Members Area Tutorial: Create a Detailed Surveillance Camera From Scratch in Photoshop

Final Image

The result of this tutorial is shown below:

What You Will Learn

This tutorial is very in depth, and covers the design techniques listed below:

• Learn how to work with Photoshop’s advanced shape tool functions and create a complex custom shape arrangement.
• Learn how to create your own custom patterns and textures and integrate them smoothly into your work.
• Learn how to work with small details in your piece to produce a more complex, realistic outcome.
• Learn a professional, non-destructive workflow, working with smart objects, vectors and other non-destructive techniques.
• & Much More!

Learn how to work with Photoshop’s advanced shape tool functions and create a complex custom shape arrangement.

Learn how to create your own custom patterns and textures and integrate them smoothly into your work.

Learn how to work with small details in your piece to produce a more complex, realistic outcome.

Premium Texture Set: Nail

You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page.

This premium texture set is huge, containing 6 super-high res textures!

Brickon Textures

You can view the textures below, and can download the full sized textures at the bottom of this page.

Final Image

This is the final image that we’ll be creating.

Step 1

Download this image http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1104824

Don’t think you’ve already made it as we will be tracing over the image!

Open the image in Photoshop and re-size it to what you want. I re-sized mine to 1800 px by 2546 px.

I lowered the opacity of the penguin image to 50% as it’s much easier to see your paths and curves your creating.
To do this, simply duplicate the layer, delete the bottom, original layer and then set the opacity to 50%.

Step 2

Create a new layer, name it ‘Body’ and select the Pen Tool (the shortcut for the Pen Tool is ‘P’).

Make sure that Paths are selected.

Step 3

To start with we will work on the outline of the body.

Left click on the very top of the head. A small square box will show. This is called an anchor point. It’s the beginning of the path.

For larger areas I like to create larger lines as I feel it creates a smoother curve rather than creating lots of anchor points, but, if you want, you can create smaller lines and use more anchor points. Try both methods and see which works best for you.

When you come to do smaller and more detailed areas, e.g. the foot, you will have to create smaller lines and curves.

Step 4

Click (and hold) on the start of the arm.

Now drag your mouse down and you will notice that the line will bend.

Drag and release your mouse button when the line curves round and fits round the edge of the head.

If a line isn’t as good as what you want it to be, no problem, the Pen Tool is very forgiving.

One option is to delete the last anchor point you made. To do this, press Delete. This will delete the last anchor point. After you’ve deleted an anchor point you must remember to click on the last anchor point you made or else it will create a new sub-path.

You can also edit the angle of the line by choosing the convert point tool. When you created the curve you probably noticed these two lines appear. These are called guide/direction lines. They control the angle and length of the curve.

With the Pen Tool still selected, hold down the key ‘Alt’ (this is the shortcut key for the Convert Point Tool) and hover over the top direction line. (you’ll notice that your cursor won’t change until you hover over the ends of a direction line or an anchor point).

Now if you click and hold the top direction line you will be able to edit the curve and make any fine tuning to it.

The last way of editing paths is holding down the ‘Ctrl’ key. This enables you to move anchor points and direction lines and again make any edits to your lines and curves.

If you want, play about with a few lines to get to grip with what you can do.

Step 5

The bottom direction line will be long and like this, if you have not edited it.

If you try to continue and click on the outline of the arm with the Pen Tool, the line will not go where you want it to!
This is because the direction line is large and creates a large curve (basically a long direction line = a long curve, a short direction line = a short curve!).

Hold down the ‘Alt’ key, click and drag the bottom end of the direction line upwards so it sits reasonably close
to the anchor point and follows the direction of the arm.

Now you should be able to draw around the arm using these different methods to edit the line/curves.

Here’s what mine looks like.

Following the information in Step 3 to 5 you should now be able to draw around the whole body.

