Outcome of the large piece tutorial:

Create a new file (File > New), and select your favourite settings. We’ve picked 800 pixels by 447 pixels:

Add a background texture, we’ve picked this photo of a stoney and grassy texture (Try This DeviantArt for stock photos for large pieces):

Reduce the fill of this texture to 17%, you do this by setting it down on your layer panel which is in the bottom right corner of your screen by default:

By reducing the fill a lot, your background should be similar to this:

We’re going to use a picture of this old newspaper. We’re going to resize it, and flip it over vertically. First, grab an old retro picture (Download one of these retro stock papers), and paste it on your canvas:

Then, select Edit > Transform > 90 degrees ClockWise or CounterClockWise:

Now Flip it vertically, by selecting Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical:

We’re going to chop a part out of the newspaper, make a selection with the rectangular marquee tool and press delete:

Change the layers blending mode to Multiply in the layer panel, and reduce the fill a little bit:

This is what our current large piece looks like:

Now find a good looking render that you’d like to use, we’ve used the skeleton model that is going to be the center piece of our artwork. You can find skeleton stock pieces here, or elsewhere on deviantart. Place it into your large piece, and resize it properly. You can do this by pressing CTRL + T.

We’re going to put three skeletons on top of eachother, and change the color of each skeleton with the use of Color Overlay. First, select Layer > Duplicate Layer:

Then, select Color Overlay by pressing the fx button on your layer panel, or by going Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay:

The following settings were used to give the skeleton a white color:

Outcome of the skeleton:

Duplicate this white skeleton layer:

Go back to the color overlay, and change the white color to another bright color, we’ve used a greenish blue:

Now with the blue skeleton layer selected, tap the arrow keys on your keyboard. It’s up to you to pick a direction, we’ve set it 2 pixels down, and 2 pixels to the left:

Place the original skeleton model on top (like shown below in the picture), and with the arrow keys once again move it a little to the same direction that you moved the blue skeleton to:

This is what the three skeleton layers now look like:

Duplicate the original skeleton layer (Layer > Duplicate Layer):

Then Press CTRL + T (or select Edit > Free Transform) to change its size, and rotate it forward a little bit:

This is the outcome after rotating the skeleton:

We’re going to repeat the previous process, except we’re going to put the blue one at the bottom this time. Duplicate the skeletons, use the Color Overlay function, and nudge them a few pixels to the right and bottom:

White color overlay settings:

This is what your result should look like in the following order;

Blue Color Overlay:

White Color Overlay:

Outcome after putting the third skeleton back on top without a color overlay:

Repeat this same process with a third model, rotated and decreased in size once again, placed a little more to the right overlapping the second skeleton like shown in the large piece below:

We’re going to use a picture of this old television to cover up their heads, and to give it an awesome retro look. We will then cut out the screen, and put an old image on top. You can copy this image, or use a model of your own. Remember, you’re not limited to a television, you can use basicly anything. A fish bowl perhaps, or the face of some celebrity. Be creative!

Try being creative with the objects you’re using. Ours was placed as followed:

We’re going to use a retro picture to fill up the television screen. Find a nice picture, this 50′s stock images pack has a nice compilation of retro images. Place it on top of the television screen. By using layer masks, we will carefully place the retro poster inside in the next few steps:

Select Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All:

Now grab the pen tool, and select the following settings:

Toolbar settings:

Create anchor points, and create a section that covers the television screen. however, using the pen tool may require some practise, don’t give up if you don’t get it the first time.

We’re going to create a selection from the anchor points we created with the pen tool. We can do this by going to Paths on the layer window, and creating a selection from the work path. Select Paths, then right click the Work Path and press Make Selection:

We have to fill the selection with white, it will turn our selected area in our layer mask visible again. Select the Paint Bucket Tool, and fill the selection with White:

This is what it should look like on your layer window:

This is what our result looks like. If you dont like the position, you can select the layer and move it around underneath the layer mask.

Now Select your television layer, and duplicate it. We’re going to cover the other skeletons with television screens as well, duplicate the previous steps, and use the Free Transform tool (by pressing CTRL + T or by going to Edit > Transform> Free Transform):

Our result after duplicating the television:

By clicking on the layer next to the layer mask on the layer window, we can move the retro picture on the television to show the different characters:

Duplicate the proces on the other skeleton until you are satisfied, try to variate the sizes, angles and maybe even use different images instead of the television, be creative.

Cut out with the pen tool, create a selection in the Paths window again, and place your character inside the screen.

We’re nearly done with the large piece, all that’s left now is adjusting levels and textures and add finishing touches. If you’ve created your own artwork with different retro pictures, the following layer adjustment settings might not work out. You should use settings that will make your images blend in together a little. To create a Levels Adjustment layer, you can click the little black and white circle on the layer panel and pick Levels, or select Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Levels.

Here’s an animation showing our settings of the Levels adjustment layer.

This is the result of the adjustment layer. As you can see, the retro pictures now blend in together properly. Don’t be afraid to use multiple adjustment layers to make the images blend.

