A Happy New Year to all the readers and visitors of Prodigal Concepts. I wish you all the best this coming year as we are ushered into the year of the Dragon – 2012.

The holidays are blurring out, (but the holiday weight seems to be staying longer than necessary) and before we all move on to the challenges of the coming year let us go with a bang and celebrate one last time with an out of this world wallpaper tutorial.

What we will be making

What we need

Font
Federation Font from Legacy of Defeat

Textures

Stainless from Photo Bucket

Concrete from deviantart.com

Grunge tile from Lost and Taken

Optic flares

The genius behind psdbox.com came up with some out of this world optic flares that you may find really useful in your future projects get it here.

Nebula
For the second time we will be calling on the Nebula which we are borrowing again from the uber awesome tutorial of Patrick Monkel Making a Superhero Movie Teaser Poster from wegraphics.net. Last used here on A photo manipulation tutorial, skyscape – The Ninth Planet

Set the stage

Open Photoshop and create a new document Ctrl + Shift + (N), make it 1280 x 800 pixels. Name it whatever you like, I’m going to call mine “2012 wallpaper”

Create the mood

Start with a new layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “background”, then set your foreground color to #797978 and your background color to #1a1a1a. Take your Gradient Tool (G) and from the gradient picker choose Foreground to Background and set style to Radial Gradient.

Drag your mouse from the center going diagonal to the lower right hand corner.

Create another layer Ctrl + (N) and call it “gradient-light”, set your foreground color to #c6c05c and the background color to #05394e. Keep the rest as it is and drag your mouse like before. Change the Blending Mode to Overlay.

Mystify the background

Ctrl + (N) a new layer and call it “cloud”, set your foreground color to #835d2c and the background color to #261501. Go to Filter > Render > Clouds, set Blending Mode to Overlay. You should get something like this.

Make another layer call it “gradient-blue” and set your foreground color to #698aab and the background color to #1a5c9f. Get your Gradient Tool (G) and set style to Linear Gradient. Drag it across your stage from top left diagonally to your bottom right. Set Blending Mode to Multiply.

Time to get our “bw-nebula” image out, just go to File > Place (navigate to the location of the bw-nebula image) then click Place. Make sure it’s centered, now we will Edit > Transform > Rotate 180° and change the Blending Mode to Screen.

Add another layer and name it “4gradients”, then get your Gradient Tool (G) from the Tools Palette and click on the gradient picker, the gradient editor window should pop up. Choose a 4 colored gradient then replace each color from left to right with something like Blue (or Cyan), Green, Yellow, Red.

Now starting from the top left drag it across diagonally to the bottom right. And set the Blending Mode to Overlay.

And on the 7th layer we almost rested… but not, because we will make one final layer for the background and call it “light-effects” fill this layer with #ffffff, then go to Filter > Render > Light Effects. Change style to RGB Lights, and set Intensity to 60 and Focus to 96 click OK. Go back to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur give it a Radius of 100% then set the Blending Mode to Overlay and reduce the Opacity to 75%.

Type treatment

Take your Type Tool and set the font family to the Federation font we downloaded from “Legacy of Defeat”. Set your font size to 130px and font tracking to 100.

Since it’s just a couple of days till the year ends why don’t we welcome the coming year by typing

Turn this into a selection, Ctrl + click on the type layer, then go to Select > Modify > Expand (Expand by: 5px). Now create a layer below the type and name it “outline” fill your selection with white. Temporarily hide the type layer by poking the eye on the left of the layer.

Go to Blending Options and set the following settings:

Drop Shadow > Blend Mode: Multiply, Opacity: 75%, Angle: 45°, Distance: 20px, Size: 10px

Inner Glow > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: White

Bevel and Emboss > Style: Inner Bevel, Technique: Smooth, Depth: 100%, Size: 25px, Soften: 10px, Angle: 45°,

Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Screen, Color: #3f464d

Stroke > Size: 1px, Position: Outside, Color: #dddddd

Place the Grunge tile texture above the “outline” layer and make sure the entire selection is covered now clip it to the outline by using Alt + click between the two layers. Add an Adjustment Layer – Brightness and Contrast then clip this to the Grunge tile texture and give it a -75 Brightness and -24 Contrast.

Unhide the type layer, and set the following

Blending Options > Drop Shadow > Distance: 21px, Size: 21px, Angle: 45°

Then place the Stainless texture above this type layer and clip it.

Blending Options > Color Overlay > Blend Mode: Soft Light, Color:#001d29

Do the same for the Concrete texture after placing it above the Stainless texture, clip it then set the Blend Mode to Overlay.

Group this set and call it “content”.

Give it some POW!

On a new layer with your Elliptical Marquee Tool (M) draw a very thin ellipse, I made mine around 206 x 19 pixels, deselect then go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur Set Angle to 0° and Distance to 90px click OK. Duplicate this layer then Edit > Transform > Rotate 90°, duplicate this layer then rotate 45° to the left.

Shrink the last copy to around 40% and the first copy to 60%. Group them together and name the group “glint” now duplicate this group 6 times (or more) and place them randomly on our content somewhere around the edges of the type layer.

