May 2013
Members Area Tutorial: Learn How to Draw a Clean Coffee Maker Illustration
How to Draw a Detailed Coffee Maker Illustration
Often even more advanced Photoshop users shy away from illustration in Photoshop, despite it having some very robust drawing tools at your disposal.
Often times the issue is the lack of a clear guide to help you through the process. Well today our resident expert Andrei Marius will show you how to create a super clean coffee maker illustration using some of Photoshop’s advanced drawing tools.
Despite this being a long and in depth tutorial, each step is broken down into clear step by step instructions, so whatever your level of design expertise you can follow along and learn some great techniques in the process.
Clean design couldn’t be more on trend right now, some being able to create slick illustrations like this one will allow you to create incredible custom icons and graphics to support your (or your client’s) clean website design.
Happy Tenth Anniversary, WordPress!
Today, WordPress celebrates its tenth anniversary and we wanted to take a moment to congratulate them. Ten years is a hefty amount of time by any standard—to put it in web terms, WordPress is older than Facebook, YouTube, Tumblr, Pinterest, and of course Envato.
WordPress enthusiasts are celebrating worldwide with more than 600 meetups organised in cities across the globe. Our own Japh Thomson (Editor of Wptuts+ and all-around WordPress Evangelist) organised the meetup in Tasmania, Australia. To commemorate the occasion, he’s also put together a timeline of major releases of WordPress over on Wptuts+.
Create a Futuristic Matte Painting Landscape
Create a Futuristic Matte Painting Landscape
Today’s design lesson will teach you how to create a futuristic matte painting landscape. You’ll be working with a range of photo manipulation techniques including image extraction, image blending, adjustment layer usage, creating light effects, digital painting, advanced masking, color correction and many more.
Let’s get started!
Final Image
As always, this is the final outcome we’ll be creating:
How to add a drop cap to paragraphs in InDesign
This is a great technique which is commonly used in magazines, newspapers and newsletters. This tutorial will show you how to add a drop cap to paragraphs, which simple enlarges the first letter of a paragraph. It’s defiantly a good technique worth knowing how to do if you are a Graphic Designer its essential and certainly something, which you will need to do at your design career.
Beginner Tutorial: Create a Mailbox Icon Using Photoshop
Beginner Tutorial: Create a Mailbox Icon Using Photoshop
In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a simple mailbox icon in Photoshop.
This tutorial is aimed or beginners. We are going to use simple tools like the pen tool and layer styles so it’s important to have a basic grasp of Photoshop’s key features.
This lesson will show you how to put them to work and create a practical outcome.
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
Step 1
Create a new file and gather some reference images from Google.
Step 2
Create a new layer, from reference image, start creating the base of the top part, pick up the pen tool (P), click and drag to create curved surface and draw the outline like screenshot below.
10 Useful jQuery Resources for Web Developers
For web developers, pre-existing resources can be a major timesaver, or a major headache, depending on the quality of code, ease of use, and number of bugs.
One of the great things about the web these days is the availability of popular free web builders, free resources and plugins, and pre-made templates available.
However, it can be a bit difficult to sort through and find the best resources. So, to save you some time and supercharge your web development workflow, I’ve gathered up some jQuery resources for you.
Included are some of the most commonly needed resources, such as responsive grids, sliders, scrolling, and forms.
Mini AJAX Upload Form
In this tutorial we are going to create an AJAX file upload form, that will let visitors upload files from their browsers with drag/drop or by selecting them individually.
20 High Quality Retro Web Elements
This collection of free PSDs contains some really cool vintage and retro web elements, for you to use in your website designs. You’ll find everything from icons to patterns and badges! Add them in your resources collection andif you’re looking for more vintage inspiration, don’t forget to check out these 10 Vintage Photoshop Tutorials and 10 Must Have Free Retro Fonts.
Retro Web Ribbons
Members Area Tutorial: Create A Dark Photo Manipulation of A Devil Woman
Members Area Tutorial: Create A Dark Photo Manipulation of A Devil Woman
In this advanced design lesson you will learn how to photo manipulate a dark image of a devil woman.
You will master various photo manipulation techniques such as portrait/photo retouching, manipulating a natural landscape, creating a dark cloudy atmosphere, digital painting, image blending, multiple adjustments, advanced masking and many more.
There’s a ton of actionable, professional tips to learn in this lesson, so let’s get started!
