Posts tagged digital

For this forth installment of the “Creating a Set of Digital Painting Icons” series we will create a pen tablet from scratch, specifically the Wacom 12″ Cintiq tablet. This model combines touch and pressure sensitivity, which allows users to draw directly on the screen. These capabilities make it a favorite for illustrators. Let’s get to work. Psd Plus Membership Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below. Tutorial and Series Details Below are the five icons we are creating in this series. Take a look at the finished icon for this tutorial. We’ll draw the tablet and the stylus complete with shiny screen, side buttons and blue LED status lights. Program : Adobe Photoshop CS4 Difficulty: Intermediate Estimated Completion Time: 1.5 hours Step 1 Fire up Photoshop and create a new RGB blank document, choosing a 512px x 512px square canvas. Choose a dark gray foreground color then select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) from the toolbar. In the option bar at the top of the screen enter 30px for the corner radius (1a) then Alt-click and drag from the center of the canvas to create the main body of the tablet (1b). Alt-clicking centers shapes, selections and transformations around the mouse. It’s a pretty useful keyboard shortcut so note it down. When you’re satisfied with the shape right-click on the layer and choose Rasterize Layer. Name it “base.” Step 2 Let’s establish now that the light comes from the top. This requires that we make all upward-facing surfaces lighter and all downward-facing surfaces darker. We will stick to this rule throughout the tutorial. The tablet’s main body looks flat. Let’s add some lighting by choosing a light gray as foreground color and keeping the previous dark gray as background color (2a). Hit G to select the Gradient Tool. Before we paint the gradient, though, let’s lock the “base” layer’s transparency by clicking the transparent square at the top of the Layers palette (2b). Now we can safely paint all over the tablet because we will be limited to the existing pixels. Paint the gradient with a vertical stroke, light to dark (2c). Step 3 The surface of the tablet is not so smooth. There’s a very fine grain. To create that go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise and choose 1%, Uniform and Monochromatic (3a). See the result (3b). We also need to give the tablet some thickness so double-click on the “base” layer to open the Layer Style window and click on Bevel and Emboss. Refer to image 3c for the settings. Now the tablet has thickness and a gentle curve around the edges (3d). Step 4 Let’s draw the glass surface. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) again but this time set Radius to 10px (4a). Draw a smaller rectangle at the top center and name it “glass” (4b). Rasterize it, lock its transparency and fill it with a vertical gradient from a medium to a very dark gray (4c)

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Creating a Set of Digital Painting Icons Part 4 – Digital Tablet Icon