And finally, place some of psdbox.com‘s Optic Flare effects, I will be using Optical-4b and Optical-8c. Just set the flares Blending Mode to Screen and drag it to where you feel it could give the optimum effect. Play with it until you are satisfied.

That’s it I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and be sure to share it.

A very Happy New Year to everyone!

May this coming year bring us all closer to our dreams, woot, woot, woot.

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So even though I’m not a huge fan, I am an admirer of greatness and I recognize greatness when I see one and Steve Jobs is one of the great minds of our generation have produced. He will be terribly missed. So in my humble way I would like to say goodbye to him by sharing with all of you a round up of some art work by fans and how they see the genius, the visionary, the innovator, the inspirational digital icon that is Steve Jobs.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

To infinity and beyond…

adayday

koinoi

dylanroscover

Jboogieman

pequeno3d

wretneck

WorkByNight

donnieraycrisp

entertailion’s photostream

Metin Seven

DonkeyHotey

Photo Giddy’s photostream

karagos

Yo-tan

weird-science

When Captain America throws his mighty shield,

All those who chose to oppose his shield must yield.

If he’s led to a fight and a duel is due,

Then the red and white and the blue’ll come through

When Captain America throws his mighty shield.

- opening theme from the 1960′s Marvel animation series

Captain America “The First Avenger”, is the latest Marvel live action incarnation. This will feature Chris Evans as Steve Rogers “Captain America”, and Hugo Weaving as the “Red Skull”.

Captain America first appeared in March 1941, created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Steve Rogers, was a sickly military recruit enhanced to the peak of human perfection by an experimental serum to aid the United States war effort against the “Axis” powers in World War II. Wearing an American Flag themed costume and wielding a disc shaped shield made of an experimental alloy called “Vibranium”, which was originally intended to be made into tanks. The vibranium was created by accident and never duplicated, attempts to reverse engineer it resulted in the creation of “Adamantium”. Which was later bonded with Wolverine’s skeleton and bone claws.

The movie “Captain America – The First Avenger” will be part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is scheduled for release on July 22, 2011 in 3D. I hope you all enjoy and find inspiration with this roundup. After all “Cap’n” is known for being relentless, surrender is not a part of his vocabulary, a good trait to have for start-up’s in the web design arena.

ninjaink

cruzaderazn

Ashmantle

herobaka

mbreitweiser

ANDREA11179

isikol

hobo95

agustin09

xzykho

Valzonline

deadhead16mb

sneedd

Ceshira

FlowComa

buchemi

zenithuk

Konjur

xxnightblade08xx

NineteenPSG

Jam-Wah

drawsgood

lovetherobot

Cinar

RentonAlex

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Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features.

Art Deco is based on mathematical geometric shapes. It was widely considered to be an eclectic form of elegant and stylish modernism, being influenced by a variety of sources.

Michael Myer’s (a.k.a. drawsgood) illustration’s falls nothing short of awesome. I first got a whiff of his genius when he did an illustrated series of the characters from the T.V. series “LOST”, immediately I became an instant fan and I’ve been stalking him ever since.

Today I bring to you his rendition of DC heroes and villains (note: actually it’s just one villain but I’m looking forward to more and will update this post when Michael is ready with them. ) He creates them in the styles of modern art deco minimalists which caught my fancy this last couple of years. I’ve been seeing them around a lot lately, mostly cult classics of movies or TV and comic book characters. The layout is simple, the color is flat, the font is classic, the texture is vintage or grunge the impact is jaw dropping, well at least for me it is. But I’m hoping to convert some of you today with the help “drawsgood” himself.

Check them out and enjoy! And may you find inspiration in these masterful works of art by Michael Myers!

DC Heroes

Superman

Batman

Robin

Wonder Woman

Aquaman

Flash

Green Lantern

“as featured in Green Lantern in 30 graphic inspirations”

Green Arrow

DC Villains

This is the only DC villain Michael has illustrated so far, but I’m sure he’s working on something and when he’s done we’ll post them here. Besides Lex Luthor is all the super villain you need! He’s a genius, unforgiving, conniving, sneaky, rich, no one knows what he’ll be up to next.

Lex Luthor

One day I will have one of this framed and adorn the walls of my personal office, but for now I’m happy just to be able to check them out from time to time.

If you like Michael Myers creations you may purchase a print copy at imagekind.com or make a statement with his wearable artwork as shirts at threadless.com

Find Michael Myers on the web

Website: www.drawsgood.com

Blog: Drawsgood Illustration and Design Blog

Portfolio: Deviantart, Bēhance, Society6

Social Network: Twitter, Facebook, Linked

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In a universe as vast as it is mysterious, a small but powerful force has existed for centuries. Protectors of peace and justice, they are called the Green Lantern Corps. A brotherhood of warriors sworn to keep intergalactic order, each Green Lantern wears a ring that grants him superpowers. But when a new enemy called Parallax threatens to destroy the balance of power in the Universe, their fate and the fate of Earth lie in the hands of their newest recruit, the first human ever selected: Hal Jordan. – wikipedia

Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan the first human “Green Lantern” and “Thaal Sinestro” will be played by Mark Strong (Sherlock Holmes) at the directors chair sits Martin Campbell (Casino Royale).