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
Create a Fantastically Textured Flaming Portrait
Create a Fantastically Textured Flaming Portrait
In today’s design lesson we will create a fantastically textured flaming portrait.
You will learn how to convert a regular portrait photo into a heavily textured, fantasy outcome. Within the lesson you’ll master skin retouching, painting custom hair, advanced image blending, filter application and lighting effects.
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
50 Beautiful Poster Which Included Remarkable Typography
A beautiful collection of posters which use great typography. This is a great inspirational blog post, which is a great resource for when your creating your very own typography posters. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below.
How to do a word count in Indesign
This is nice short handy quick tip when you’re working on a print project, and need to find out how many words are within poster or magazine. It may be something you may not of known is an available feature in indesign, but something which I’m more than certain you will take will utilize at some point in your design career.
Members Area Tutorial: Recreate a High-End Photo Shoot On a Limited Budget
Members Area Tutorial: Recreate a High-End Photo Shoot On a Limited Budget
In today’s tutorial you’re going to learn something a little different.
We’re going to cover some incredibly practical, basic tips that you can apply in order to create your own cost-effective photo manipulations from scratch. Not everyone has access to professional photography studios, and today you’ll learn how you can product high-end looking results on a very limited budget.
This includes everything from correctly setting up a photo shoot, to moving into Photoshop and covering post-production essentials. You’ll work with lighting, detail removal, color correction and photo manipulation.
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
Photo Manipulate A Mysterious Steampunk Man in a Victorian Setting
Photo Manipulate A Mysterious Steampunk Man in a Victorian Setting
In today’s design lesson we’re going to create a mysterious steampunk man and place him in a victorian looking setting.
You’ll learn a variety of useful photo manipulation techniques including:
- Blending multiple images correctly
- Working with masking and adjustment layers
- Applying textures
- Creating custom lighting effects
- ‘Bringing it all together’
Let’s get started!
Final Image
Here is the final outcome we’ll be creating:
Draw an angry little samurai in Illustrator
Hello, today I’ll show you how to draw a samurai in Illustrator using shapes, free time and desire … keep your force and soul balanced and let’s start!
Members Area Tutorial: Learn How to Photo Manipulate an Ancient Shrine
Members Area Tutorial: Learn How to Photo Manipulate an Ancient Shrine
In this tutorial we are going to create a sacred resting place of an ancient mask, where light is focused from above the mask.
With this tutorial we are going to cover topics like.
- Texture and surface manipulation in Photoshop.
- Blending multiple images correctly and non-destructively
- Creating natural depth with custom shadows.
- Creating artificial Depth Of Field (DOF).
- Dramatic Color Correction using adjustment layers.
Final Outcome:
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
Digital Painting Lesson: Paint an Arm Using Anatomy Basics
Digital Painting Lesson: Paint an Arm Using Anatomy Basics
Today we have an expert lesson for you in digital painting. It’s very important for an artist to be familiar with human anatomy. Even if you’re not a regular digital painter, digital painting and drawing techniques can come in handy for tweaking photo manipulation work, adding depth to illustrations and understanding light and shadow.
There are a lot of books that can help you in this topic, but they’re usually created for medical students and seem to be too complicated for the rest of us. I’ll show you how to paint an anatomically correct arm – one of hardest parts to learn – without any specialist knowledge.
Let’s get started!
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
25 Free Business Card Design Templates
A collection of 25 business cards, which are free to download for commercial and non-commercial design use. All the business cards are the standard 85mm by 55mm. All you need to is change the details on the business card, in order to match your details ensure its print ready and send to print.
Best Of Web And Design In April 2013
Another great month compact with lots of Photoshop and illustrator tutorials worth getting teeth sunk into, as well as some web related articles which are a must read. I hope you enjoy the monthly round-up, and would love to hear your thoughts in comments section.
Members Area Tutorial: Design a Super Creative Box Packaging Template
Members Area Tutorial: Design a Super Creative Box Packaging Template
Today you can learn about professional packaging design techniques from a true expert in the field – Nacho Riesco.
This tutorial uses the example of a real-life project for a popular DJ’s promotional packaging.
You’ll learn how to layer up multiple textures and surfaces in a non-destructive way. You’ll also apply complex masks, patterns and create custom lighting.
Let’s get started!
Final Image
As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:
