How to Create a Grunge Style Illustration with Stains
Download Source Files
Inspired by the article “18+ Sources of Inspiration from Coffee, Ink, Blood and other Stains,” by Steven Snell, I decided to show my personal way of creating stain based designs in Photoshop. In this tutorial, we’ll grab a picture, apply several filters to it and obtain a monochromatic stain, which combined with stain brushes and a texture will transform into an eye-catching grunge result. Let’s get it started!
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.
Video Tutorial
Our video editor Gavin Steele has created this video tutorial to compliment this text + image tutorial.
Step 1
It’s time to get dirty. For this tutorial you’ll need to choose a picture, a portrait will be nice (I’m using this picture from stock.xchng). Open it in Photoshop, then make the image layer editable by double-clicking the locked "Background" layer miniature. Now name the layer "Girl" and add a new Fill Layer below using this color: #F6EDD6.
Step 2
Now, convert the image to black and white adding a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer, for the Preset choose Black & White with Blue Filter (RGB). I’m using this because it increases the darkness of the red areas of the picture, like the lips and the flowers. Once you’ve applied the Adjustment Layer, merge it with the "Girl" layer. I’m leaving the original Adjustments in a Group in the source file and hiding it.
Step 3
Use the Burn Tool darken the lips, eyelids, eyebrows and hair of the "Girl" layer.
Step 4
There are many ways to create a two color (black and white) shapes from a picture, I’ll describe my personal process. Select the "Girl" layer, use Filter > Filter Gallery > Artistic > Watercolor to add a watercolor style to the layer. Set the values as shown below.
Step 5
The image still has a lot of gray areas which must be lightened. For this go to Filter > Filter Gallery > Brush Strokes > Dark Strokes and set the values shown below. The Dark Stroke filter will reduce the amount of gray and darken the lips, hair and eye shadows.
Step 6
Increase the contrast by adjusting the Levels (Command + L) of the "Girl" layer, as shown the image below.
Step 7
Following, select all on the "Girl" layer and copy it (Command + C), then go to Layer > Layer Mask > Reveal all and Alt-click the Layer mask miniature. You should look at a full white image, there, paste the girl shape on it. Hit Command + I on your keyboard to invert the colors and click on the "Girl" layer miniature. To check if the mask is working OK, change the "BG" layer background to any other color but white.
Step 8
Using a soft black brush, paint over the "Girl" Layer Mask to hide the white visible areas over the shoulder and everywhere where the white is too intense. Finally, change the background color to #E1D3BC.
Step 9
Select the "Girl" layer, set the layer’s Fill value to 0% and apply the following effects: an Inner Glow (#580200) and Color Overlay (#7F4141) 50%. I’m choosing this colors because want to create a wine stain detail, anyway feel free to try different colors. Duplicate the "Girl" layer and move the copy below it, then Alt-click on the "Girl copy" layer and click on Clear Layer Styles.
Step 10
Now the real stains, first of all, download this brush set from Brusheezy, a nice stain set created by Nissa previously featured on Steven Snell’s inspirational post. I’m using the brush named "coffee 10." Set a black foreground and paint a stain over the Layer Mask of the "Girl." Do not paint directly over the "Girl" layer though.
Step 11
Add two or three more stains using the same technique as shown in the previous step, but use different brushes.
Step 12
Add more stains on the "Girl" Layer mask, but this time reduce the Opacity and Flow to between 50% and 75%. You can use the same brush set or mix some other. I’m using the water stains brush pack from Obsidian Dawn. Work it in as random as possible. Finally, you should have something like the bottom of the image below.
Step 13
Select the "Girl copy" Layer Mask and use a huge brush (I’m using the “brush13″) from the Coffee stains set to paint a big stain on that layer.
Step 14
Repeat the previous step, but change the brush and set both the Opacity and Flow values between 50% to 75%.
Step 15
Using the “coffee7″ brush, paint a big stain (#B99048) into a new layer below the "Girl copy" layer, feel free to add more stains if you want.
Step 16
Merge both the "Girl" and the "Girl copy" layers. You can put both layers into a group, duplicate it and merge the copy.
Step 17
Select the "Girl copy" layer and set the Eraser Tool’s brush options to the one from the water stains of Step 12 and delete the girl’s cheek. Change both the Opacity and Flow values to 50% and delete some little areas over the eyelids as well.
Step 18
Download this Coffee Stains brush set by Guerilla Graphics. Using the first brush of the set paint a bottle stain over girl’s cheek into a new layer above all others, use this foreground color: #411516. Then select the Eraser tool, use one of the Water Stains brushes (see Step 12) and delete some areas of the new “stain” layer.
Step 19
Add more glass/bottles stains (#411516), over the shoulder and neck ares. Also, delete some areas over the face using a water stain brush. Finally, change the Blending Mode of these stains to Hard Light.
Step 20
Let’s add some final small details, like those tiny spots of random Water Stain brushes (#4E3105). Paint them into a new layer and set its Blending Mode to Overlay.
Step 21
As a final touch, use the 3rd brush of the last “Coffee Stains” set to extract a splatter. Rotate the splatter and place it somewhere over the girl’s face merging one of the vertical lines of her hair. Feel free to add more stains anywhere.
Step 22
Let’s add a background texture. Paste this image into a new layer named "Texture." Then duplicate that layer into a new document called "map.psd" since we’ll use it as a displacement map. On "map.psd" apply a new Adjustment Layer > Channel Mixer. Set the preset to Black and White With Red Filter (RGB). Then adjust the Levels and Hue/Saturation, as shown in the following images. Finally, save the document and go back to the main design.