In brightest day, in blackest night,
No evil shall escape my sight
Let those who worship evil’s might,
Beware my power… Green Lantern’s light! – Green Lantern Oath

All comic-togists know there’s been quite a few human Green Lanterns in the DC Universe timeline but the most famous of them all aside from he’s really my favorite is Hal Jordan. Dude, it’s like asking who’s the best James Bond, Sean Connery or the other guys. I tried my best to make this roundup as Hal Jordan-ish as possible, but there’s just too many kick-ass graphics out there that I can’t help myself but include them here. Not to mention that the maestro Alex Ross is much into the Golden Age of the DC Universe. So it doesn’t matter if it’s Hal Jordan or Alan Scott, even Guy Gardner or John Stewart at the most you may find some Kyle Rayner in the mix but look past into the character background and you will still have the “Green Lantern”.

Alex Ross

For me Alex Ross can make any comic book super hero come alive with depth. His style of painting, his attention to detail and the way his characters are always staring off into some far away place is uncanny.

FrodoBacchi

A kick-ass fan art painted in Photoshop Essentials

drawsgood

Michael Myers illustrations was first featured here @prodigalconcepts in LOST – Michael Myers (the animated series) awhile back. Some of his work are grungy vintage art deco minimals like this “Green Lantern” poster.

xzykho

I’m guilty of self promotion here, I got inspired during my search of graphic materials for this article and decided to include it.

Grasset

A scanned sketch rendered in Illustrator and colored in Photoshop.

sinccolor

A mighty fine collaboration I’ve seen so far. Art by Jim Lee, Inked by Scott Williams, colored by sinccolor.

hyzak

Created in Zbrush, Cinema 4D, PsCS4 and a few hours later, tadaaa, even comes with a tutorial it’s in Spanish though so better ready that trusty Google translate.

strongstuff

A commissioned art deco poster of the Green Lantern corps, I’m really loving this minimalistic stuff.

xXNightblade08Xx

Another collaboration giving new life to an already awesome line art.

thincage

Simply hand drawn oldschool with a brush pen, white colored pencil, and Copic markers on 8.5 X 11 textured cardstock.

Cinar

What pure unadulterated talent can do with a sketch pad, markers, white ink and correction pen.

Thuddleston

Pencils -n-inks done in Manga Studio colored in CS4.

joshwmc

A cool attempt on a teaser poster, pretty early on after the announcement I suppose. The year’s a bit off but the result is brilliant.

Heartattackjack

More minimals, I don’t think I will get enough of this wonderful pieces of art. They’re so simple, just lines flat colors but still comes out with a power punch.

JimOfRapture

And another one, two in a row, this one done in a stained effect to give it more of a vintage feel.

SaintYak

I don’t feel Hal Jordan here, maybe it’s the hair style but the sketch and colored markers work for me.

Hungrysparrow

A Photoshop 7 creation, brings a lot of memories.

Cinar

Another marker masterpiece from Cinar.

xzykho

It’s still me, this time with mask and lantern logo, a bit self indulgent I suppose because I even included my sites URL, my bad. I hope you guys appreciate it though.

FrankDa

I love how the eyes and the chest insignia seems to be glowing.

Bakanekonei

“Green Lantern 41″ alternate cover penciled by Eddy Barrows, colored by Bakanekonei.

Cinar

It’s like hearing sweet music, Cinar’s work is unmistakably his, a commission piece. Done with markers and correction pen.

Wallpapers

Official “Green Lantern” movie freebie desktop wallpaper from their website, just click the image to grab yours.

rodolforever

I think this is the last minimal for this set, admire it one more time, the lines, the flat colors, the textures, ahhh this must be love.

by Alex Ross

No need for an intro, this is Alex Ross country. Not exclusively Hal Jordan or “Green Lantern” for that matter, in fact I think it’s way better. Featuring the Green Lantern with other members of the Justice League making their appearance together. Grab em while you can.

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The Mighty Thor, a powerful but arrogant warrior whose reckless actions reignite an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.
—Marvel.com

Stars Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Anthony Hopkins as Odin and Kenneth Branagh directs and is scheduled to be released between April and May 2011 in 3D.

I have compiled 30 of the best graphic illustrations and portrayals of the thunder god himself viewed through the imagination of those artists and fans who holds a special connection with the “Mighty Thor”. Enjoy this weeks round-up!

Mike Mayhew

diablo2003

YamaO

MCornelius

thisismyboomstick

nesmosfactory

MiaCabrera

Meredyth

LordMishkin

harveytsketchbook

earache_j

ashasylum

anjum

ANDREA11179

MCornelius

Reau Wimberly

Sasin

wildlifehoodoo

Wallpapers

More Marvel “Thor” Wallpapers

comicwallpapers

desktopia

arts-wallpaper

avengers wallpaper

And if this roundup still doesn’t fill your appetite for the god of thunder, be sure to get your weekly dose of Thor at Jarreau Wimberly’s Thor Thursday

Visit other prodigalconcepts.com inspirations…

For the first part of the year 2011, I would like to thank each and everyone of my friends and regular readers who drop by here every now and then to check out what’s new at prodigalconcepts.com and I wish you all good things this year and please continue to support my site and help me spread the word by sharing the articles you find interesting with your friends!

