Best of: Illustrator and Photoshop Tutorials

We gathered twenty-five of the most interesting tutorials we have come across this month ranging from Photoshop to Illustrator. We’ve gone through each tutorial to bring to make sure they produce the best results.

1. 3D Typography in Photoshop

“In this tutorial we are going to go over various techniques you may have seen before, as well as a bulk of techniques that may be new to you. After you have completed this intense walk though, I assure you will be able to explore even more new ways of creating typefaces as well as other types of ideas. Inspired by the work of . . .” Visit This Tutorial

2. Creating a Crazy Cool Logo

“I’m a huge fan of typography and logo design, even though I havent worked on too many logo design projects I had the opportunity to express my love on a few, but at the same time, very pleasant ID projects. One of them was in 2005 for a company called Zagora. In this post I will show you how we created the logo. I will skip the drawing parts, yes there were tons of drawings before going to the computer . . .” Visit This Tutorial

3. Retro Car Vectors

“It’s surprisingly easy to create a sharp, clean, attention-grabbing vector graphic based on a photograph, whether it’s a pet, a person, a motorbike or a car. And because it’s a vector graphic, you’ll be able to resize it without any loss of quality. There are other benefits too. Vector-based images make for smaller files, and smaller files are easier for your computer to open, close and print out . . .” Visit This Tutorial

4. Creating Vector Characters in Illustrator

“Character design is such a wide and varied subject that the specifics of each character’s process and gestation are unlikely to be the same for everyone. However, some of the core principals, especially in the early stages of development, are key to creating a well-executed and memorable character. We talk through the essential steps, from before you even pick up a pen and paper to working your design up as a vector image . . .” Visit This Tutorial

5. Create Technical X-Ray Bubbles

“This is a technique I learned years ago while doing technical illustration. This technique offers a unique way to show components that are hidden by other objects in your illustration, such as a cover on a piece of machinery . . .” Visit This Tutorial

6. Create a Zombie Flesh-Eater in Illustrator

“The first step in the process is to dig up a fresh corpse, and in this case I sketch out the zombie I intend to create. My personal preference is a black biro on paper. As I want to scan the image, a biro ensures that the lines are all dark enough to show. Also by sketching in ink, I don’t get too hung up on the image at this stage and have some fun. The great thing about Illustrator . . .” Visit This Tutorial

7. Create a Happy Tree Illustration

“Let’s learn how to create a fun tree character design from initial sketch through to making each detail in Adobe Illustrator. This tutorial outlines a professional workflow for creating character based illustrations. Put a smile on your face and let’s get to creating an illustration . . .” Visit This Tutorial

8. Futuristic Collage

“In this Photoshop tutorial, you will learn several ways of drawing abstract elements and blending images to create an abstract and futuristic photo manipulation. These types of photo manipulations are popular in wallpapers and signatures (AKA sigs) where people combine their interests into a collage that . . .” Visit This Tutorial

9. How to Make Realistic Dew

“You can find a lot of tutorials how to make dew on the leaves. But I would like to invite your attention to another one unique simple tutorial how to achieve the desired effect in just a few steps. To start this tutorial find some likely picture of the leaf where we will put the dew. In my opinion, a suitable image will be this one. Feel free to use it or find another one which you want on . . . ” Visit This Tutorial

10. Photo Manipulation – Brightness Tomorrows

“Open the picture of the road and of the sky you’ve chosen, then drag them into the new document. Name the layers “Road” and “Sky.” The layer “Road” should be above the “Sky” layer. Now you have to flip the pictures. To do that go to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Do it with both layers. Add a vector mask to the “Road.” You can find the button Add Vector Mask in the Layers palette (F7). The good thing about vector masks is that . . .” Visit This Tutorial

11. 3D Tentacles

“Create document 250×250 pixels. Fill it with #B9CCD9 color. Create a new layer name it “tentacle”. Select rectangular marquee tool [M]. Make a shape similar to mine 18 width and 240 height pixels. Fill the selection with BLACK. Don’t deselect it until I tell you. Create a new layer above the tentacle layer. You don’t have to rename it. I hope you have the selection still active. Fill it with #FCFCFC color. Now You should have two layers : Layer 1 and tentacle layer . . .” Visit This Tutorial

12. Create a Simple Light Effect in Photoshop

“In this article we’ll be starting from scratch, working away from the computer to gather together the resources which we’ll be manipulating later. If you would prefer to skip straight to the digital techniques, download the ready-made resources from the Six Free High-Res Glowing Light Stream Images post and head on down the page! To begin, you’d need a couple of items, namely a digital . . .” Visit This Tutorial

13. Create Intense Light Streaks in Photoshop

“A couple of subscribers left their comment on a previous post that collated a range of inspiring graphic artwork from digital artists across the world. The commentors asked how the light stream effect on some of the pieces was created. I did a little research and picked up a couple of tips from similar tutorials to present a walkthrough on how to create intense light streaks flowing . . .” Visit This Tutorial

14. How to Create a Severed Arm in Photoshop

“We will be using two different stock items for this project – first, the arm from cobweb-stock (use “Arm08.jpg” from the zip file) and a lump of meat from stock xchng. Please remember to follow these artists rules and credit them where appropriate. We start by opening the arm picture in Photoshop and duplicating the “Background” Layer by clicking Command + J. We want to preserve the background layer for later on. Hold the Alt key + double-click the duplicate layer, then . . .” Visit This Tutorial

15. Colorful Glowing Text Effect in Photoshop

“After seeing some recent Type work by Vicenç Fontanet (or, Drasik), in his recent project for “Miniblack“, I just had to give the effect a shot myself in Photoshop. It’s a wondeful little style that could easily be integrated into any dark graphic design where some upbeat text . . .” Visit This Tutorial

16. Create a Stunning Digital Smoke Effect

“In this tutorial we are going to show you how to easily create digital abstract smoke using both Illustrator and Photoshop. One of the best things about this technique is that it’s very customizable and you can do it pretty quickly. As I said before, we will use Illustrator a bit, but actually you can use whatever vector software you have. The only requirement is that it have a similar tool to the Blend Tool in . . .”
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17. Creating an Urban-Style Piece of Artwork

“While grunge has its origins in the 90s, recently the style has been gaining in popularity once more. In this tutorial, I will show you how to create a dirty, urban-style image using both well-known techniques as well as a few new ones. You will learn to easily extract complex shapes and we will also create our own grunge texture . . .” Visit This Tutorial

18. Create Spectacular Concept Art in Photoshop

“The outcome to this tutorial depends heavily on what you want to create and what’s going on in your head. I collected two stock images that I thought would work together before I began from sxc.hu. Here are the links to the stock images I used: Landscape, Cityscape. You can use the same stock images I have, but I would also recommend you to experiment as that’s . . .” Visit This Tutorial

19. Ornate Lettering Process

“I’m going to show you the process as to how I do my ornate lettering. This is a new design I did for Stone Sour that utilized this technique. Now right off the bat, this is not a step by step tutorial. It’s more of a look behind the scenes into how I work. The very core of this process is having a solid drawing ability and a good understanding of letterforms, typography, spacing, composition . . .” Visit This Tutorial

20. Blueprint-Style Text in Adobe Illustrator

“This blueprint technique has been seen just about everywhere—even on the cover of The Photoshop Help Desk Book by Dave Cross. This is a quick demo using a blend of live effects, filters, and even a little gradient mesh to create a seemingly complex logo treatment. Begin by setting your text. Select the Type tool (T) in the Toolbox and click on the artboard to set a text object . . .”
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21. The O Series

“I have had many requests for tutorials over the past months, but given that they are quite time-consuming to create I have stayed away from them to continue with my poster designs and freelance work. Last week I posted a few images entitled The O Series. The process behind the images is fairly simple and I thought it would make for a good first tutorial post . . .” Visit This Tutorial

22. Vectors in Illustrator and Photoshop

“In this tutorial I will show you how to create a abstract sort of flower using the Blend Tool in Illustrator then playing with it in Photoshop to produce a very colorful wallpaper. Open Illustrator and create a new document, then with the Arc Tool create an arc. Duplicate the arc and rotate it to create a sort of leaf. With the Direct Select Tool (A) select the to 2 top vertices and Join them . . .” Visit This Tutorial

23. Vectors in Illustrator and Photoshop

“In this tutorial I will show you how to create an abstract image for a poster using Illustrator and Photoshop. We will do all the vectors and shades in Illustrator then in Photoshop we’ll give to the image a nice retro style using some textures and brushes. Open Adobe Illustrator and with the Rectangle Tool (M) create some rectangles. Make sure they are aligned and, also, that you have different heights and widths . . .” Visit This Tutorial

24. Experimental Text Effects

“Many graphic designers, illustrators and digital artists use Illustrator on a daily basis for creating fantastic vector images, but the application’s typography tools are often overlooked – or at least, not used to their full potential. This is a shame, because a little tinkering around reveals that some stunning effects are easily created. In this tutorial, Illustrator expert Amenth demonstrates just a few of these . . .” Visit This Tutorial

25. Stencil Poster Effects

“Digital artist Ian Keltie reveals how to composite elements in Photoshop and create a poster that deploys stencilled art to promote your message. For many, the humble stencil has been a part of a personal history from when we used them as children to trace out basic shapes of houses, cars, and cats using cheap, plastic stencils . . .” Visit This Tutorial