Step 23
Group all the layers except "BG" and "Texture" into a folder, you may name it "Design" and convert it into a Smart Object. Then change the Blending Mode to Multiply.
Step 24
To add a little bit more realism, select the "Design" Smart Object and go to Filter > Distort > Displace. Then set both the Horizontal and Vertical Scale to 4. Hit OK and look for the "map.psd" file previously created in Step 22.
Step 25
Finally, select the "Texture" layer and adjust the levels as shows in the image below.
Step 26
As a final touch, add some text to the design, I’m using this font and this foreground color: #5B1B19. Change the text layer Blending Mode to Multiply and re-apply the Displacement Map filter (use exactly the same displace map image).
Conclusion
Have fun trying to create different designs using this style and these techniques. Thanks for reading!
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By Alvaro Guzman
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I like the effect, I can see myself applying this one elsewhere with a few tweaks. :)
What do you mean by your statement? :)
Wow! Very cool!
After a week they had a tut now! fuuh :P :x
A welcome 22nd Tutorial to Alvaro Guzman!
in this 3 days, After hitting the refresh button 1000 times i got this tutorial!!!
Anyway a nice tutorial here! thanks Alvaro Guzman! and PSDTUTS!
this tut. is very cool ..and lawrence77 your comment is so cool too….
Thanks Underdog! :p hope u like me!
How you got knowledge Alvaro Guzman any tut for that? :(
PSDTUTS: always the best.
Great technique… Thanks for sharing
That’s a cool effect! :)
The stains brings realism to this work, and it gets better for being grunge. Awesome! Nice work!
great! …like always
great! …like always
Really cool! well done! :)
WOAH! Nice effects!
I’m once more impressed of what is possible with Photoshop :)
Awesome job, i love it!
Great job Alvaro.. as always ;)
I thought that was Robert Smith of the Cure for a second.
hehehe :D really looks like him, wasn’t my intention anyway :P
I saw that too. Only when I saw the second image I saw it was a girl.
Robert Smith is cool though.
Great tutorial! It’s been a while since I’ve seen something so cool here.
Still… I’m sure that’s him. Seriously.
hahahaahaha yea. robert smith fo sho!
lol same here!
i thought its robert smith!
i nearly fell off my chair when i saw the original photo was a girl lol
Thanks for sharing =)
Nice tut.
The end result looks like the dude in the band ‘The Cure’ though :)
Muito legal o tutorial (isso mesmo, sou do Brasil)
Very cool!!!
That’s a lot of work for something, that is relatively easy to do in a very few steps.
But the end result is still fine. Whatever works for you. I’m just saying it could’ve been done a lot easier.
whow..thats a nice grunge template! Great job guys!
Great one guys !
looks okay not that good thou… would have been better if the girl’s pic was good!
Explained very nicely. The end result is good too!
@3drockz
wow.your web is very good .i always visit there!!
very cool
Great tutorial Man!
people can also check out my site for tutorials…
sure Nahid i already visit your blog daily! :)
Good work!
i will be come to there…
thanks underdog.. lawrence77 is regular.. thanks man!
you are welcome Nahid! :)
Great man you are!
Soon u’ll popular like collis!
This is an excellent tut. I like grunge and scruffy!
Very nice and explained.
First Yes!
Looks so real! Very cool effect! Two thumbs up!
Great tutorial with a lot of good techniques, many thanks!
FYI, I noticed step 9 didn’t have the info for outer glow layer style so I did some fiddling and came up with something that looked v.similiar to your pic.
Thanks again. :)
Yes, you’re right, I decided to remove the outer glow anyway, that’s why there’s no screenshot for that effect.
This is actually an experimental technique so, feel free to play with different filters/values.
Amazing tutorial and at lawrence77. Your like a growth that wont go away! Your everywhere lol
Thanks Scotty! :)
I love Multimedia! :p
Awesome !!
alvaro!!! i got predilection for your tutorialss.. i love them… and the video… fantastic
thanks a lot!!
congrats! you made a chic look like a man.
When I looked to the final image, I thought it was Robert Smith from the cure :-) Nice tut, thanks a lot !
Love!
Nice tutorial! Finally a tutorial worth reading on PSDTuts… I love the site, but there has been a small slip in quality over the past couple weeks… Good work on this one!
yeah! maybe
Nice tutorial. And nice choice on such a beautiful Frau.
Very Nice.
Awesome!
nice.. :D
nice tutorial! i like the texture,
good work man :)
Very Good!!! Your tutorials are very good because it explains very well each one.
Muy bueno! Sus tutoriales son muy buenos porque explica muy bien cada uno de ellos.
not impressive!!!
not a plus tut – GREAT! Awesome m8, thank you!!! ;)
This is brilliant, i love the grungy style and effect. I will definitely use this tutorial in other work.
wow.. I had the idea this morning to do something like this…and then I come here and find a tutorial on it..lol..kewl…
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Would be much better if you “burn” the shadows that create her head shape before starting everything; all the ones that matters.
great tut anyway.
nice!! thanks this. I learned a lot~
Great tutorial thank you!!
This was great to do – many thanks. I tried watching the vid first, but despite the gorgeous british accent it was buffering too slow on my machine. I’ll post a picture link to my results in a bit. Also used some good scratch brushes from old photographic slides from here http://www.melsbrushes.co.uk/?p=207 which really enhanced the results – seem to work better than the fabric which kind of seemed out of place
Very Nice