Today we will be creating a very cool “Pin Wheel” in Photoshop with the help of the Pen Tool. And to make it easy for us we will borrow this image of a pinwheel from the NewarkLibrary blog or download it here!

Final Image

Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate

Duration: 45 mins (plus or minus)

Basics

Open your pinwheel image in Photoshop. Then create a new layer above it and rename it “Outline” now grab your Pen tool from your tools pallete or just hit (P) on your keyboard.

Try to zoom in (Ctrl +) to see the edge of the “Pin Wheel” clearly, now start tracing the outline of the “Blade” or the “Leaf” (I have no idea what it’s called). Start wherever it’s comfortable for you, I’m going to start from the top left going down. Just click on a point in the outer part of the Pin Wheel “Blade” (I decided to call it Blade for duration of this tutorial) and trace the edges point to point (if it’s a straight line).

If it’s a curve,try to get a wide area from your outline and without releasing your mouse drag its handles out to match your images curve.

To continue working on your path, hold Alt key and Click on your original point to cut a corner, (while holding Alt key hover your mouse to the last point you created it should show ^ symbol, click on the point.) Your drag handle will disappear so you can now continue tracing your outline.

Once you have outlined the entire “Blade” you can close your path by joining your last point with your original anchor point, you should see a small circle, like a degree symbol ° this means your are about to close your path.

If you are satisfied with the outline of your shape, turn your path into a selection (Ctrl + Enter). Turn off your Pin Wheel “Background” layer image by poking the eye next to it and you should have something like this.

Then make sure you have your “Outline” layer selected, fill this selection with a nice Pastel Green like #9ffc71.

Next we will trace the outline of the part of the blade I’m calling Flap (for lack of any other word for it). I see 2 ways we can do this, the Hard way is to retrace the part of the flap using the Pen Tool the same way we did the “Outline” which is a good exercise. Then there is the easy way which will cut corners and save us some time, since I’ve already shown you how to trace the entire outline I’m cutting corners for the “Flap” and take the easy way.

First duplicate your “Outline” layer and rename it “Flap” bring down its Opacity to around 50%, then turn off your “Outline” layer and then turn on the Pin Wheel “Background” layer.

Get your Pen Tool out, and use the Pin Wheel “Background” layer image for reference, trace the inside curve of the Flap. We are only after the curve, so here it’s OK to go outside the “Flap” layer and once you have cleared the image just circle around the rest of your image to close off your path.

Then turn it into a selection, we only need the part of the image inside our selection and discard the rest. So you can do two things add a layer mask to hide the unselected part or use Select > Inverse (Ctrl +Shift + I) and delete the part we wont need.

Now we can bring the Opacity back to 100% for our “Flap” image layer. And begin adding details. Use a nice light color to make a background of our work area so we can better see what were doing while adding details. Mine will be #fefdfd for the Foreground and #cefbb8 for the Background then apply it with a Radial gradient effect starting from the middle going out. Something like this.

Colors and shades

So we are ready, first lets give our “Outline” layer a bit of light and shade. To do this, create a new layer on top of the “Outline” layer and rename it “Outline-light” make a selection with your “Outline” layer by (Ctrl + click) your image from the Layers panel you will see the running ants will start marching.

Make your Foreground color a light shade of green like #d7fbc6, then set your Gradient tool to Linear gradient and your gradient picker is set to Linear to Transparent. Start outside the selection from the lower right of the image in a diagonal motion going in. This will give your image a nice 2 tone green.

We need to add some shadows, create a new layer on top of the “Light” layer and rename it “Shadow”. Then make a selection with your “Outline” layer again by (Ctrl + click) your image from the Layers panel one more time. This time set your Foreground color to Black #000000, and with the same Gradient tool settings as the light (except for the color) apply the gradient starting from the opposite direction, upper left diagonal motion going down. Then bring down your “Shadow” layers opacity to around 75%.

Time to give the “Flap” layer a light effect too by repeating the steps we made for the “Outline-light”, create a new layer on top of the “Flap” layer and name it “Flap-light” add the same gradient effect but from the opposite direction by starting from the upper left going down in a diagonal slice.

One piece of the puzzle is complete, time to group all your layers except for the “Background” layer that we made, you can also discard the original Pin Wheel image, it has served its purpose. Select all the layers thats part of the “Blade” by selecting the top most layer then while holding the Shift key click on the last bottom layer. Now that all your layers are high-lighted drag them down to the Folder looking button below your layers panel. This will group all the “Blade” layers into one folder, rename this group “Blade-green”.

Grouping

Take the group folder “Blade-green” and duplicate it, rename the copy “Blade-blue”, while this group is still selected go to Edit > Transform > Rotate 90° CW. Move this group and use your judgement to position it as the second blade. We will need to change this groups color scheme. Expand the “Blade-blue” folder and locate the layer “Outline copy” while this layer is selected go to Blending options and apply a color overlay use #71fcbf, then copy this layer style to your “Flap copy” layer. Do the same Blending option adjustment for the “Outline-light copy” layer but you should give it a lighter shade of blue like #bcf7fb, then copy this layer style to the “Flap-light copy” image layer.

