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A while ago Sean posted a very interesting article called 6 Techniques to Compose Your Work Using Repeating Shapes and Flexible Patterns. I carefully examined the articled and got inspired by a great artist named Guilherme Marconi. In this tutorial, you’ll learn one way to create a design using repeating elements in a style inspired by him.
Final Image Preview
Before we get started, let’s take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Click the screenshot below to view the full-size image. As always, the layered Photoshop file is available via our Psdtuts+ Plus membership.
Step 1
Open up a new document. Chose the size you want and create it according to what is the purpose of the the project. If you plan to print it, you should use 300dpi. If it’s destined for screen then 72 should be fine.
Step 2
To be able to follow this tutorial you’ll need to have a filter installed. The filter is called 3D Transform and it can be found on the Adobe Suite Extras CD. Here is an article on installing it.
Step 3
After you have installed your filter, go back into your document and create a new layer to put the cube in. You’ll create one new layer for each cube you create. Then start the 3D Transform by going to Filter > Render > 3D Transform.
Step 4
In the 3D Transform filter select the cube button and draw a cube.
Step 5
Select the Trackball Tool button. This will allow you to rotate the cube as you wish. Make sure you place it with the visible side only and press OK.
Step 6
As you can see you have one cube. You’ll need a whole lot more, so start adding new layers for each cube you make. You’ll need at least 20 or maybe 30 cubes. You’ll probably not use all of them, but you need them just in case.
Step 7
After making the cubes, you can go back to Leopard to finish the tutorial because this 3D Transform filter is not available for Mac, or at least I couldn’t make it work on my Mac. Of course, you could create cubes in a different program if you prefer and import them into Photoshop.
Step 8
Open up your document that has all those cubes you created. The next step you need to do is to make a shape for each side of the cubes. I will make these shapes colored, so I went to Kuler. This website is useful because it helps me chose the right colors that work with each other.
Step 9
Make one of the cubes visible. Then move it into a separate folder. In this folder, you’ll have all the colors for this specific cube.
Step 10
When you color the shapes you need to make sure you use different tones for each side. You can make selections and use fill in the colors with the Paint Bucket Tool (G), or any method you prefer.
Step 11
Next you need to make a stroke for each side of the cube. To do this, use the Line Tool (U) with a darker color than the other sides.
Step 12
And last make a black stroke as I did to the cube, not to the sides. Do this by going to the Blending Options of the cube. Double-click on the cube layer to open up the Layer Styles and use the settings below.
Step 13
Repeat this process for each cube, but do not use the same colors for all the cubes. Use the colors you chose from Kuler.
Step 14
Continue making more cubes, duplicating them, resize, and rotate them. Make them look different and fill the screen with them.
Step 15
You can continue making cubes one by one, but in this case I will make this faster simply by moving the cubes into a group and duplicating all of them. I have duplicated all those cubes in four different sections. Each was rotated so that they will each be distinct.
Step 16
Next you need to continue duplicating them until you fill the screen with cubes. This will take a while especially if the document is big. Also, Photoshop may start slowing down as it takes up a lot of memory space.
Step 17
Now you need to change some colors of these cubes and make them look nice. Maybe follow a pattern of colors you want. You do this by going in each cube folder and simply change the colors of the sides of each cube. Or maybe delete them and replace them with another one, whatever method works best for you to change the colors is fine. Be sure to play around with them until you are satisfied with the result.
Step 18
Make two cubes that will be the center of attention. They will also be bigger than the other cubes.
Step 19
Next you need to add the text on these two cubes. You’ll have to rotate, skew, and transform the text to fit in place. The font used is Stone Sans Sem.
Step 20
Save the work as a JPG. Now you’ll work directly with the JPG. Open up the JPG, and we’ll bring the colors to life. Duplicate the layer, go to Gaussian Blur, and set the Radius to 19.6px.
Step 21
Set the layer to Soft Light. Then flatten the image.
Step 22
Duplicate the layer again and use the settings shown below for the Blending Options.
Step 23
Make a nice black border around the image. Then make a new layer over the background and go to Filter > Render > Clouds.
Step 24
Set the clouds layer to Soft Light.
Step 25
Duplicate the clouds and set the duplicated layer to 50% Opacity to make the effect more intense.
Step 26
Lower in the Layer Palette you have a button that is called Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer. Click on that button and select Brightness and Contrast. Use 0 for Brightness and +20 for Contrast.
Step 27
Again go to Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer and this time select Hue/Saturation. Set the Saturation to +20 and leave the others at 0. Also, make sure that Colorize is not checked.
Step 28
Now repeat Step 27 but this time set Hue to +53, Saturation to +25 and Lightness to 0. Also, make sure Colorize is checked this time.
Conclusion
The tutorial is not very complicated, but if you want to achieve a similar result you’ll need to work at it a bit. You can experiment with this and add other design elements as well. I looking forward to seeing what others do with the techniques shown here.
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By Constantin Potorac
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Is this teaching me anything that I [as a intermediate PS user] don’t know? No, it isn’t.
Yes it is for me.
and it is for me
Thats so awesome!
Keep it up!
VERY NICE > I LOVE http://www.colourlovers.com. its the next best thing since slice bread. Was that your pattern? i didnt read the tut so i could try to be first. (SORRY)
Wow! I love the final out come of this guys! Great stuff! *AGAIN*
Great Tutorial!
looks awesome!
love the tutorial.. the process is so long but thanx const!!! you are great!!
edges are jagged, stay away from the cloud filter, and quite honestly — its ugly.
would be better if you went into illustrator and used the 3d engine it has, and done everything in there.
Neat!
Why not assign the cubes to the brush engine?
Way faster and the same result…
Nice but…
i myself find this tut useless!
What I like about this tutorial is that it gets this grate discussion about awful and useless this lesson really is but makes people wonder how effect some other techniques would be in order to reach the same goal.
Personally i actually like this whole concept and think it’s creative an inspiring. Final image is colorful has depth but there is something missing!
Over all grate article that actually keeps Psdtuts a grate site although mabe not as the writer had pland, he gets this community talking and arguing in a good creative way!
For me I think this is an awesome piece of work. This is what I’m talking about, the results! The techniques shouldn’t be so complicated to create an artwork. Yes I know there would be people suggesting a different technique, but this is just teaching one of those techniques. Well, the final result is a li’l bit too dark, could have been better, but that’s what Constantin wants it. Then just create your own too..
Great Job Cons!
I agree with what moeed said.. there is no reason for the clouds filter, and if you really want a texture over the cubes.. get a texture! They look nicer.
thank you very much for this tutorial, its always good to learn something new!!!!
Pretty different but cool.
gbrlcbra – he used kuler to find the colors :)
Cool Stuff! Thanks for putting in the work.
You know, I love the idea and it’s awesome to see the inside of it’s creation, but I feel like there’s a sort of depth that is missing from it. And really, depth is a main thing that is missing from a lot of GOOD compositions and it keeps them from looking GREAT. That’s the main thing that I see that is different from Guillherme’s work. Maybe that should be something that PSDTUTS explores looking into having a write-up about? :)
Looked tough, good job going through it.
hmmm… if you cant install that plug in into mac, you can you the 3d filter stuff in illustrator. Just create a square shape and go to: Effect > 3d > Extrude and Bevel and mess with extrude depth to get the size you want. Then you can get different perspectives by messing with the axis’s. ;D
I like the outcome. I also use kuler to find some interesting color :)
Awesome.
For those who like many websites of the same nature, here’s an alternative for Kuler: http://www.colourlovers.com/
Great piece of work, but I cant repeat it, I have full version of CS3 but I cant find 3D filter on the CD :/
This is cool! Thanks for this :)
Thanks for writing this Constantin – a good little tutorial.
Please excuse, but I don’t see the big deal with getting ‘first’ – surely it’s more important to express your opinion and give thanks than just say ‘hey – I’m first’.
I know is too hard to make good tutorials allways, but this one is too simply for psdtuts. Just not enought good for this web.
Lame
Everything’s fine up until the render clouds. PLEASE, psdtuts, no more clouds!!
WOW!
I love you guys!
We can make this image with the “Actions” of Photoshop.
The proces will be more friendly. ;)
Nice tutorial ;)
This is great…. I have loved this kinda design for sometime: http://abduzeedo.com/guilherme-marconi-interview
Great tutorial, shame some people want these tutorials to give them the final result… rather than them using the the tutorials to help come up with their own designs. Great work!
looks cool!!….
I agree the clouds spoil it a little, and there’s lots of jaggies. Probably would be a lot nicer and quicker in a 3d app.
I learned from this, so kudos!
“and got inspired”
you tried to rip him off. stop doing this. be innovative instead. these kind of tutorials just spoils the creativity of yourself and other artists.
tojad – the 3d filter is an extra you need to install separately with the install disk – it’s under “extras” or something like that… why adobe did it this way with cs3 no one knows.
That is awesome I like the final image there. simple, colorful and elegant.. Thank you for sharing this one.
Illustrator’s ‘Symbols’ option will do this very quickly.
Yo all stop hating if you dont like it then leave i dont think you could have done better
You can also use illustrator to create each cube!!
Very cool tutorial, thanks for writing the tut :o)…..I was wondering what Adobe did with that plugin!? For those of you who downloaded the update to CS3, you will not find the plugin in the “Goodies” folder, but you can download it from here:
http://webauthb.rutgers.edu/05spring/group3/pagejen.htm
thanks loswl, and thanks constantin for an eye opening tut… maybe more tuts like this but using some commercial filters like EyeCandy could be a good idea.
Interesting…
Cool tutorial…
Would be kewl to experiment with the symbol you replicate over and over. Maybe the square is over used? Might be an interesting way to design an ad for a product. You know, like toasters, or mp3 players, or cars, or something….I’m just saying…
Nice, the first thing I thought was “Guilherme Marconi”… for those who think that this is not good… google it!
A really nice tutorial. Thank U!! :D
very nice tut as usual,
just a lil’ tip on coloring the cubes,
once they are rendered in greyshades on your layer with 3d transform,
simply create a new layer above filled with the desired color,
then create a clipping mask & set the blending mode to hard light,
merge the two layers, add the black stroke & bob’s your uncle!!
keep up such good work,
french greets
+++
Nice and creative background…good for web 2.0 style websites