apply this filter click “Filter”>”Render”>”Difference clouds”. Your results should look something like the below screenshot, however keep in mind that the difference cloud filter is randomly generated.

Now you can adjust the levels and play with other filters to get something that suits you. I used a small 3px hard brush with white and painted some brighter stars to go with my noise stars. The stars I painted are the same size as my noise stars so it’s just basically putting a random dot on your canvas if you wanted to do this.

Now we can create a new layer above the star layers. Once you have done that grab any brush you like (a standard 100px hard brush will work fine) and select two colors. I went with pink and blue as they work very well together. Once you have done this use this brush with these colors and draw all over the canvas as I have done in the below screenshot.

Now we can apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 250 twice. Then set the layer opacity to 15%. Now we can repeat this step on another layer.

Now we will repeat the above process again, this time rather than leaving the layer mode as normal we will change it to screen or color dodge with an opacity ranging from 50-100% depending upon how many additional layers you create. This can be applied as many times as you like, I did mine about 2 more times and also incorporated yellow into the my two colors. Also when doing this be sure that your layers are above the previously created normal layers otherwise this will not work!

Step 2: Figure Incorporation

Alright we need to grab a stock image. You can use whatever image you like. The image I’m using is from shutterstock, you can see it in the below screenshot.

Once you have your figure it’s time to start the isolation process. Now when isolating your figure, it’s incredibly important that you get all of the background off the figure. If you fail to do this properly your image will look terrible no matter what effects you apply. So its imperative that you get this right. This is why I will not demonstrate my isolation, you need to isolate out your stock the way you are most accustomed to do. But, in case you’re curious, I used a layer mask and painted over my figure.

Next we can apply a dust and scratches filter. This is not required but it’s something I thought helped the image. By applying the dust and scratch filter it smooth’s out the skin and gives it almost a painted look. If you want to apply this filter it is located in the noise section of your filter drop down.

The filter gives a result like the screen shot below.

Step 3: Wire frame integration

Ok, so now it’s time to get some wireframes! You could, painstakingly draw out the lines yourself or you could reference a previous tutorial and change a few of the settings. So, we will be referencing. If you have not read our tutorial located at http://design.creativefan.com/create-a-stunning-3d-liquid-explosion-artwork/ then I suggest you go ahead and read up on it!

Once your figure is dropped into 3DS and you have applied a material, try to line it up with your stock image. It doesn’t have to be perfect (see below image) but as long as the basic pose is somewhat close you should be fine.

Now we have two new options. Render the scene using the scanline setting with forced wireframe turned ON or apply a new wireframe material.

I went with the force wireframe since it gives you more control over the wires themselves but you can do whatever you like.
Now just render the scene and save it as a png!
My render came out looking like the below image.

Now depending on your pose you will want to incorporate this in different ways. But below I will describe how I approached and finished the incorporation.

Start off by dropping your wireframe in and placing it so it covers the figure (size it using the free transform tool if needed). Once that is done erase everything but the shoulder/neck area.

Now that we have the shoulders dropped in we can throw some on the neck and in various other places. You can vary the opacity if you like but that’s really the only major adjustment you should have to do. Once you have finished that we can move on to our eye. The eye will become one of two epicenters or dynamic spots for the piece. To create the base for our epicenter on the eye we can drop in a section of the wireframe. I used a section of the top of the head, a piece of the nose and of course the eye. Drop in sections that you like and that fit your scene and then we can continue on, keep in mind that you may want to reduce the opacity of some of the sections so it doesn’t get too cluttered.

Step 4: Fractal implementation and coloring

Ok so now we need to head out to DA to grab two wonderful and free fractal packs. Both created by Greentunic, so much props to him for creating such a wonderful pack and allowing the community to use it.
Pack #2
http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/?q=fractal#/d1we1ib
Pack #3
http://greentunic.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d28h8ra

Once you have downloaded and extracted both packs it’s time to choose your first fractal. I went with a very nice one in pack #3 and would suggest you do the same.