Here’s a neat trick, read carefully moving forward because this might start to get confusing as we go back and forth the two folder groups. As you can see the two “Blades” are missing a shadow where they are joined together so do this, first create a new layer above the “Shadow” layer of the group “Blade-green” and rename this “Shadow2″ then make a selection using the “Outline copy” layer from the group “Blade-blue” fill this with Black #000000 apply a Gaussian blur with 50px Radius bring down the Opacity to 50% while “Shadow2″ layer is still selected turn the layer “Outline” from the group “Blade-green” into a selection and then invert the selection hit Del you should now have a nice shadow between the 2 “Blades”.

Now repeat this steps a few more times starting from (Grouping) until you have 4 multi colored “Blades” like this.

We will now add a Pin to our image to complete our Pin-Wheel project, create a new layer on top of all the grouped layers and name it “Pin”. Take the Ellipse tool from the Shapes pallette and make a nice little circle and turn it into a selection. Make your Foreground color #cbfab9, and your Background color #3399ff, set your Gradient tool to Radial and the gradient picker to Foreground to Background, apply the gradient starting from the center going out. Next lets give it a shadow effect, (Ctrl + click) your “Pin” image and create a new layer below it, rename this “Shadow” fill it with Black #000000, then go to your Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and make the Radius: 10px then change the opacity to 75%.

Last but not the least is the nice looking handle. Create a new layer below all the grouped layers and rename it “Handle”. Get your Rectangular marquee tool and create a long vertical rectangle. Fill this with #3399ff, create a new layer and name it “hilite” (Ctrl + click) your “Handle” to make a selection, then fill it with White #ffffff, reduce it’s width to around 50% or less. Give it a Gaussian blur with a Radius of 5px, keep it a little to the left.

Time to admire your work

I hope you all like this and put it to good use, share it with your friends and if you happen to use it in one of your projects give me a shout out and I will include it here. Thank you all very much. PEACE!

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Enter the young up and comer Ian Jasper Reyes from Tarlac City, Philippines. Fresh out of college, he pursued his love of challenges for creating surreal photo manipulations with very impressive results. His humble beginnings started out by playing around with small scale TAGS and SIGS just for his personal amusement. He eventually started joining contests which helped secure his confidence with his work while he gradually pushed the envelop for a larger work canvas. Ian Jasper *slash Vinc found inspiration from the works of other artists on deviantart.com and wowmagz.com to name a few.

Currently focusing his artistry on his brand new passion for large dimension digital canvasses he proved time and time again that he can overcome it’s downside, like how frustrating it can sometime gets to fill it up with elements that would mesh nicely together. But Vinc seems to be doing this pretty well. And we are featuring him here at prodigalconcepts.com because we acknowledge that skills and talent knows no age, and if you happen to have found your calling early you will just keep getting better and better. Ian Jasper or Vinc clearly proves this to be true.

Enjoy “the Vinc’s” imaginative renditions

Wandering

Somewhat

Sky High II

Replace

In the Air

Mountaincold

Habitat

The Floating Idea

Approaching

Derived

Clouds

Close Enough

Where to find Ian Jasper Reyes on the web

Website: vincgfx

Social Network: facebook

Affiliations: DistortedPixel, pinoyrepublic.org

Ian Jasper Reyes also works as a design and technical freelancer if you find yourself in need of his services you may get in touch with him directly at his website. Thank you!

Difficulty: Beginner – Intermediate

Duration: 30 mins – 45 mins (plus or minus)

Setting up the stage

Let’s begin by creating a new file in Photoshop and name it “twitterBird”, then let’s give it a work area of 700 pixels x 700 pixels, we want it big so we will have enough space to play around with. Just keep the background color white for now.

We need to make sure that our rulers are in view, if not go to View > Rulers and then just click on it, or use the short cut Ctrl + R.

Next drag your ruler from the left to the stage and keep it at the center, then drag the top ruler probably 1/3 from the top of your stage like this.

Creating guidelines is a good way to get your symmetrical elements aligned, just like the way Jeff Scarterfield does in his cartoon drawing tutorials as featured in Inspiration: How to Draw Cartoons Online – Jeff Scarterfield.

For the last guide, we will need our Ellipse Tool (U), make sure that Paths is selected in your tools options. Then simply drag it on to our stage to create an Oval shaped outline keeping the cross of the ruler guides inside the Ellipse.

Hit Ctrl + Enter to turn it into a selection. You will see the running ants. Now create a new layer and name it “ellipse-outline” then go to Edit > Stroke set the width to 1px and color can be any color you want. This will be your outer guide, while the rulers are your symmetrical guide.

Start creating the Twitter bird

Your work stage should now look like this, almost everything we do from this point on should be inside the ellipse. If you have not yet centered your ellipse guide by now, just select the “ellipse-tool” layer on your layers panel. Hit (Ctrl + A) then click on Align horizontal layers option at your control selection bar near the top.

Twitter bird’s head

Now we are ready to begin, create a new layer on top of the “ellipse-outline” layer and rename it “bird-head”. Get your ellipse tool out again but this time hold the Shift key while dragging the ellipse tool inside your ellipse-outline. Drag it until you get something like a 220x220px circle path (check the info tab).

You should have something like this.

With your “bird-head” layer selected, go to Edit > Transform path > Warp (if your Photoshop is pre Warp option version play around with Distort and Skew) moving on, push the handles in, slowly and one at a time starting at the corners and work yourself around to put a light dent on our circle, if you are not sure how it should look like you can use the final output for reference.

Start warp

End warp

When you feel comfortable with the shape of the head hit the Enter key, and remember to just try and keep things clean don’t worry if it’s not perfect. We are now going to turn this into a selection by hitting Ctrl + Enter (ants should be marching here). With the “bird-head” layer selected and marching ants marching, click on the foreground option and pick a nice blue color from the color palette, I think #02A7CB will do fine then hit Alt + Backspace to fill your selection with the foreground color. Keep it centered to your cross guides. Your image’s shape should be similar to a “guitar pick” or a rounded “Dart’s wing”.

Next we need to give it some ruffled feathers for extra details, don’t be afraid it’s just a simple procedure. Create a new layer below your “bird-head” layer and name it “ruffled-feathers” then grab your Pen tool from the tools palette and starting from just below the top of our “bird-head” and the mid cross guide going to the left create a short path.

Drag out the handles to make an outward curve.

Cut one of the handles to create a corner by holding the Alt key and click on the 2nd point. You will know you’re in the right point when you see a (^) when you hover your mouse over it.

Bring it back to the head just below the 2nd point and drag the handles out again to create an inward curve. Cut the handle as before to make a corner and close it off by joining it to the primary point. You should get a shark fin looking shape.

Do another one but slightly bigger and going in the opposite direction. Then after that go to the top of your horizontal guide near the left cheek start your path from there and do two more fins but this time they should curve in the same direction like waves. Actually you can play with this and do as many as you want that you feel would compliment your drawing. But for this tutorial we’ll stick with this. So by now you should have an image similar to this.

Hit Ctrl + Enter to turn it into a selection and fill it with the same blue color. We will now merge this two layers together so while your “ruffled-feathers” layer is still selected hold your shift key and click to select the “bird-head” layer. You should have both layers hi-lighted now, right click on it to open your options menu and click merge layers.

Now it’s time to add some definition and hi-lites. Pick a darker blue for the background color, I’m using #2A8A9F then with your newly merged layer selected press Ctrl and click on the merged “bird-head” layer, this will turn the outline of your image into a selection. Click on your gradient tool or hit (G), then make sure your gradient effect is on Radial Gradient and drag you gradient horizontally starting from the upper left hand going down.

Your gradient gave your image a bit of depth, now we’ll give it some outline shadows, Right click on your layer and open your Blending Options and tick on Inner Glow then match the settings to what I used here pick a nice shade like #0C8FB7 for your color and click OK.

Twitter bird’s eyes and brow

We’re now going to add some features like eyes, eyebrow and beak. We’ll use our Ellipse Tool again and create a small version of our “ellipse-outline” layer inside the “bird-head” layer. You can zoom in a bit to get a better look of what were doing. Drag your ellipse tool until you get a nice sized ellipse. What we want is an exaggerated version of the eyes.

When you’re happy with the ellipse for the eyes go to Edit > Transform Path > Distort because we want our ellipse / egg shape wider at the top and narrow at the bottom.

Hit enter then go to your Paths tab and drag your path to your create new path button and rename it “eye” we want to save it for later.

Return to your layers panel and create a new layer on top of everything else and name it “shadow”. Go to your foreground color picker and find a nice dark blue with a hint of gray hue something like #1F4D57, then hit Ctrl + Enter to turn your path into a selection. Select gradient again then from the gradient picker at the top choose foreground to transparent and your “Gradient Effect” to linear gradient then just drag it diagonally across your selection starting from the outside of your selection.

When you get the right amount of shadows, create a new layer and call it “eye” then go back to your Paths tab and select the “eye” layer path we saved earlier. You should have the path we used to create the “shadow” layer. Turn it into a selection (Ctrl + Enter) then set your foreground color to #FEFEFE and your background color to #DCDCDC, set your gradient picker to foreground to background and gradient effect to radial, then drag it diagonally across your selection.

Reduce the size of this layer slightly until you see enough amount of the shadow layer behind it and rotate it a few degrees counter clockwise.

Go back to your “Paths” tab (you better get used to it we will be going back to the paths panel a lot in this tutorial) and select the “eye” path layer one more time, with your “eye” path layer still selected create a new layer in your layers panel and rename it “iris”. Set your foreground color to a nice blue color like #02B0E6 and your background color to a lighter version like #99DFF5 we will use the same gradient effects settings as the original “eye” layer image. Turn your path into a selection and start dragging your gradient across this selection just like before. Resize this layer to make it smaller than the “eye” layer image probably around 30% – 45% depending on what looks good to you. Rotate it clockwise leaning opposite the previous layer’s position. Use your personal judgment to make some adjustments. Right click this new layer and go to “Blending Options”, add an “Inner Glow” and use another blue color like #0B3D4B for the color glow, then set the size to 12px click OK.

