Tuts King » Tutorial

Design a Super-Cool One Page Portfolio in Photoshop

TutsKing — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:56:27 +0000

In this tutorial I will show you how to design a dark, simple but elegant, one page spaceship themed portfolio in photoshop. You decide whether it’s super-cool or not but I tend to think it’s rad.
Groovy, now don’t forget to download the .PSD file included at the bottom of the page!

Preview:

Let’s start off by creating a new document in Photoshop with the dimensions of 1100px by 820px.

Drag a guide and place it 138 pixels from the left and another 945 pixels from the right edge of your canvas, creating a centered layout which you will place your design elements.

Create the Background:
Using the Rectangle Tool (U), create a rectangle covering the whole document with the color of #181818. Add the “Extra Heavy Canvas” Pattern Overly in the layer properties menu.

Create the Header:
Make another rectangle at the very top of your canvas spanning the width of the document with a height of 25 pixels and a color of #4896CE. Copy the Layer style from the previous step and paste it into this layer.

Take the generic twitter bird from the internet, re-size it to approximately 29px by 17px, and place it on the top left of your header.

Using the Horizontal Type Tool (T), type a random twitter update. "Browsing the internets looking at design blogs." is what I wrote. Use the Character settings below.

565 pixels from the top of the canvas create another rectangle spanning the width with the same color, pasting the Pattern Overlay Layer Style on this also.

Your canvas should resemble the image below.

Create the Top Body Content:
Type your name in Helvetica, font size 35px, and place it on the right side of your design a few pixels left of your guide.

Next type your profession. Change the font size to 12px and horizontal scale to 112%. Move it down below your name and hugging the right guide you placed earlier.

Go ahead and use the Line Tool (U) with a color of #509ACF and create a 1 pixel line below your profession spanning the entire area between your guides. Create a highlight below your line by adding the Drop Shadow Layer Property shown below.

Duplicate the layer (Ctrl+J) and move it down 40 pixels.
Now we will make our tag-line in between the line shapes we just created.

With the same text settings used to create your profession, type something unique, witty, and showing confidence in yourself and your abilities. I chose to use "Hi, My name is Mark.I dream up designs in my sleep and code them into reality during the day." Use the Paragraph toolbar to Center the text.

Creating the Spaceship:
This is a rather simple spaceship made by using the Ellipse Tool. Create a circle, then Duplicate the shape a couple times (Ctrl+J). Using the Transform Tool (T) to re-size and stretch the ellipses to a few different sizes, then change their color and arrange the layers to create a spaceship looking object. Apply the Heavy Cavas Layer Property to these shapes also.

Create the Image Placeholders:
Take screen shots of your different pieces of your portfolio, crop and re-size them to 180px by 144px.

Apply the Stroke Layer Property creating a 7 pixel border with the color of #5BADE7 inside of the images.

Space the images out horizontally moving them so that they have equal space in between each other and about 25 pixels above the bottom blue footer background.

After you code and implement this design in XHTML and CSS, a great idea would be to use a lightbox plugin using jQuery or another JavaScript Library, making it truly a one page layout. This way the viewer and prospective employer won’t have to use the back button in their browser.

Select all of the shapes which comprise your spaceship, Move (V) and center it above your left image, and about 17 pixels below the bottom line you created for your tag-line.

Making the Spaceship Beam:
Create a New Layer.Now using the Lasso Tool (L) make a triangle selection coming out of your spaceship and covering the top of your image.

Take the Gradient Tool (G) (100% #FFFFFF on left, 0% #FFFFFF on right ) and drag from top to bottom creating a white to transparent gradient. Change the Opacity of the layer to 80%.

Duplicate your spaceship and gradient three times and move them so that there is one above each portfolio item picture.

Make the Skills Section:
Type "Skills" with a font size of 26px in Helvetica.
With the text set to Centered and Leading to 33px, list off your skills. Now change the font size of your text you’ve just created to 20 pixels. Arrange them so that they are center aligned, and centered below your portfolio images.

Under the center of the furthermost right image type "Download Resume", then change the paragraph alignment to left.

Create a line below Skills as we did before but with a color of #254b66 and a Drop shadow of #F6F6F6. Make smaller lines and place them below each skill you have listed.

Finish off the Footer:
Duplicate the first line you created above and place it about 22 pixels below the lines made for your skills.

Type "Copyright 2009" with a font size of 11 pixels. Make sure you get the copyright symbol in there too.

Make Faded Borders:
Lastly we are going to make the left and right borders faded so that the main content stands out.
Make a large rectangle on the left of your canvas 120 pixels wide and covering from top to bottom. Make sure the layer is on top of all of your layers with a color of #ffffff and an Opacity of 20%. Duplicate and align to the right side of your canvas.

Final Image:

How to Create a Peyton Manning Wallpaper in Photoshop

TutsKing — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:45:17 +0000

Inspired by a screencap of an NFL video game I have created a simple desktop wallpaper featuring Peyton Manning and will show you how it was done. First we’ll crop Peyton, make the background grungy, then create the headlining/name banner. Be sure to use the NFL players and wallpaper for your personal use only.

It’s good to note before we start that I’m using Photoshop CS3 on a PC.