Remember,

Keep hold of your mouse and drag in a direction to curve the line
Long direction lines = long curves
Short direction lines = short curves
If you delete an anchor point, click on the last one you created
Use the convert point tool to shorten/lengthen the direction lines
Zoom into the areas that are quite detailed and need small curves and lines
It does not matter if your lines are not perfectly traced around the edges
Take your time!

Step 6

As you finish the right arm you’ll be able to click on the 1st anchor point you made. This will close and finish the path.

Your image should look similar to this.

Now change your foreground colour to black.

Now right click (with the Pen Tool still selected) and this box will appear.

Click on ‘Fill Path’ and use these settings.

The outline of the Pen Tool will be around the body so press delete to get rid of this.

Your image should now look like this.

Step 7

Click the small eye symbol next to the Body layer to hide that layer.

Create a new layer above the layer ‘Body’ and name it ‘Stomach’. Use the Pen Tool to draw around the outline of the white part of the body.

When you’ve finished and closed the path, set the foreground colour to white, right click and choose Fill Path. Click delete to get rid of the pen outline.

Now your image should look like this with the body layer showing.

Step 8

Create a new layer on top and name it ‘Left Eye’. Hide the other layers accept the original penguin image.

As the eye is a circle you can either create it with the ellipse tool,

or,

draw around the left eye with the Pen Tool and fill it with the colour Black.

After you’ve finished the left eye, duplicate the layer (Ctrl & J/Apple Option Key & J) and move it over to the other eye. Name this layer, ‘Right Eye’.

Here’s how the image is looking with all the layers visible.

Step 9

Create another layer on top and name it, ‘Beak’. Again hide the other layers so you can trace around the beak.

Use the Pen Tool to draw around the beak and set the foreground colour to #fbdf26. Fill the path and then press delete to get rid of the pen outline.

Step 10

Delete the background layer (the original penguin image) and make all your layers visible. I added a layer filled with the colour white at the bottom and cropped the image so the penguin was sat neatly in the centre.

Here’s the final image that we’ve created. I hope you’ve enjoyed the tutorial.

Premium Vector Pack: Barbeque

You can view the vectors below, and can download the full vector pack at the bottom of this page.

This premium vector pack is huge, containing 10 totally scalable vectors! Best of all these vectors come in .ai, .eps and .psd formats, perfectly for both Illustrator and Photoshop users!

Featured Artist: Jared Nickerson

Jared Nickerson is a wonderful illustrator from Seattle. His work is incredibly clean, bright and vibrantly colored. He’s landed some huge clients such as Nike, Adidas and Coca-Cola. His work is generally vector based, and often features product shots or portraits. The backgrounds in his designs are often the most impressive aspect of the piece, as they’re constructed of hundreds of mini vector designs. This creates the effect of a richly designed montage backdrop.

Jared’s work could simply fall into the category of ‘impressive vector artwork’. However, he really takes things to a new level by creating compositions with intense energy and life to them. His work often teems with motion, flowing lines and explosions of shapes and images. His designs also frequently tell a story, something which is emphasized by the lengthy project titles, which serve to add context to Jared’s work.

I encourage you to check out his work below, and explore his Behance page and portfolio.

Dead Astronauts

The Great Destroyer

I Fear You Girl

Atomic Lollipop

The Last Vampire Astronaut & The Quest for the Saturn 9-A Crystals

Time Space Everything

The Vampire Sorceress

Nike Elemental

In the Forest Where You Sleep

Go To Sleep Citizen

Nothing Without Love

Your Time Machine Stranded Me

For the Love of the Ever Expanding Black Mass

The Cult of the Screaming Key

Premium Icon Pack: Shiny

You can view the icons below, and can download the full icon pack via our FanExtra members area.

This premium icon pack contains 6 icons. Each icon is hugely detailed, and is sure to add a professional touch to your work. Even better, these icons are vector smart objects, and so can be expanded to whatever size you need!

The Ultimate Guide to Networking and Promotion for Graphic Designers

Whether you run a graphic designer blog, work as a freelancer, or just want to take your hobby to the next level, one thing is for sure – good networking and promotion is crucial.

