It’s been fun to create the past few wallpapers for ChurchMag. For June (look for it later today!) I wanted to show you my process from beginning to end. It’s been a while since I’ve done a Photoshop tutorial, so if you have any questions or suggestions, I’d love to hear from you.
Step 1
I drew this recently while sitting down thinking of ideas for the months wallpaper. I nailed it I think. Except for that phrasing; we’ll fix that later.
Step 2
Since this is for a wallpaper, we’ll start with a high pixel deal so we can reduce it in photoshop later. So we’ll do 2560×1440 and do most of the work in illustrator.
Step 3
Before we actually begin, a few notes to consider. When you import your drawing into illustrator be sure to lock that layer.
Once you lock it, you might as well go ahead and (x) out your fill and stroke on the left side too. This helps me tremendously that way I can tell exactly where I’m designing.
Step 4
So do you remember tracing as a kid? I do. And that’s exactly what we will do, except this won’t be plagiarism because it’s our own artwork…
right…?
Step 5
After that, I go ahead and size things appropriately and then I color pick exactly how I want it to look. Let’s choose June appropriate colors from Colour Lovers.
Step 6
This is the fun part of the project, I apply textures to the project. I recently started producing my own textures, so these are some custom ones I’m using for this particular project. But there are plenty of places to get textures for free – Here ya go
When you start applying textures, make sure you do an off color, preferably a tad darker, for the texture work.
So with textures, I typically do it individually, letter by letter, that way I can get it the way I want it. I’m sure there’s an easier way to do this, this is just my way. Like every step before and after this, experiment.
Step 7
After I place the texture where I want it, I make sure I expand the appearance of the texture so it makes it editable.
Step 8
After I do that I do a few steps to get the texture to be perfectly aligned the way I want it to be. Again, I’m sure there is a quicker way to do this, but this is my method and madness.
First I copy the letter, in this case “I”
I then put a white layer over the texture and the “I”
From there I place the “I” exactly over the white layer I created. On a mac, that’s cmd + F.
I then select both layers and proceed to merge the layers through Pathfinder.
Once I do that I double click and select the “I” and then delete it. When you do that you should see the “I” and texture underneath the white layer.
From there I select the texture and the white layer and do the same merge deal. That will delete the unnecessary texture that’s not on the “I” and other letter respectively.
I double click the white layer and delete that, and while still in this mode (whatever the technical term is) I select one of the textures. It should be scattered. So just select one. Once you do that…
Then you can go to Select > Same > Fill Color. This will select all of the same color you just selected. Once you do that. Group it together: cmd + G then copy it: cmd + C.
After that you will delete it.
Now you will select over the “I” again, and this time you’ll notice some phantom textures. Thats just some debris that was left after you texturized the mess out of that “I.” Delete it. Then cmd + F and you’ll be fine.
Step 9
Repeat and fine tune. And you should end with this…which is the final product. And as you can tell I didn’t like the flow of the previous so I switched up the letters to say “Is It June Already?”, instead of “It’s June Already?”
Thanks for hanging til the end, hope you enjoyed my process for June.
Again if you have any questions or suggestions, be sure to comment below.
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