1. First I grabbed the high resolution picture of Peyton Manning off of blogs.nfl.com and brought it into Photoshop.

2. Using the Lasso Tool (Ctrl+L) go around the outline of Manning.

3. Now create a new document the size of your screen resolution. Mine was 1680×1050.

4. Go back to the lassoed Manning. Using the Move Tool (V), drag the selection of Manning to your new document.

5. Resize (Ctrl+T) and move it so that it fits into your canvas like below.

Now we’ll create the dark shadow behind Manning.
6. Duplicate the Manning layer (Ctrl+J) then hide the top Manning layer by clicking on the eye next to the layer in the Layers Menu.

7. Select (Image->Adjustments->Levels) then drag the right bottom arrow all the way to the left, making both of the output levels 0, turning the image black. Click Ok.

8.Select (Filter->Blur->Motion Blur) Angle set to 90 degrees, Distance to 144 pixels, then click Ok.

9. Now do it again but with the Angle set to 0 degrees.

10. We’re done with this layer. You can now make the Manning layer above it visible again.

11. Using the Rectangle Tool (U) create a rectangle above your locked Background Layer covering the entire canvas with a color of #252925.

12. Drag the plaster texture image onto the canvas making sure its layer is directly above the color background layer we just created in the previous step. I downloaded my plaster image from cgtextures.com, in the white plaster section.

13. Remove the plaster brownish color. Desaturate the image (Shift+Ctrl+U).

14. Change the Blending Mode to (Multiply), letting the grungy texture mix with the dark green background rectangle.

15. Create a new blank layer on top of the others.

16. Using the Marquee Tool (M) make a rectangle by dragging your mouse from the left side of your canvas to the middle of the eight in Manning’s Jersey with a height approximately of 160 pixels.

17. Create a gradient that starts out black and fades to transparent. Use the Gradient Tool (G). Go up to and click on the gradient bar at the top of the screen to edit the gradient. Click on the second thumbnail (Set Foreground to Transparent), then click right below the gradient in the middle to create a black color stop (#000). Then click above the gradient to create an opacity stop (Opacity 100%) for the black color.

18. Now using a diagonal line, drag your gradient tool from the bottom left of the Marquee to approx. Manning’s eyeball. You can now deselect with the marquee tool.

19. Set the Blending Mode to (Overlay) and its Opacity to (62%).

20. Use the Horizontal Type Tool (T) and type Peyton. Set the font to Helvetica, size to approx. 68px, and color #cbcaca.

21. Use the Horizontal Type Tool (T) again and type Manning. Set the font to Helvetica, size to approx. 122px, color #ffffff.

22. Arrange them over your gradient as shown in the pic below.

23. To finish off the wallpaper I grabbed a generic colt horseshoe, re-sized, and rotated it, then moved the layer directly above the grunge layer to allow the grungy effect pass through.

Final Image Preview:

Download Wallpaper – 1 JPG – 1680×1050

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Creating Bart Simpson Vector Character in Illustrator

TutsKing — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:01:58 +0000

This is a short beginner tutorial. You will use Layers, utilize the Pen Tool and its sister tools, such as the Convert Anchor Point Tool, and Direct Selection Tool, to draw and colorize a vector Bart Simpson in Adobe Illustrator. First we will create the basic shape outlines which comprise his body, then create the shadows and highlights to finish off the artwork. If you have any questions of how I created Bart feel free to download the file and take a look.

Final Image Preview:

Step 1:
Start off by creating a new Illustrator Web Document to the size of 370 pixels (width) by 510 pixels (height), which is the approximate size of the Bart Simpson image.

Place the picture of Bart onto your artboard by clicking File->Place then save your file. I searched google images, but you can download the image file and the completed Bart vector HERE.

Lock the Bart image layer then create a New Layer on top, in which you will now draw your outlines.

Step 2:
Using the Pen Tool with a 2 pixel Stroke, we are going to trace around and create the main shapes of his body to form Bart’s head, arms, legs, body, and skateboard.

As you might have noticed I traced around the head, ears, and nose, then using the Ellipse Tool, made the eyes and eyeballs, creating separate objects to form the head, and so on. Using the Convert Anchor Point Tool and Direct Selection Tool you can refine your outlines to almost exactly match that of the image file.

Tip: To more accurately see what you’re tracing, change the Fill Color of your Stroke to None (The white box with the red line through it) before you start.

Now that you’ve traced around the main parts of the character and skateboard to duplicate the black outline Matt Groening drew, you’ll have Strokes (ex. the inside of the ear) and Objects (ex. the outline of the head and eyeballs).

Step 3:
The strokes need to have their ends tapered so that they look more true to the actual cartoon drawing. Use the Selection Tool to choose a stroke, such as the ear. Click Object->Expand. Select the Stroke checkbox and click Ok.

You are now able to click on the edges of your stroke with the Convert Anchor Point Tool to round your edges. Combined with the Direct Selection Tool to move and adjust the anchor points, you will be able to create a great tapered edge. Finish tapering the rest of the strokes.

Step 4:
The next step with this layer is to arrange your Strokes from front to back until they appear as they do in the image file. Right-Click->Arrange on a stroke or Left-Click, then go up to the top menu and click Object->Arrange->Send to Back. After you’re done go ahead and lock this layer since we are done with it.

Step 5:
Now we’re going to create a New Layer on top of the previous and make the shadows and highlights by tracing around them individually with the Pen Tool.

Adjust the Fill Color of each shape according to the Matt Groening’s drawing. My shadows and highlights are shown below.

When both of the layers are finished you should have a very nice Bart Simpson character which is scalable to any size.

Final Image:

Download AI Vector Bart Simpson

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.