To create final texture, we add a starry space stock image on top of the picture. You can find plenty of nice sky imagery on DeviantArt stock pages, here’s a stock image of a sky space you can use. Place it on top of your image, and use the eraser tool to remove some parts that are too bright or detailed. Our outcome:

Now set this layer to lighten on the layer panel. If this setting doesn’t look good on your piece, experiment with the layer settings:

Our outcome after setting the layer to Lighten:

We’re going to finish the piece by adding details and extra imagery on the large piece, try to make it look good. We’ve made it appear as if the birds were flying out of his hands. The birds were made by the use of bird brushes, but anything works:

We’re adding a light bulb stock inside his hand, and with the use of the Free Transform tool (Edit > Transform > Free Transform or CTRL + T) we can rotate and change the size to match the size of the hand.

We’re going to use a soft brush to create a light spot on top of the light bulb. Select a light yellowish color (We picked #FFFDC6), and tap once on top of the light bulb. This is the brush shown on a black background:

If you want a more transparant lightbulb you can experiment with the layer style, set it to Lighten perhaps. This is our result, with the layer style kept on normal:

We need some more detail in the light grey area, and are going to fill this up with a fractal render. Find a good fractal render (Try these, however make sure you have the right to use them), and place it on top of the picture. Resize it, and place it somewhere nice.

Now set the fractals layer style to exclusion. If this doesn’t look good on your large piece, experiment with the settings.

our result after placing the fractal:

The right side is still a bit empty, so we’re going to duplicate the fractal and put it on the right side:

Set to exclusion again:

We’re adding another render effect on top of the lightbulb to enhance the lighting effect. Use your eraser tool properly, and change the layer styles to whatever looks best. Ours was set to Lighten:

The result:

This brings us to our final result, we’ve sharpened some areas. This is easily done by applying the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image), then using the sharpen tool. Alternately, you could just select Filter > Sharpen, however this will sharpen the entire large piece and might not be the best option. Our outcome:

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial. You can download the PSD File, and much more in our Premium section!

Premium Members can download the cinema4d file, along with all the other tutorial PSD files and more content in the Premium section!

Start a new file in Cinema4d. This is what your view should look like at this point. If it doesn’t, you can press F1 to return to perspective view:

Press F5 to divide the workspace to 4, 1 for main angle and other 3 for the top, right and front angle.

Now select your freehand spline tool:

Start creating a a shape as you want in the top window.

Create another shape while taking the top angle into consideration. See how we made the line lenght same as top:

Repeat it again at the front window, consider all angles:

Now go to nurbs tool, and select loft nurbs:

This is what the top right should look like:

Choose the splines and drag them under the loft nurbs

Your render should now take shape:

Now, the arrow is for selecting points, the second box is for moving things around, the third is for changing the size and the last one is for picking the angle. We’re going to use these tools to get a different view on the render:

Select any of the above tools, and move or modify your splines untill you get the right camera angle and perspective:

Now select your loft nurbs and press C to simplify it (with the simplify option you can edit all of the display proporties, the splines will be merged into a single group).

We will be modifying our render with the following Objects (refer to the image below):

Number 1: With this tool we can bend the render,

Number 2: Curve tool, add a curve to the render,

Number 3: Bulge tool,

Number 4: Shear tool,

Number 5: Explosion effect, this one can be a bit tricky and requires some experimenting. They’re pretty self explanatory, Make sure you play around with them.

First, we’re going to add a Bend object with the settings below (obviously, try using your own settings rather than copying ours):

Then we add a twist. Again do as you want, be creative!

We add a bulge:

Group your object by going to Object > Group Object or press Alt+G:

This is what your screen shuld look like:

Now select your null object. We’re going to copy (CTRL + C) and paste (CTRL + V) the entire object, and move it around. They will probably flow nicely into eachother.

Using the following tools we can move the copied render around:

Our cinema4d render outcome at this point:

Copy it again and now place it at left end of the window, flip it around and play around as you get something you like. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit into your perspective, we can just change angles, sizes, zooms and so on.

We’re going to add 3 hyper nurbs, and by using Drag and Drop we will place our null objects inside of them. Here is what it looks like at the moment. Pay attention to the top right section of the screenshot, this is what it should look like if you’ve done the previous step correctly:

Shown on a black background renderred quickly:

Modify the left part of the render, (play with the settings of Bend / Curve / Bulge):

Now select all the hyper nurb object and group them (Alt+G):

Duplicate it twice and move these around, flip them, resize them, move them around untill you get something you like

Expand the render( open up the hyper nurbs and null objects) and modify the settings and places of your bend / curve / bulge in the bottom right corner:

renderred quickly on a black background:

Now we are going to add some perspective, use the perspective and move tool to get into an angle that you like:

The following step will add some depth into your render. Left click zoom in tool, and drag it to left while holding it:

This should change the depth in your view:

Renderred on a black background:

Play with perspective / angles a bit more

Our render is now ready, time to get started on material

Add a lumas to your material at color section and we modified it with these settings, you can do as you want.

Check reflection and drag it back to 17%

Modify the specular

Add displacement

This is how it looks like with the material right now (and some lighting added which we will explain in the following step):

Select lighting on your toolbar, and add Light. Don’t be afraid to add many different light locations. Check the top right area in this screenshot:

Now, modify the settings in the bottom right. Simply change the color settings, the type, brightness, and so forth. Use your own settings, try not to just copy ours:

We’re going to render our final image. Use your preferred settings. In case you don’t know how, select Render > Render Settings:

To get a transparant background, you can save them as a Quicktime PNG and make sure you check the Alpha Channel checkbox!

The higher you set the Antialising, the longer the renderring will take:

Add several effects if you like:

Set your preferred size, we’ve set it to a generic 1280 x 1024 wallpaper:

Now select Render > Render to Picture Viewer ( CTRL + R), and if you’re satisfied (This step could take a while depending on the power of your computer), Save the image (File > Save As…) and you’re done!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial, Premium Members can download the Cinema4d file in the Premium Member section along with extra tutorials, materials, PSD files and more!

Before we start, I will first explain the gradient tool. We will be using this excessively to achieve a good looking abstract effect. We’re using a special good looking gradient, which is in fact an edited version of the default gradient that comes with Photoshop. If you select the Gradient Tool:

And click the preferences, you should see the gradient highlighted below (if you don’t, press the arrow and select Reset Gradients. Make sure you save your older ones first if you want to keep them). We’ve edited the colors slightly, with the hex codes shown below. Optionally, you can download this gradient here.

Now that we have that covered, let’s get started with the tutorial. Open a new file with whichever size you prefer, our size was set to 215 by 525 pixels.

We’re going to use this abstract stock photo of a woman covered with some sort of paint. Put her somewhere on the canvas:

We’re going to add some sort of warp lines behind this character. You can do this by selecting a premade shape that comes with Photoshop. Select the shapetool (press U), and if you don’t see the shape appear, load all shapes by pressing the arrow button shown below, and load “All” shapes:

If you scroll down, you should see this icon appear. Select it:

And use this shape to cover your canvas

Reduce the opacity of this layer. The opacity was set to 11% (the blending mode was kept on normal):

We’re going to create a layer mask to hide the Warp beams covering the woman. Do this by creating a Layer Mask (Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal All):

Then brush with a dark brush on the Layer Mask. This should hide the warp beam layer. Optionally, you can outline her with the pentool to get a more exact result. Here’s a selection showing which area we’ve kept brushed white, the other selection was brushed black on the layer mask:

We’re going to add a grunge material on top to texture the background a little. Add a grunge material on top, and create another layer mask:

Select your brush tool, and brush with a black color on the layer mask over the female character. This should hide the texture:

As you can see in this screenshot of the layer panel, this is what the Layer Mask looks like. Brushed black on top of the female character, and white on the background to blend the warped beams:

Create a new layer, and select your brush tool. Reduce the opacity of your brush tool a little on the Brush Toolbar:

And start brushing some dark colors on top to create some depth and shades:

We reduced the opacity of this brushing down to about 20%:

Grab an abstract stock image, and add it on the canvas. Our result has some twigs and branches carefully placed behind the character. This stock could be anything, just use something nice that adds some detail and texture into the background:

Set this layers blending mode to Soft Light, and reduce the opacity (ours was set on 16%):

Pick the gradient tool and select the gradient I’ve shown you at the beginning of the tutorial. Drag a horizontal line from right to left covering the canvas:

The gradient tool used horizontally:

Use the eraser tool to erase around and above the female character (or do this with a layer mask, up to you):

Set the layers blending mode to Soft Light, and reduce the opacity down to about 10-20%. This shold add a little color:

Notice that we still had a white section on top of the stock photo, so fill this with a color from your canvas using the eyedropper tool. Don’t worry about the bland colors, we will fill and texture this section later:

Add some depth with a few Curves Adjustment Layers. These are some example settings that we’ve used to add depth, however make sure you experiment with the settings and use your own to achieve the outcome you like. To create a curve Adjustment Layer, select Layer > New Adjustment Layer >Curves…

Another set of settings:

Though you can’t see the difference between this image and the previous image due to the quality of the .gif files, the lighting has changed a little and has added some darkness around the female character.

We’re going to add the rainbow colors to her skin. Hopefully, the stock image you selected has some unique abstract areas that you can use to color, be it the body, arms, areas around the character, etcetera. Use the pentool to outline the areas:

Make sure you’ve set the correct settings in your toolbar:

Zoom in, and start outlining the areas that you want to add the effect to (and put a little more effort into it than I did *wink*):

Zoomed out, this is what it looks like after pen tooling the areas:

On your layer panel, click on Paths. If you’ve selected the right settings at the start, you should now see your Work Path or Path 1 available. Right Click it, and select “Make Selection”.