Once you have opened up your fractal you can apply a quick auto color adjustment (CTRL + SHIFT + B) and place it on the eye. Set your blending mode to screen and then just erase anything you don’t like. I erased 90% of the original fractal, only leaving behind the cool hook looking shapes.

Next just grab a few of the curve like areas on the fractal and place them all over your image. I placed mine at the base of the neck and in her hair. Make sure that you don’t leave any hard edges when doing this thought!

Next we can go back to our eye and start building it up. Grab a splatter brush and drop in a few splats here and there in a color that you prefer, I went with yellow since it was so abundant on the eye and would meld well with the eye. Once you have applied the splat set this new layers opacity to 50% and the blending mode to overlay.

Next we can head over to CGtextures to grab a brush stroke. The brush stroke is located at: http://cgtextures.com/login.php?&texid=10476&destination=texview.php?id=10476&PHPSESSID=f33d4d18c63594dcdb4ca05c7dc1aef0
Once you have it go ahead and quickly make a brush out of it. If you don’t know how to do this you can reference a previous tutorial located at: http://design.creativefan.com/combining-custom-brushes-for-wild-effects-in-photoshop/

Once you have created your new brush you can apply one in blue and place it at the base of the eye. Then do it once more using yellow. Set this layer to overlay and we can continue on. Keep in mind you don’t have to use blue and yellow, you can choose whatever colors work best with your stock or colors you like the most.

Next we can another brush from a stock image at CGtextures, this time the stock link is: http://cgtextures.com/login.php?&texid=10916&destination=texview.php?id=10916&PHPSESSID=f33d4d18c63594dcdb4ca05c7dc1aef0

Once you have made a brush place it in black right underneath the eye. Then just grab a few of the far edges of the splatter to make your eyelashes for the opposite eye.

Next we can create a new layer and repeat the method we applied to color the BG to the eye in blue and yellow.
I then went on to use the 3px brush tool to paint in some details, for instance I connected the yellow fractal to the nose and painted a new eye. But these are not necessary.

Next we can create another new layer and grab our 3px brush (or larger if you like). Now you want to just to place a few random white dots where the wireframe intersects. Meaning, choose a few spots where the vertical lines hit horizontal lines and place a dot. You can do this as many times as you like but I would stay away from cluttering them together. This can (and should) be applied to the shoulder area as well as the neck.

Now we can move on to our additional coloring. To do this we will start off by choosing any color (I went with a darker blue) and painting over half of the canvas on a new layer, be sure not to cover the face though!

Next we can apply a Gaussian blur and set the layer to overlay, keep your opacity between 15-35% so it doesn’t appear oversaturated. Now we can create another new layer, use the same color and apply the effect to that side of the face. Why use two layers for this? Well really you could use one but using two allows you to control the opacity with much more ease. Say for instance at 20% opacity your BG looks great but the face is oversaturated, well this is why we use two layers!
I set my face overlays opacity to 20%.

Now do the same effect (on two layers) to the opposite side of the face using a new color. This time I went with a pinkish color, I really like the way pink and cyan complement one another, but you can use whatever color you like.

Step 5: Wireframe touchups and fractals continued

Now it’s time to start making pieces of our wireframe stand out more. To do this you could use the line tool/pen tool or the brush tool. The choice is up to you and what your more comfortable with. I went with the 3px brush as its easier for me then the pen tool. Once you have decided on your method go ahead and look at your wireframe. Look for shapes that sort of ‘pop out’, its more than likely going to look like squares or triangles. I went with the squares and lightly outlined these to make them more visible, this is exactly what you need to do. Just do it randomly all over. I started with the eye and then did the neck and shoulders.

Now go back over your shapes and brighten them up if you feel that they need to be brightened, you can use the shadows as a guideline here. Lines that are in the brighter areas of the face should obviously be much brighter then lines in the shadows. You can also add dots to your squares/triangles if you like now.

Now we can move on to the base of the neck, where I figure ends and space starts. This is where we will add in much more fractals. So open up your two packs and grab a few and start placing them around with a screen blending mode. I started off using two images from pack # 3.

Be sure to use a soft edged eraser when doing this so you don’t have any hard edges!
To finish off the neck I just added in a few more fractals with random color. Varying your color will bring a new dynamic to your piece and is something you should defiantly do.

Now we can grab a fractal from pack #2.

What you want to do here is grab a few of the glowing sparks that are not clustered. Once you have these selected with your marquee tool just copy and paste them all over your canvas. These will be the random super stars if you will. Be sure to vary their opacity as well thought!

Also double check that you have no hard edges!

Step 6: Constellation building and completion

Ok so now we can move on to our constellations. To create the constellations grab your line tool and set it up as mine is in the below screen shot.

Once you have done that create a new layer and look at your stars. Look for any random shapes and then just draw the lines using the line tool to connect these stars!

Once you have drawn the lines right click and select stroke, once the dialog appears select ‘brush’.

Be sure when doing this you have your brush set up the way you want (I used the 3px)!
Now hit ok and the lines will appear!
Repeat this process all over your BG. Be sure not to cluster them up too much though. Once you have all your constellations drown out and stroked set the layers opacity to about 45%.

And now we are done! I added in a few painted details to finish mine and you can as well or you can add anything you think would look cool for that matter. My final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and wound up with an image you like! Or came out with knowing a few new tricks! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Also, if you have any ideas for future tutorials please say so!

Create a Flowery Natural Peace and Harmony Composition

Wojciech Magierski — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 21:37:09 +0000

Combining techniques such as texturing, custom brushing, stock images, 3D, lighting effects and typography can allow a true graphic design composition to come together. When combined with a conceptual style artwork, the results can be awesome.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to combine a nature peace and harmony feel with an urban and cosmic lighting style to create Flower Power, a digital artwork by Polish designer Wojciech Magierski. You’ll see how to start with base colors to establish the feel and mood of a piece, and then how to build it up using a variety of techniques.

Please, leave a comment with your thoughts, or if you have a question, or just to say thanks. It’s really appreciated!

Tools Used:

Adobe Photoshop

Final Image Preview:

At the beginning we set the background color. I chose a green and brown, and used a layer mask gradient at a slight angle to create a smooth transition. The green and brown help establish the natural feel of the piece.

Next, to create our background, we need to create a brush. We can add an interesting effect using a custom brush with shape dynamics and other dynamics.

If you want to create a brush, you need to find a shape, put it on your canvas. The largest brush size allowed is 2500px x 2500px, so create a canvas of this size, then use the dynamics brush created above to draw something that looks like the below screenshot. Then make it black and white, and correct the contrast if you need and make selection using the marquee tool, (shortcut is ‘M’) around the shape. After that, click Edit from the top menu and click Define Brush Preset. You have a new brush. Click F5 and find him, after that you can change everything you want, the shape, spacing, etc. If you’re not comfortable creating a custom brush, the same background effect can be achieved using textures, however, you will have to find a high quality texture and be willing to play with the contracts and blend modes to get the desired effect.

Now, using our brush, we can play with the opacity and flow a bit to create a sort of textured background.

Now, download the peace sign shape.

Put it into the canvas, duplicate it several times and move the duplicated layers, than change its opacity to 20% blending overlay. The second layer opacity should be 30%. Move it 20px right. By moving layers slightly offset, it creates the illusion of depth. The layer with outer stroke is set to 1px outside, dark green color, fill 0%. You’ll notice that I have several copies. This part is largely up to the final effect that you want, but I was going for a 3D type effect so I created a shadow layer, a few color layers, and a stroke with a gradient.

I added a glasses stock photo and some shapes using custom brushes.

We have to add a shadow on the bottom of our sign to show that it is setting on the ground. To do this, take a soft round brush and black color, click and transform ctrl+5 to ‘flatten’ the shape.

Drawing water was an interesting moment in the design of the illustration. Using the pen tool to draw a path, we create a blue shape and add blending options. Then I used a water splash stock to add a bit splashing out (see below).

