There are many ways to illustrate and be creative even if you can’t draw so well. If you’ve got an imagination and some Photoshop skills, then you can create illustrations that are bang on trend.

I’ll take you through the necessary steps to get you on your way to creating artworks of your own. The aim of this tutorial though, is not to teach you how to rip off the style, but to show you how to create illustrations without needing to outdraw Da Vinvi. The hope is that you’ll follow and use these techniques to work within your own style!

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Learn to apply the Warp Tool effectively and a few other tricks to make smoke look like a skull. This technique has a variety of outcomes and works well with water, clouds and a whole bunch of other stuff. This is probably more for intermediate users, as I guide you through the process well, but not every Warp Grid point handle move. Let’s get started!

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Go simultaneously backward and forward in time with this Steampunk tutorial. The main focus, aside from the style of course, is fusing elements from different sources together to create a cohesive whole. There are many tricks to this end and we shall be looking at light sources, shadows, and image grading.

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As it’s Graphic Design Week here on Psdtuts+, let’s take a look at some basic Graphic Design principles and cast an eye over the Boxing Poster aesthetic from yesteryear.

Creating a retrograde look is nothing new, but there are some things to keep an eye out for when mimicking Graphic Design from any decades past. We’ll be drawing inspiration from Poster Design from the 1960s, particularly Boxing Posters from that era. Let’s get started!

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There are a plethora of ways to treat a portrait for a myriad of uses, but that is for another feature. Let’s tackle adding drama or a cinematic quality to a regular, humdrum portrait. Let’s even throw in a little bit of faking HDR. That way if you work on a project that requires a stunning shot without the stunning photography, you’ll be able to cobble something together using your mad skillz!

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I don’t know about you guys but I’m loving the work of Electrik Suicide and Sakke Soini at the moment. I’m going to call it Future Retro for the sake of this tutorial. I employed my take on the style in pitching a poster and overall look for a night at a local club. This tutorial goes over the meat and potatoes of it’s creation!

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Applying texture to a flat surface, or flatly applying a texture across a whole image (as a means to age it or degrade it) is simple stuff. Realistically applying a texture to an uneven surface is much more hands-on (more so than simply overlaying a texture and changing the Blending mode).

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Mixing Vector work with Photography is a great way to produce a fun and colorful art style. This approach is used in a variety of projects from club flyers and CD Artwork through to high-end advertising imagery. Expanding on the comprehensive guide to the Pen Tool by Ian Yates, we look at creative ways of implanting the tool. This tutorial should convince those of you lacking the confidence to draw within Photoshop to do so with style.

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There are many ways to montage stuff together and many applications for the style. Whether editorial art, artwork for bands or, as we’ll be looking at, a promotional flyer. We’ll look at creative use of scanning and montage techniques to create an atmospheric flyer design based on one I did for a Rock night at a club. As with any design it’s best to sketch out a rough layout so you know where the text is going. Please note this tutorial covers the creation of the graphics and not the text as well.

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This is a new addition to the PSDTUTS PLUS section. With the western world so preoccupied with looks and beauty, retouching is something that can be seen on a daily basis. Learn to put those skills to better use to create mood, atmosphere, and professional digital art. This tutorial casts light on the subject of creative retouching. Learn more at the jump!

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