This time we are going to use our “iris” layer to make a selection. So go ahead and turn it into a selection like what we’ve done for the “bird-head” outline. Then create a new layer and name this layer “gradient”. Change your foreground color to white #FFFFFF and your gradient picker to foreground to transparent then drag your gradient starting from outside the selection like what we did for the “shadow” layer, hit Ctrl + D to turn off the selection. Now take your pen tool out and make a path across the “gradient” layer. Start from the upper right hand side going to the lower left side. Then drag your handles to make a nice upward curve make a big loop outside the iris to cover the whole lower area, you can now close your path and turn it into a selection then hit “Del” or “Delete”. Change this layers opacity to somewhere around 65%. We will then link these two layers (“iris” and “gradient”) by selecting them both, and with a right click of your mouse on the highlighted layers click on the “Link Layers” option. You should be able to see link chains on your selected layers which mean we can now move these two layers together by selecting one of them.

Check your work against mine and do some tweaks where it’s necessary.

One more visit to the paths tab and again select our “eye” path layer, return to your “Layers” panel and create a new layer. Name this layer “pupil”, do the same procedure as what we’ve done for the “iris” layer only we will use a darker shade of gradient. For this one set your foreground color to #0D94B9 and background color to #08516B, add an “Inner Glow” of #0C8FB7, “Blend Mode” set to multiply, Opacity 45%, Size 10px. Rotate image is optional.

Let’s add some glint to give the eyes more life. Create a new layer and name it “glint” take the ellipse tool and while holding down the “Shift” key drag it inside our “iris” layer to get a small circle shape. Turn it into a selection and fill it with white #FFFFFF. Make sure you position it a little outside upper left of the “pupil”. Now go to Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur and give it a nice 1px radius.

That should do it for the eyes, let us now work on the eyebrow. I know birds don’t have eyebrows except for the cute ones. So we will make this really simple.

Let’s create a new layer and call it “eyebrow” then take the ellipse tool again, and while holding down the shift key create a circle as wide as your “iris” layer, then turn it into a selection and fill it with #08516B. Turn off your selection and grab the handy dandy pen tool make a horizontal path halfway near the top and make a curve, make sure you have a crescent shape facing down, do a big loop to cover the entire lower portion and close the path, hit “Del”. Move the eyebrow image on top of the eyes and rotate it clockwise just a little bit to give your drawing more character.

Group your eye layers by selecting all of them (Ctrl + Click) on each layer used for the eyes including eyebrow then drag it to the Create a new group button (the folder looking button) third from left.

Rename the group folder “left eye”, then make a copy of the group folder by dragging the whole folder to the Create a new layer button beside the Create a new group button and rename the copy “right eye”. Select the group “right eye” then go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal and move it to the right and make adjustments based on your vertical guides.

Twitter bird’s beak

After you finish making final adjustments to the eyes it’s time for us to start making a beak for our Twitter bird. So create a new layer and call it “beak”.

Take the rounded rectangle from your shapes tool and make the radius around 10px. Drag it on to our stage, make it a nice rounded square up to around 50 x 50 pixels, to turn it into a selection and fill it with yellow #FDCB01.

Edit > Transform > Rotate it around 45 degrees so it becomes more like a diamond than a square.

Then Edit > Transform > Scale down to about 10% – 20%, don’t bother holding down the Shift key here because we want it to be pinched but keep the width as is.

Ctrl + click on the “beak” layer to make a selection. Then create a new layer and call it shadow. Take the “Rectangular Marquee” tool and set it to “Intersect with selection”. Drag the “Rectangular Marquee” tool starting from the bottom ending midpoint of your selection. Make sure you are at the horizontal center of your “beak” layer. Let go of the marquee tool, you will see your selection changed to only half of the “beak” layer outline. Fill the new selection with a dark yellow, almost brown #322801. Now go to Edit > Transform > Warp then push the two inside handles from the top going down. What we want is to have a nice outline of the upper beak and lower beak, when you’re done hit Enter.

Next we’ll just give our beak a very light hi-lite to give it more character. Create a new layer and name it “hilite”. Pick a light yellow for our foreground like #ECE294. Set your gradient to Foreground to transparent and use the Diamond Gradient effect. Ctrl + click on the “beak” layer so we can get a selection. Then drag your gradient across the selection from the top going down.

Take a moment to look at your work and do some adjustments that you think your drawing needs. The hard part is over. We are almost done. It’s time to give our Twitter bird a body, it’s wings and it’s feet. But first group your beak layers so we have a nice looking layers panel. And should the need to move the beak around arises we could just select the group and move it in one motion like what we’ve done for the right eye. Don’t forget to name your group, let’s just call it “beak”.

Create the Twitter bird’s body

OK for the body create a new layer above the ellipse-outline layer because we want this behind the head image layers. Name this layer “body-outline” then go back to your “Paths” tab and duplicate your “eye” path layer, just drag it down to the Create new path button and rename it “body”. Next we’ll move your body path below your Twitter bird’s head image by using Ctrl + T and then while holding down the Shift key use the arrow keys to position your path. Then Scale it up to match your heads width holding down the Shift key so it stays proportion. Now make the same adjustments we made for the head and make the top portion narrower than the bottom by using Edit > Transform > Distort. Adjust the alignment to match the head.

