Tutorial: Simple 3D Box in Photoshop

Today I’m going to show you a SUPER simple way I like to create boxes in Photoshop. This was really useful during my Time Motion assignment – hopefully, it can be of use to you as well. Enjoy!

1. Create a rectangle or square in Photoshop. Duplicate it.
2. Vertically stack the boxes on top of each other, so the bottom of Box 1 touches the top of Box 2.
3. Select the top box. Go to Edit > Transform > Skew. Skew according to what angle you’d like your corners to be at.
4. Use the transform box to “flatten” the center of your top box.
5. Congratulations! You just made a super simple 3D box in Photoshop!

I’ve included a little photo tutorial on this as well. Enjoy!

Step 1. 

 

Step 2. 

Step 3. 

Step 4. 

 

Gritty Texture Tutorial

This is a little tutorial on how I learned how to create gritty vector textures in Adobe Illustrator. I’ll definitely be using this in future projects. Enjoy!

1. Grab a sheet of paper and some objects. A match, a knife, some paint, a hammer, your teeth, whatever you want! Get to work on distressing the heck out of that paper, as bold or as subtle as you’d like.
2. Scan that piece of paper into the computer at 600 dpi- you want these textures to be a high resolution so you can zoom or scale as needed if you wanted to use it in raster.
3. Prepare your texture by importing your image into Photoshop and adjust the levels & threshold until your image is strictly black and white – you want to prep your texture for importing into Illustrator for use with the Live Trace tool.
4. Import your image to Illustrator. Go to Object> Live Trace > Tracing Options to trace your image (this may take a bit of time depending on your file size). Use adjustments to your trace to find what works best for the texture you’re trying to achieve. When complete, hit Expand.
5. Time to remove the white from the texture! Use Command-A to select all, then Object > Ungroup. Using your selection tool (black arrow), click on the corner of the white area and then select> same> fill color. Now you can press delete to get rid of the white!

Now you’ve achieved the perfect vector texture. Try this out at home and let me know how it works for you!

How To Put a Gradient on a Stroke in Illustrator

This little tutorial will teach you how to add a gradient on a stroke. This was especially helpful when I did my Big Blue project. Hopefully, it can be of some use to you as well!

1. Create your stroke using the pen tool. Modify as necessary for your piece. I chose to do a curve with block edges.
2. Use a stock gradient, or create one of your own, in the gradients tab on the right side of your screen. Make sure that your stroke is what you are modifying, not your fill. 
3. Create gradients and strokes to your heart’s content! I used them for my finger wrinkles in my Big Blue 3D rendering iteration.

Quick Neon Tutorial

Hey friends. I’m back with another easy-peasy tutorial for you all, this time on making something have a neon outline in Photoshop (yay!). I found this technique especially helpful for my Space Cowgirl cubist piece; I took a lot of inspiration from the vaporwave/90s Miami aesthetic, so I needed a way to do basic neon effects without taking up too much time. Experiment with it and see what you come up with!

***BEFORE YOU START: Make sure your document is the correct size, resolution, and color profile. Nothing worse than having to redo that after you’ve already made progress!

Starting image: You can see my original line work (imported from Procreate) towards the right, and a pattern fill silhouette layer I’m going to be laying my neon lines over on the left. I’m working on an 18x22in document with 150dpi.

1. Duplicate your line work layer. Make sure that layer is selected, then go to your blending effects option by right clicking on your layer and selecting “blending effects”. There will be several things to apply here.

2. (Click through slideshow) First, add your outer glow. I set mine to several parameters, as you can see below. Feel free to experiment with this on your own to achieve your desired effect! Next, add an inner glow. For a linear piece I don’t find it to be particularly spectacular but it’s definitely good when working with a regular image, so I’d still say add it. Finally, add a color overlay. I would make the color of it something between your original color and white, because we’ll be adding actual white to give it that bright neon effect in the next few steps. I also decided to add a drop shadow because it helped to differentiate it from my background a bit more.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

3. (Click through slideshow) Next, take the duplicate of your original line layer and select it by clicking on the layer preview while pressing command (MAC) or CTRL (PC). Delete the lines, then click on Paths in the layer panel and create a work path. It will look like a bunch of lines drawn over your photo. Then stroke the path with the brush of your choosing; you can see the parameters of the one I chose in my photo, but do make sure the color you use for this is white. The softer the brush the more realistic this will look!

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

4. This is your final result! Feel free to play with your layers as you see fit, and let me know if you have any questions! 🙂 I decided to duplicate my colored neon layers to make it slightly more opaque, but you are free to do whatever you want.

Cubist Figure Tutorial

Hey guys, I found a way to make a pretty easy cubist-inspired face/figure in Photoshop. Check out my tutorial below!

The key in this tutorial is to use simple shapes and colors that will give your design the right compromise between dimension and simplicity. For this tutorial at least, we don’t want it to look 100% realistic! This is a layer heavy tutorial so make sure to stay organized with what you do!

***BEFORE YOU START: Make sure your document is the correct size, resolution, and color profile. Nothing worse than having to redo that after the fact!

Starting image: You can see one side of the face is the original photo, the other has the cubist treatment on it. I’m working on an 18x22in document with 150dpi.

1. While on your original image layer, select the area of your figure you want to cube-ify. For example, I’m taking the hair to the left of the cubed section. Copy and paste it into a new layer. ( I recommend putting this new layer into a “face slice” layer group, or whatever you might like to call it).
   
2. Add a drop shadow to this new layer using the blending options window. I’ve set my drop shadow to blend mode Multiply, 12° angle, 49% opacity, but play with yours to get the best effect for your piece.
   
3. Reselect the shape upon which you just added the drop shadow (CTRL-Click or Command-Click on the layer) and create a new layer. On this new layer, add your fill of choice. I decided to use Normal mode, 65% opacity, tolerance 32 for my fill, and I selected a color from the slice I took using the eyedropper tool. (I’ve combined all of my fill layers into one cubist face layer but I recommend you keep them separate, in case you’d like to make modifications.)
   
4. Deselct your layer and BOOM, you’re done with that face slice! Keep adding slices to your heart’s content, and your piece will come out looking something like the photo you see below (almost 60 layers later 💀 ). Note that only half is done; I can always go back in and complete more but for now, I wanted to keep a bit of textural contrast.
   
   Tips & Tricks:
   -Try using gradients or patterns to fill your piece, they’ll add a fun dimensional quality!
   -Don’t worry about the messy nature your lines might acquire. This is meant to be a fun shape-based piece- enjoy the weird edges!
   -Creating a color theme using Adobe CC Color might be a helpful tool if you aren’t using the original colors of your photo for this tutorial. Check out my previous blog posts for more on Adobe CC Color.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial- let me know what else you’d like to see!

-Rebecca