The fish you see were downloaded from www.shutterstock.com. Using Color Balance (ctrl + b) and Curves (ctrl + m) I made the fish have a bit of a blue tint, matching the environment.
The falling water was created using the stocks seen below:

Next, we need to add lighting effects. This effect behind our peace sign I obtained using sunset pictures. I added a layer mask, inverted (ctrl+i) the mask , and then erased part of the mask. When you erase, you see how the light shines through.

The Afro girl photos downloaded from the Internet (ShutterStock or StockXpert). As with our other stocks, add a layer mask, and using the path tool, remove the background – create a path, make a selection and ctrl + x.

Blue and orange lights on the head of model girl were created by proper brushes. If you don’t have the brushes, you can create a rectangular marquee, then use your gradient tool to create a gradient from one edge, and then erase the corners to create a smooth transition.

The Flower Power typography I found on shutterstock.com. You can use whatever typography you feel fits your piece best.

Now we want to boost the contrast in our image a little bit, so we use adjustments layers. You can change the opacity, erase some parts to get a nice effect. Specifically, I added some colors using gradient maps, then used hue/saturation, brightness/contrast and levels so subtly boost the intensity of the image.

The water drops on the surface were created using a photo of water. Pasting it into the document, set the blending mode to ‘Screen’, and put under our peace sign. Make sure our previous adjustments are on top of the layer.

To add the water lillies, grab another stock image, extract it, and then add a delicate drop shadow on the water surface. Using pictures of space on screen opacity we add a dusty lighting effect.

Now it’s time to place a crab into the composition. Grab another stock from the internet, cut out and put into the project, add a color overlay in order to fit it into the piece .

To add more contrast we add a paper texture, setting it to Overlay with opacity and fill 20%.

At the end, I added a texture of the cosmos to add a little noise. I set this texture to screen with opacity 40%, and I added a mask and cleaned some parts I didn’t like.

That’s all. Thank you very much.
The project you see is called “Flower Power” and it was created for Paulo Canabarro from Abduzeedo.com, who made an interview with me some time ago.
Check it out! http://abduzeedo.com/interview-photo-illustrator-wojciech-magierski

Thank you! See you soon. :)

Having Fun with Vectors, Custom Brushes and Stock Images for a Nature-Themed Girl Composition in Photoshop

Joe Moore — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 19:44:44 +0000

Graphic design often involves mixing media and design styles to achieve a creative result, so it’s important to know how to use a variety of tools, techniques and resources at your disposal to create a coherent composition. Without a coherent and well thought out composition, your artworks will not have the polished and memorable finished result that you’re hoping for.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to have some fun with vectors, custom brushes, and stock images to create a colorful and eye-catching nature themed girl composition in Photoshop. You’ll see how to use various effects to focus the viewer’s eye, how to mix vectors and stock images so that it looks coherent, and find yet another application for custom brushes from our previous tutorials.

Let’s get started.

Tools used:

Adobe Photoshop
Various stock images
Custom brushes
Vectors

Final Image Preview:

Step 1: Document Creation and stock selection

To start off we will need a stock image to use as the base for our manipulation. I will be using a stock from shutterstock but if you do not want to use this stock you don’t have to. Just make sure you stock image of a similar view. My image looks like the below screen shot. For the rest of the tutorial we will assume that you are using the same stock image as me.

We should keep the size about as large as we can. I sized my image down to 3000*2000. Once you have sized your image down we should duplicate the layer and set it to multiply. Once you have done that, just erase everything on the left side. There’s no reason to darken her up, just the right hand side.

Step 2: Ink incorporation

Now we need to start incorporating other elements. For starters we will use some splatter brushes on the right hand side. Just drop them in and feather them (using a 300px soft edged brush) so that they fade into the hair.
If you don’t have any splatters they are covered in a previous tut located at: http://design.creativefan.com/combining-custom-brushes-for-wild-effects-in-photoshop/

Step 3: Vector incorporation

This step is optional but I think it adds in some much needed diversity. I will be using some vectors from http://wegraphics.net/ but you can use whatever vectors you find or have on hand.