Now grab the Gradient tool, and use the gradient settings that I have explained at the start:

The gradient settings:

Use the gradient tool inside these selections several times, just keep going untill you get a result you like. If it doesn’t look good, use the smudge or eraser tool to edit the result:

Add an inner shadow by going to Layer > Layer Style > Inner Shadow, and change the angle to match your lighting and reduce the opacity slightly.

We’ve set this layers blending mode to Overlay, and reduced the opacity slightly:

We’ve used a stock photo of an eye to add some “life” to her eyes, as hers are kind of dark. You can use your own favourite method to change the colors of an eye since there are so many ways to do it. The method I am explaining requires a stock photo of an eye. Place it on the canvas, and resuze it properly:

To blend it a little, we’ve added a Photo Filter (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Photo Filter) and added a Clipping Mask afterwards. The density was set to 25%:

Add a clipping mask by pressing CTRL + ALT + G , or selecting Layer > Create Clipping mask. We then set the blending mode to color dodge and reduced the opacity slightly.

If you’ve done the clipping mask part correctly, it should only color the eye. Your layer panel should look like this:

Let’s continue with the left eye. Duplicate the layer, and move it to the left.

Add a Photo Filter, and this time set the density to a 100% to give the eye a different color.

Outcome (remember to change the Photo Filter into a clipping mask by pressing CTRL + ALT + G):

We’re going to add a paint drip in the corner of her eye. We will do this one, and continue with the final effects of the paint dribs in the end.

Zoom into your character, and grab a small brush. Draw two lines down from the corner of her eye, and tap it once or twice here and there:

Brushing the paint drip:

Zoomed out, this is what it looks like:

Time to fix her hair, we’re going to plant a tree on top of her head, but we need her head to be a little more flat. So create a new layer, and either brush with a color used picking the eyedropper tool, or apply the image (Image > Apply Image) and use the CloneStamp tool. Here’s an animation to illustrate the hair change:

We will be using stock to create an effect on top of her head. You can find many stockphotos on sxc.hu or similar stock photo websites. Try not to copy this effect, instead, think of something creative of your own. The following steps will all be about adding stock onto the canvas. The stockphoto was added on top of the womans head in this design:

A different type of tree stock added onto the canvas:

We’ve added a waterfall coming out of the tree. You don’t need a stock for this type of additions, you can zoom in and manually create it with your brush tool. Experiment with all kinds of techniques:

A second waterfall added on top of the tree, try to maintain harmony and flow when you add stock photos:

Keep adding some good looking stock. We’ve placed a house into the tree. Remember that when resizing, the stock could lose its sharpness, or become too sharp. Use the sharpen or blur tool to fix this:

We’ve added these twirl effects behind the trees:

If your stock has a black background, you can change the blending mode to screen, this will blend the signature into the background:

Adding a rainbow on top of the tree:

Adding clouds out of which the rainbow appears:

The final addition to the tree collage, an Elephant standing nearby the waterfall:

We’re going to start with adding the proper lighting into the composition. Create a new gradient map (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map), and select a good color from the canvas. We’ve used a red, orange, yellow to white gradient map. Set the blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity to about 30%-40%:

We’ve made a selective color adjustment layer to enhance the red colors. To create a Selective Color layer, select Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Selective Color. Here are the settings we’ve used. Set the opacity down to about 20%:

The outcome after fixing the colors:

We’re going to start darkening the top area. First, grab a dark color from your canvas with the eyedropper tool. We’ve brushed on a new layer. Afterwards, change the blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity if needed:

After changing the blending mode to Multiply:

Find a nice starry sky stock photo. We’re going to use a sky stock photo to add some detail. Here’s a photo of a starry sky you can use:

Paste the sky layer on top of the canvas. We’re going to blend this in using a layer mask.

Now select the gradient tool, and select the Foreground to Transparant gradient. Make sure your foreground color is white:

Now use the gradient tool from bottom to top, this will blend the starry sky. If it doesn’t do the job, set the blending mode to Screen as well:

We can detail the starry sky by adding stock photos of planets, shiny stars, and so forth (and if you’re feeling creative, you can create your own planets like Neuron does to his work!):

Time to finnish up the paint drips. Select a small brush size 2 or 3, and use the eyedropper tool to select a color.

Now paint a few drips down from her chin,

Adding drips to her eyes,

And perhaps her left cheek and mouth:

Result of the paint drips zoomed out:

We want to enhance her eye color a little, it’s not light enough. Select a bright pink and blue color from the canvas (we’ve used: #CC0161 for pink and #029FD0 for the blue):

Set this layer to Overlay, and reduce the opacity a little:

Time to finnish up the lighting. Create a curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves), and experiment with the settings (you want to try to use this layer to create some more depth). Reduce the opacity if necessary (ours was set on 90%):

A gradient map adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map). The black to white should be the default settings. The blending mode was set to Multiply with the opacity down to 15%:

Outcome after fixing the lighting:

Apply the Image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image). We’re going to sharpen the canvas a little. You can do this by either going to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, or using the sharpen tool to manually sharpen areas:

Add in some text or text effects, This is some chinese font added on the left side that we’re going to apply a gradient onto:

Select Layer > Layer Style > Gradient Overlay, and select the gradient that I’ve explained in the beginning of the tutorial. Make sure you set the angle to 90 degrees:

Outcome:

Add some more text with perhaps some effects like transparant blocks. Set these blocks to Overlay or reduce the opacity, whichever looks best:

At this point you are basicly done. Optionally, you can use the Burn and Dodge tool to finnish up the lighting.

Which brings us to our final result:

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. As a premium member, you will be able to download the PSD file and other helpfull files. Only $6 for a membership!

We’re starting out with this hourglass stock image:

We’re going to blur the hourglass a little. Duplicate the layer, and select Filter > Blur > Smart Blur. Grab the eraser tool, and erase the blurred layer in front to create some extra depth:

We’re going to grab some materials to texture the canvas. You can find plenty of good materials everywhere, we’re going to start by using this grungy material and setting the blending mode to soft light:

Blending mode set to soft light and opacity reduced to about 30%:

Another Material. Play around with the blending mode, and reduce the opacity. Our blending mode was set to multiply:

The result after adding the material (image saved in low quality so might effect outcome):

We’re going to start changing the color. Create a Curves adjustment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves…

Play around with the settings. Here are the settings used in this tag, however you should experiment with the settings to get the result you want.

Our outcome:

Adding a color balance adjustment layer by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance. Here’s the settings used in the tag. Once again, try not to copy these, use your own settings.

Our result:

We’re going to add a stock on the image. First we’re going to place the stock in a good location, afterwards we will start coloring the hand and blending it into the background using adjustment layers.

The stock:

Placed onto the canvas:

We’re going to blend the hand into the background with a Color Balance adjustment layer, and adjust the Color Balance

Result after this Color Balance layer:

We’re using this color balance layer to give his arm some shadow, however the top should not be affected because well, a blue arm looks weird. So select the layer mask, and brush with a black brush on the top of his arm and hand:

We’re going to duplicate the hand layer, flip it vertically, and place it higher up on the canvas. Select the hand layer, then go to Leyer > Duplicate Layer:

Now select Edit > Transform > Flip Vertical:

We’ve placed the hand higher up on the canvas, our result:

We’re going to add a tree stock into the hand we duplicated. We will have to flip this stock vertically as well before we add it. You can use any stock image you like, we decided to use this stock image:

Paste the stock onto the canvas:

Press CTRL + T to rotate it or select Edit > Transform > Flip Vertically

Place in into the palm of the hand, our result:

We’re going to brighten the tree and the arm a little by adding a curves layer. (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves) Play around with the graph, switching between RBG, red blue and green to change settings slightly.

We only want to color the tree and the arm, so CTRL + Click onto the layer image of the tree and arm (it’s merged to 1 layer in our PSD), this should make a selection. Then press CTRL + SHIFT + I to inverse it, and fill this with a black color. This will hide the curves layer to the rest of the image and just color the hand:

Selection we’ve filled with black:

Time to start creating the final background colors. Create a gradient map, (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map) and select settings you like. We’ve set the blending mode to Multiply, and reduced the opacity to 81%:

Blending mode on multiply and opacity on 81%:

Result:

We’re going to fix some stock sections that look weird or need fixing. We’re going to use the clone stamp tool to fix the bottom right section outlined below:

Select the clone stamp tool, and press ALT to define an area that you want to clone:

Define a clone section, then start brushing over the area you want to fix. Our result:

Apply a gradient map, and play around with the colors. We want to use some bright colors, and change its blending mode afterwards. Our gradient map:

Blending mode set to soft light with opacity down to about 20%-30%:

Adding a curves adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjutsment Layer > Curves…), we want to light up the bottom a little:

Result of the curves adjustment layer:

Adding a Photo Filter, pick a matching color from your canvas with the eyedropper tool, don’t just copy ours because your outcome won’t be the same:

Result of the photo filter layer (blending mode was kept on normal and opacity on 100%):

This is where your creativity has to come in. We’re going to add space stocks and images and change the blending mode to create some awesome lighting effects, and try to make it seem as if it’s coming out of the soil. Find different space stocks, resize, crop, place it around. Try this for space stock images (make sure you’re allowed to use them!). You can also do some light brushing and experiment with that. Try creating some flow, start inside the hand and move up widening the effects a bit, this will make it seem as if the effect is coming out of the hand:

As you could see in the previous image, theres no need to cut out the planet from its dark background. You can change the blending mode to Linear Dodge, Color dodge, Screen, or Linear Light and play around with the opacity. You can also use small soft brush and brush with a bright light color and change the blending mode to add some lighting.

Repeat the same process on the top next to your tree, try to create some flow thats coming out of the hand floating down:

Outcome after changing the layers blending modes to Linear Dodge, Color Dodge, Screen, Linear Light, and so forth:

Add a space stock/material on top of the image. This tag used a starry sky image:

Grab the eraser tool and select a hard brush. Reduce the flow a little, because we’re going to remove some parts of the starry sky.

This is our starry sky after erasing, shown with a white background underneath. The entire area covering the top hand and tree we’re removed, because we didn’t want any stars covering that.

Set this layer to Linear Dodge, and if needed reduce the opacity. Ours was kept on 100%:

Paste some more bright stars on top of the tree, alternately you can use a small soft brush to achieve the same effect:

.

Set these stars to Linear Dodge:

Tap with a large soft brush on top of the stars and hands on a new layer:

Set this layers blending mode to Linear Dodge:

Go back to the star layer, and hide it.

Now, Create a new layer, and select Image > Apply Image:

Unhide the starry sky layer again, and set the applied image layer to screen:

Create a new layer, and apply the image. Now select Image > Adjustments > Exposure… and play around with the Offset settings:

Result:

Add some text and finnishing touches, and you’re done!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Once again, make sure you check out Neurons deviantart page if you’re interested in more of his work. Thanks a lot for allowing us to write the tutorial!

The outcome of this tutorial:

Or if you think the red wings are distracting, here’s a version of the Arctic Monkeys Wallpaper without the red grunge wings:

We’ve resized the original images all troughout the tutorial as to not screw up the layout. You can click the images for a full sized version.

1. Start by opening a new canvas ( wallpaper sized prefered). We picked 1280 x 1024. Fill it with black ( #000000 )

2. Now get your stock image, below one is the one we’re using. If you want to use a different stock image but want to have the same effect, make sure you Desaturate the image first. To do this, go to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate, or press SHIFT + CTLR + U.

Our Arctic Monkeys stock image (Resized):

3. Place it in the middle of the canvas (Make sure you keep a backup of this layer hidden underneath the rest of your layers, this will come in handy in case you make any mistakes.)

4. We used their logo from the Arctic Monkeys website.(Remember you can use any text you like).Cut out any parts you dont need. It doesn’t matter if there is still some white space left around the text, we will fix this in the next few steps.

5. We would like the text to be white. So make sure your text is desaturated (or simply black and white like ours) and select Image > Adjustments > Invert (or press CTRL + I):

Your text shold now look like this. Notice that we still have the black section around the text, we will fix this by simply changing the blending mode in the next step.

6. Select your text layer, and set its blending mode to Lighten:

This will blend the black background:

7. We’re now going to blend our stock into the background. Create a new layer, and take a white splatter brush. Brush around the right of your stock with a white color:

8. Create a new layer (make a habit of creating a new layer everytime you brush, this will give you the option to modify it more easily afterwards) and select a big brush from the set we provided above. Here’s where your creativity should come in, start brushing, and erase parts that you don’t like. Keep switching the brushes to get cool effects. The following steps are all brushing to cover and blend the stock:

9. Again create a new layer and now use black brushes, brush the bottom part blend in the stock with our current canvas. Use black to hide away parts you don’t want to be displayed. Zoom into the canvas, and erase any brushing you made over the main character in the middle to make him stand out:

10. Take a black small splatter brush and brush the left side over the far left guy.

11. Now get a white brush and brush over the top. Try switching a lot between different brushes, so people won’t be able to identify what brush you used, but will still be able to see the brush styles.

12. Brush the top some more until you are satisfied. Don’t worry if you brush over our Arctic Monkeys characters, we’re going to fix this in the next step. Notice we did most of the brushing on the right side, this was intentional so we can mirror it later:

13. In case you accidentally brushed over the characters, we will now fix it. If you made a backup of your stock like we mentionned in step 3, duplicate this and move it to the top. Erase any section that you want to be more visible.

14. We’re going to make the Arctic Monkeys text stand out a little more. Make a layer underneath the text layer, and brush with a black brush under the text to make the logo more visible:

15. We took a huge splatter brush (around size 1200) and brushed under the very first brush layer.

After you’ve done it should look like the image below. Notice how it made the black and white brushing on right side of the stock a little more viewable. Here’s an animation to show the brushing:

16. We’re going to detail the left side of the image now. Create a new layer on top, and go to Image > Apply Image. Then, select Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontally, it shold now look like this:

17. Set this flipped layers blending mode to Lighten, and erase anything that covers the Arctic Monkeys characters and the text.

18. If there are any areas that look a little rigged, create a new layer and tap with a large brush a few times to get a better flow in the image:

19. We’re nearly done brushing our image, add your last pieces of brushing before we’re going to make the finnishing touches:

20. We’re going to sharpen our image. Create a new layer, and select Image > Apply Image, and either sharpen by going to Filter > Sharpen >Sharpen, or by doing it manually with the sharpen tool. The sharpen tool is probably the best method, as you can select which areas you’d like to sharpen and which sections to leave untouched:

21. Final finnishing touches, we grabbed a splatter brush which looks like paint dripping down. We tapped this in the left side of the image. This adds some variation and gets rid of the bad symmetry in the image.