Promotional primarily gets you more clients, but you also want to be building up your brand, your online following and getting your work seen by more people.

My advice for networking and promotion is very simple:

Be everywhere, and be active.

It’s really that simple. If your networking extends to setting up a blog and a Facebook page, then your work probably won’t get much exposure. However, if you’re really active in a variety of areas, from blog posts, to forums, creative networks and more, then you stand a much better chance of getting great exposure and meeting more of your peers.

Below I’ve outlined some of the best ways to get exposure if you’re a graphic designer. Try to do as many of them as you can, as often as you can, and watch your following grow!

Guest Post For Other Graphic Design Blogs:

Guest posting is an awesome way to network and promote yourself simultaneously. Here are some of the benefits of guest posting for other blogs:

• Your writing will get exposure to a new and larger audience.
• You will get backlinks and exposure via your author bio section at the bottom of your articles.
• You get paid very well by the top sites. This can be a full time job for many writers.
• You will be dealing with well established bloggers personally (or at least their editorial team). This is basic networking at it’s finest.

PSDTUTS

Link to ‘write for us’ page.

Design Instruct

Link to ‘write for us’ page.

PSD.FanExtra

Link to ‘write for us’ page.

1st Web Designer

Link to ‘write for us’ page.

Web Designer Depot

Link to ‘write for us’ page.

Comment on Relevant Blogs

Another great way to ‘be everywhere’ is to comment on relevant blogs. My advice would be to use a feedreader (if you aren’t already) and subscribe to as many quality graphic design blogs as you can find.

You may want to start by subscribing to PSD.FanExtra

My recommendation for a quality feedreader would be Google reader:

Sign up to Google reader free here.

Join Creative Networks

Creative networks and membership galleries are one of the best ways to give your graphic design work exposure. These networks are designed so that designers can post their work and get feedback from like minded members.

Below is a fairly comprehensive list of all the top creative networks:

Deviant Art

PSD Bucket

Shadowness

UCreative

Design Flavr

Creattica

Dribbble

NotCot

Behance

Designers Couch

Flickr

Artician

Design 21

Use Social Networking

We’re all familiar with Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Youtube. However, it’s likely that you’re not using all of these sites to promote your work. Even if you are using all of them, you can probably use them more effectively.

Below I’ve laid out some useful resources for expanding your social networks:

How to Mimic Twitter Power Users and Explode Your Followers

100 Ways to Become a Twitter Power User

5 Elements of a Successful Facebook Fan Page

Network Offline

No one wants to be locked in their bedroom all day not seeing daylight! Offline networking remains probably the best way to land clients and form relationships. It’s far more personal and can be great for repeat business and referrals.

Get Some Quality Business Cards

If you’re networking offline then quality business cards are a must. We got ours from UPrinting.com. Check out our review of how great they turned out.

Attend Industry Meet Ups and Events

If you can afford it you should be attending top events in your industry. If not, free meetups are a great way to get yourself out there and meet others in your field. Graphicdesign.meetup.com looks to be a great way to connect with other professionals in your area!

Premium Brush Set: Love and Hearts

You can preview the brush set below, and can download the full brush set via our FanExtra members area.

This premium brush set contains 10 quality, high res Photoshop brushes. Each brush is hugely detailed, and is sure to add a professional touch to your work. Even better, each brush is super high-res, at around 1000-2500px.

30 Minute Redesign #78: Chiagu

Today I’m going to be redesigning Chiagu, a site offering quality knitting patterns/kits to knitting enthusiasts.

The Original Design:

You can see the original site design below:

You can check out the original website here.

First Impressions: Strengths

Every site has some merits, and the good impressions I made here are these:

The Site is Generally Clean and Well Designed

Like any website Chiagu does have room for improvement. However, generally it’s one of the nicest looking websites I’ve had to redesign. The design is clean and professional, and very easy on the eyes. The logo has a subtle grungy texture and the typography is elegant and professional.