Then with your warp tool pull on the handles and make the bottom part less pointed and more rounded. Similar to what we did for the head.

Make sure you have the “body-outline” layer selected then turn the path into a selection and using the gradient settings we used for the head (foreground color = #02A7CB / background color = #2A8A9F / gradient effect is on Radial Gradient) fill your selection with this gradient.

Locate your “bird-head” layer select it, then Right click on it and choose Copy Layer Style now Right click on your “body-outline” layer and pick Paste Layer Style. You now have the same Blend mode effects as the head.

Now use the “body-outline” to make a new selection, create a layer on top of the “body-outline” and call it “breast” set your foreground color to a very light blue #D4F6FD and your background color to #51DEFD, gradient effect Radial, drag it from the center going out.

Edit > Transform > Scale it down 30% more or less. And check alignment.

Move it down a bit and give it some Inner Glow of #B3F0FD with 65% Opacity and 10px size.

Group the body layers and name it “body”. Now we are ready to make our Twitter bird fly.

Let’s have some Twitter bird wings

Create a new layer below the “body” group folder and call it “wing”. Take your Ellipse Tool and without the Shift key make a nice thin ellipse like a small grain.

Edit > Transform > Warp your new ellipse path to make the left side rounded and the right pointed. This would be similar to an extreme warped version of our body outline.

Turn it into a selection and fill it with gradient (foreground color = #02A7CB / background color = #2A8A9F / gradient effect is on Reflected Gradient) then Blending options set to (Inner Glow > Blend Mode to Multiply > Opacity to 45% and size to 10px).

Rotate this layer clockwise to have an angle and move it near the top of the body a few pixels below the head. Make a copy of this layer and rename it “wing 2″. Drag the image “wing 2″ below your “wing” and rotate this layer, now overlap it with the original image so it doesn’t show any space in between the two layers and try to match the original wing’s direction. Push the second wing a few pixels in. Then duplicate the second wing layer and call it “wing 3″ make the adjustments same as that of “wing 2″.

Group your wing layers and rename it “left wing”, duplicate the group and call it “right wing”. Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal the group “right wing” and move it to the other side of the body.

Now we just need to make a nice pair of feet and our Twitter bird project will be finished.

Let’s give our Twitter bird a nice pair of feet

We don’t need to make this part fancy so let’s create a new layer on top of the “ellipse-outline” and call it “left-foot”. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) create a vertical rectangular shape and fill it with a gradient (foreground color = #FDEBA1 / background color = #FDCE10 / gradient effect is on Reflected Gradient ) start from the center going to the right.

Then take the pen tool and make “W” like cuts at the top.

Hit Ctrl + Enter to make the selection then “Del”. You will have something like a long king’s crown, now Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical and then Edit > Transform > Distort. Drag the top left and top right handles downward going to the right. Then push the top left and right handles in to make your image narrow at the top and wide at the bottom.

Now scale it down and position it under our “body”. Add some inner glow #BC9601 with 65% Opacity and 15px size. We will just duplicate our “left-foot” layer and rename the copy “right-foot”, go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal then move “right-foot” layer to the opposite side.

Hide the ruler guides by pressing Ctrl + (: ; key) then for your “ellipse-outline” just click on the eye icon of the layer, just like poking it in the eye . And now you may admire your work!

Let’s have a short recap

Aside from creating a really simple but cool drawing of a Twitter bird, we’ve also learned:

• The importance of using guides
• How to use the gradient tool
• How to play with the pen tool
• How to select, link and group layers
• How to save paths
• And how to control blending options, copy and paste it on another layer

Fini! – follow me on twitter @xzykho

In the end it’s not the final result that matters in this tutorial it’s the process, like the great Bert Monroy always says… “It’s not work, it’s play. It’s not the end result that’s important it’s how you get there.”

Visit other prodigalconcepts.com tutorials…

As an enthusiast “image trapper” I’ve compiled some of the textures I was able to capture in the past few weeks and I’m sharing it with all of you totally gratis, yup it’s free for your personal and commercial use (some rights reserved). If you happen to find these textures useful a comment or a link-back to this post would really be much appreciated. Thank you and Enjoy!

(Disclaimer: Use with caution not all are very good quality, some needs tweaking. Perfect for practice though.)

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Photoshop Tutorial: How to Apply Textures to Photos

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How to add texture to a photo using Photoshop

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FREE Assorted Textures

Working sample

Textures can add a lot of character even to the simplest layout like a poster, here is one I created using the grayish textile texture that’s included with this set. Love it or hate it, just leave your comments…

Food for thought

Before I wrap this up, one of the best sites to get quality textures is at “graphicriver.com”, they provide some of the best quality textures online at very affordable prices. But if you want to make some extra cash instead, grab your camera and take pictures of your very own textures because “graphicriver.com” will also help you sell them. Who knows your texture could end up on the next blockbuster movie poster or the web site that will topple the Facebook empire, “You are only limited by your own imagination”.

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