22. To edit the lighting a little, we’ve added a Curves Adjustment layer (Layer > New Adjutsment Layer > Curves). Modify the settings slightly until you’re satisfied. Here’s the setting we’ve used:

Our result at this point:

Adding Wings

We’ve added wings to the frontman in the stock, you will need Grungy Wing Brushes.

23. Select a wing brush that you like, and set the color to red (or whatever color you prefer). Change the size of the brush to match the stock, and tap once to create a wing. Do not make the second wing yet, we will duplicate the first one after adding some depth into the wing:

24. Now we will shade the wing to look more realistic, a 3D look. Select the Burn or Dodge tool, and start editing your wing. Our result (more detail in the next step) :

Zoom into the wing, burn the middle part of the wing with burn tool, and set the midtones with exposure around 30%. Then grab your dodge tool which is set to highlights at 10-20% ratio and dodge the upper part of the wing and the left ends of the feathers, (all of this is done with a soft brush, change the size while doing so, dodge first with a 30 sized soft brush and the lower it to around 10 and give the tiny details

Here are some close ups of the wing

25. Select the wing layer, and right click > Duplicate Layer. Now select Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontally, and move it to the other side of the main Arctic Monkeys character:

This brings us to our final result, we hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions, feel free to ask these in the comments.

About the author: thanks a lot to Michael over at sp-renders for providing the original tutorial, we will be updating this site with several more tutorials originally written by Michaël, sliced out and optimized by Base from SignatureStop. One note about the images, for everyones viewing pleasure, the images have been saved as .gif files. This will distort the quality somewhat, however will have this tutorial load up much faster for everyone.

Right, lets start creating the wallpaper shall we. In this tutorial we will be making this (tiny) wallpaper:

1. Right, start with a new file. Like I said in the introduction, if you want to make a wallpaper, pick your size. For the purpose of this tutorial we picked 400 by 400.

2. Grab your Paint Bucket Tool, and fill this background with a lightish black color, we picked #0F0F0F.

3. We have to find a nice Cinema4D render. You can find plenty of free and good looking renders at our resources section. Paste the render on your image, and change its blending mode to screen. Move it into a good position:

You can set the blending mode to screen by going to your Layer pallette and selecting Screen from the dropdown menu.

4. To enhance the colors and effect, duplicate the layer (either by pressing CTRL + J, or by going to Layer > Duplicate Layer…). Remember the blending mode has to be set on screen.

5. Duplicate the layer again, and move it around to fill your canvas a bit more. Remove parts that you don’t like with your eraser until what you see looks good.

6. Duplicate this layer again to enhance the colors and effect. Do not move this layer.

7. Grab another bubbly Cinema4D render and put it into place. You can use different colors, however you should try to keep the general color scheme somewhat the same. Change its blending mode to screen again.

8. We’re going to repeat the previous steps a few times, untill you get a nice and colorful canvas. Remember to set the layer to screen, duplicate it to enhance the colors and effects, and move and erase it around until you are satisfied.

our canvas after duplicating the effect a few times:

9. We’re now going to smudge our background into a good looking canvas. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image. This will combine all of our previous layers onto one new layer. Pick your smudging tool, and grab a soft rounded brush (around 30 pixels in size). We have to set a specific smudge setting to our brush. we can do this by clicking on the Brush Preset button found in the top right corner of your toolbar:

The smudge tool:

Brush settings:

10. Smudging can be a little difficult at first. To make your canvas look good, try making circular movements. Do not overdo this effect, and do not rush this. If you rush the smudging, your canvas will look a bit messy and will not look to good.

11. Now we have to find a sprite (or render) for our wallpaper. The best sprites for these colourfull wallpapers are the ones that have some sort of action into it. Like the one we picked, he’s performing some sort of kick or jump, whatever he’s trying to do, it’s as if he’s moving. We can enhance this effect later for a good looking result.

Paste your sprite onto a new layer, close to the middle or wherever you want your focal point to be.

12. We’re going to smudge some more. Make a new layer, Image > Apply Image… and start smudging with your smudge tool. Erase smudging that overlaps your sprite with the eraser tool for now, we’re going to blend in our sprite in a later step.

13. While smudging, try creating a good looking focal point, and maintain the lighting in that spot. We’ve picked the spot just above our sprite:

14. Add in another bubbly Cinema4D render, and set its blending mode to screen. Move this into position near the focal. If you place it below, you will get too many focals and people will not know where to look at initially.

15. Take out your eraser tool, and reduce the opacity to about 40%. We’re going to blend our character into our background by erasing parts of the sprite. Lower the opacity of the eraser if you’re erasing too much of your render at once.

16. Grab your smudge tool out, and smudge a bit of your Cinema4D bubbles. Keep smudging untill your background starts to look good. Erase any unwanted parts, and smudge some more.

Our result after smudging some more, this image is saved in a bit higher quality t osee what ours looks like now:

17. Make a new layer, and once again go to Image > Apply Image… we’re going to apply a sharpen effect. Go to Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen, and repeat this several times untill you get an oversharpenned layer.

18. Set this layers blending mode to Lighten, and reduce the opacity to about 25%.

19. We’re going to add some lighting onto our sprite. Create a new layer, and take out your Brush tool. Select a soft round brush, and set your foreground color to a random color that matches your color scheme (use your eyedropper tool to select a lightish color).

Softly tap your brush around your sprite, and set the layers blending mode to Linear Dodge. In the box next to it you can see what it looks like when set to normal to get an idea of how to tap around your sprite.

20. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…). Get the sharpen tool, and use a soft rounded brush to sharpen the sprite up a bit. Reduce the opacity of this applied layer afterwards to about 30 to 40%, to have it fade in better with the rest of your image.

sharpening tool:

sharpened sprite with reduced opacity:

21. We’re going to smudge our background some more, apply the image on a new layer and smudge the background a bit. avoid smudging around our sprite for now, focus on the background.

22. We can start adding some hints of lighting and detail now. Simply create a new layer and select your brush tool. Load a soft round brush and set your foreground color to a light color in your canvas. You can use your eyedropper tool to get a nice color. Softly tap your brush in places where you would like to add some detail. Change the blending mode to overlay afterwards, and reduce the opacity between 20 to 30%

23. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…). Go to Filter > Render > Lighting Effects, and play aroudn a bit with the settings until you’re pleased and then hit ok. We’ve used these settings:

Erase spots that came on too strong with your eraser tool.

24. We’re going to add Gradient Maps. These are adjustment layers that can color your canvas. You can either create these by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map, or selecting the black/white circle on your layer palette:

Set this layers blending mode to screen, and reduce its opacity to about 45 to 55%:

25. We’re going to add another gradient map. Once again select your blue/white circle, or go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient map, and select this gradient:

Set the layers blending mode to Multiply, and reduce the opacity to 50%

26. We’re going to smudge the background some more, however we need to make sure we follow our lighting and flow. Apply the image on a new layer (Image > Apply Image…) and grab your smudge tool:

27. Apply the image on a new layer, and go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, and use about 2.5 radius to blur this.

28. Set the blurred layers blending mode to screen, and reduce the opacity to 50%. Set the fill of the layer to 80%

result of the blending mode change:

29. Duplicate this layer, and change its blending mode to soft light. This time however, set the opacity to 20% and leave the fill at 80%:

30. We have to add some more brushing around our sprite. Grab your brush, and on a new layer, use a soft color to tap on your image. Change the blending mode to color dodge to have it blend in.

31. We’re going to add two more adjustment layers. First, a color balance layer. Only the midtones were changed. Go to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Color Balance…, and select these settings:

Leave the blending mode and opacity as they are unless it looks really bad, however try not to reduce the opacity too much.

31. Add a curves layer, Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Curves…, and toy around with the settings until you’re pleased with the adjustment layer.

Don’t change this adjustment layers blending mode or opacity either.

32. Apply the image on a new layer, and go to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation… or simply press CTRL + U to open up the adjustment window. Lower the lightness a little to make it look a bit darker.

33. We have to add a little more detail into the background, add in a Cinema4D render and set its blending mode to screen. Move it somewhere nice where it follows the flow of your coloring, and possibly interacts with your sprite (like the kick of our sprite in this piece). If needed, erase parts that cover the sprite.

34. Apply the image on a new layer, and grab your smudge tool. Use the same brush settings we used before, and smudge some of your piece again. We smudged some of our newly added Cinema4D render.

35. Duplicate this layer, and set its blending mode to lighten to brighten it up.

36. Enhance some of the lighting that we’ve created in our wallpaper. Create a new layer, grab your brush tool and select a soft rounded brush. Set your foreground color to a pinkish color, and brush over our lighting and change the blending mode to screen:

37. Add in another gradient map, either by selection the black/white circle on our layer palette, or by going to Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient Map… and select the black to white gradient.

38. Change the blending mode to multiply, and lower the opacity to 15 to 20%.

39. We’re going to lighten up our focus a bit. Create a new layer, and load your brush tool. Select a soft rounded brush and set your foreground color to a nice pinkish coor. Brush over your sprite, and then change the layers blending mode to lighten. Lower its opacity to 10%.

40. In this step we’re going to add some more detail. Make a new layer, and go to Image > Apply Image. Set this new layer to Dissolve. Lower the opacity to 1 or 2%, and you’ll have your canvas filled with spreckles. Move them around, and erase parts that you dont like. Create some detail around your spreite.

41. Because our sprite got blended in a bit too much, we’re going to load our sprite again. Duplicate your sprite and place it on top of your layers. Press CTRL + U (or Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation…) reduce the lightness to -100, all the way black.

Set this layer to soft light, and lower the opacity to 20%. This will make our layer stand out a bit more, yet keep it blended in.

42. We’re going to finnish our canvas up with a levels layer. Go to Image > New Adjustment Layer > Levels… and play around with the settings untill you get a nice looking result.

Final result of our tutorial:

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this tutorial. Feel free to post question, comments and suggestions into our comments. Once again, thanks a lot to Michaël over at sp-renders for his great work!