Create A Wooden House Icon in Photoshop

You might be surprised what you can do with Photoshop’s drawing tools, a few textures, and a basic understanding of light and shadow. In today’s tutorial we will demonstrate how to create a wooden house icon in Photoshop by applying textures to basic shapes.

Resources

The following resources were used during the production of this tutorial although you are free to use any other textures you have at your disposal.

• Wood Texture
• Wall Texture

Step 1

In new document, create a new layer, draw as shown in (1a). Press Command + J to duplicate this layer and press Command + T, right click the mouse on image and choose Flip Horizontal to reverse the second layer. Position it as shown in (1b). Then press Command + E to merge the two layers into one, rename the new layer “H1”.

Step 2

Press Command + T. While holding “Command” edit “H1” as shown below (2a). Then press Command + J to duplicate “H1”, rename new layer “H2” and place is as shown in (2b).

Step 3

Create a new layer on top and call it “h2.” Draw as shown below.

Step 4

Create a new layer on top and call it “Left roof 1”, draw as shown in (4a). Then press Command + T, while holding “Shift” + “Alt” make it larger (4b).

Step 5

Create a new layer under “left roof 1”, call it “left roof 2” and draw as shown in (5).

Step 6

Continue drawing the roof as shown below.

Step 7

Create 2 new layers, one “door” and one “window”. Draw as shown below.

Step 8

Now let’s add some texture to the house. Open a wood texture. Any will do but mine came from bigstockphoto.com.

Step 9

Apply a layer style to “H1 texture” and use the settings below.

Step 10

Apply a layer style to “h2 texture” and use the settings below.

Step 11

Now apply the following layer styles to “left roof 1”, “left roof 2”, “left roof 3” and “right roof 1”.

Step 12

Create a new layer under “left roof 1”. Select it and “left roof 1” then press Command + E to merge these layers to one. Keep its name “left roof 1” (12a).

While holding “Command,” click on “left roof 1” to obtain its selection. Go to menu Select > Modify > Contract, set Contract By: 1 px. Then press Command + Shift + I to reverse this selection. Choose Dodge Tool (smooth brush, 35px) and draw as shown in (12b).

Step 13

Repeat Step 12 for “left roof 2”, “left roof 3” and “right roof 1.”

Step 14

Press Command + J to duplicate “left roof 1”, rename new layer “light roof 1” and fill it with white as shown in (14a). Make a selection as shown in (14b). Press Command + Alt + D and set Feather Radius to 20px then press Delete. Change its Blending Mode to Overlay (14c).

Step 15

Press Command + J to duplicate “light roof 1”. Rename new layer “light roof 2” and reduce Opacity to 50%.

Step 16

Select “left roof 1”, “left roof 2”, “left roof 3”, “right roof 1”, “light roof 1” and “light roof 2”, press Command + E to merge these layers to one. Rename new layer “roof”. Open the wall texture image (from bigstock.com), copy and paste it on top of “roof”. Select wall texture layer while holding “Command” click on “roof” to obtain its selection. Press Command + J to duplicate this selection, rename new layer “roof texture” (16a). Then change its Blending Mode to Multiply and reduce Opacity to 30% – 40% (16b).

Step 17

Add a wood texture layer to the door call it “door texture 1” (17a). Apply a layer stle and use settings as shown in (17b).

Step 18

Add one more wood texture layer for the door (on “door texture 1”), call it “door texture 2” (18a).While holding “Command” click on “door” to obtain its selection. Then while choosing Marquee Tool (M) press up key and down key and position as shown in (18b). Press Delete (18c) and remove “door” (we don’t need it).

Step 19

Choose the Dodge Tool and the Burn Tool (smooth brush, about 10px – 35px) and apply shading as shown on “door texture 2”.

Step 20

Add a wood texture layer for the window (on “window”), call it “window texture” and use the techniques outlines in Steps 18 and 19.

Step 21

Create new layer under “roof” and call it “roof shadow 1”. Choose the Brush Tool with black (set as in (21a)) to draw the shadow (21b).

Step 22

Create a new layer beneath all the other layers and call it “pillar” and draw as in (22a). Then add a wood texture for the pillar, call new layer “pillar texture”(22b). Apply a layer style and use settings as shown in (22c).

Step 23

Create a new layer on top of “pillar texture” and call it “house shadow 1”. Choose Brush Tool with black color (set as in (21a)) to draw the shadow (23a). Then on “pillar texture”, use the Burn Tool to draw as shown in (23b).

Step 24

Create a new layer under “pillar”, call it “house support 1” and add a wood texture as in (24a). Go to menu Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast, set as in (24b). While holding “Command” click on “house support 1” to obtain its selection. Then choose Brush Tool with black color (set as in (21a)) to draw the shadow inside the selection (24c).

Step 25

Add one more wood texture for the house support. While holding “Command” click on “house support 1” to obtain its selection. Go to menu Select > Modify > Expand, set Expand By: 3px to get the larger selection. On the wood texture, press Command + J to duplicate the selection. Rename new layer “house support 2”.

Step 26

Perform the following steps.

Step 27

On “house support 1”, use the Brush Tool and draw a shadow as shown below.

Step 28

Create a new layer under “house support 2”, call it “house support shadow” and draw as in (28a). Then create a new layer under “pillar”, call it “house shadow 2” and draw as in (28b).

Conclusion

Hope you learned something new and had fun. The final image can be seen below.