Once you have your vectors just drop them in as we did the splats. Be sure to make sure they blend nicely! Blending can be done the same way we did the splats.

To finish off the vector work just grab another vector and drop it in on her face. Set it to multiply at 50% and then duplicate the layer, the duplicated layer should be set to overlay at 40%. Once you have done this just erase all the parts that go over the eye.

Step 4: Coloring

Now its time to start adding in some colors. To start off you need to figure out what kind of color platelet you would like to use. I went with pink, blue and green.
To start off create a new layer and set your brush up as mine is below. But really any brush size will work as long as you make enough of a mess.

Once you have set your brush up doodle in 2 colors all over the canvas.

Now we will apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 250px. Now set your layer to overlay and erase anything that is not on her hair.

Once you have done this repeat this step with a different color setup or color, I went with green.

Now repeat this step one last time using the same colors you used previously. However this time set your layer to color dodge.

Once you have successfully added some much needed color to her hair its time to start contemplating her make up. So repeat the above step (creating the overlay layer) using one color, I went with green in this step since I thought it fit the design better. When doing this just make sure it flows with the eye as below.

My document now looks like the below screen shot.

Step 5: Vegetation implementation

Alright to start off you will need a collection of vines, leafs, twigs and other forms of vegetation. Below my explanation of how I did the implementation will be a list of stocks that you can use, some of which I used.
So the first stock image I will be using is from shutterstock. It is a image of some vines. They look like the below screen shot.

Now you will need to isolate the stock image out. Once you have done that you will need to start dropping the vines in. I started off by just dropping in one of the leafs from the vines and placing it by a long strand of hair so that it appears as if the hair is sprouting the leafs.

Next I dropped in an entire vine at the top of her head. Try to place your stocks as I have in the below screen shots, as if its going in and around her hair, like it is the hair.

Also take notice to the above screen shot. Notice that the vine fades to black just as the hair does. This will help to blend them together.

Now just continue on! Take notice I added in dead and alive vegetation, this will help to make the piece more dynamic. I also placed random leafs around to try and add a little bit of depth to the picture. These are both things to keep in mind when working on yours.

Also make sure that you vary everything as much as possible, for example, the below screenshots which offer both large and small vegetation as well as living and dead vegetation.

Step 6: Animal incorporating

To start off we will need to figure out what you want to add in. I went with birds, lady bugs and a dragon fly. But you can use whatever you like, for instance a butterfly would work fine.
So go ahead and grab the below PSD http://browse.deviantart.com/resources/applications/psd/?q=bird#/d1euik6 wonderfully provided by http://fairiegoodmother.deviantart.com/

Grab one of the birds and size it down. Once you have done that just drop it in so it looks tiny.

Next we will drop in the mayfly (dragonfly) which is located at http://www.sxc.hu/photo/147398

Change the hue to a blue and set the mode to multiply. This should remove the white from the image showing only blacks from the fly. Size the fly down and place it on one of the brighter areas of the model.

Next we can go ahead and grab a lady bug at: http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=513002 Once you have it crop out the out of focus lady bug and isolate it the same way you isolated out all of our previous stocks.

Once you have it isolated go to “Filter” > “Stylize” > “Diffuse” and set it to “Anisotropic”. Due to the terrible quality of the image we will apply this filter twice and then press CTRL+SHIFT+L to auto level the lady bug. Size it down dramatically and just place it in! I dropped in about 3 ladybugs total at different angles and sizes.

My document now looks like the below screen shot.

Step 7: Finalizing and closing

Now we are done! To finish the piece off I duplicated some of my color overlay layers and color dodge layers (the ones created previously) to brighten up the document.

Once I had done that I sized it down and sharpened it, now we are done! My final image looks like the below screen shot.

I hope you enjoyed reading my tutorial and wound up with an image you like! Or came out with knowing a few new tricks! If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Also, if you have any ideas for future tutorials please say so!