The making of: Skate-Or-Die
This is a short tutorial explaining how l had made the "Skate-or-Die" image that l've used as an avatar on a couple of community forums. No l'm not a skater, and never claimed to be. This tutorial will basically show you how to take any photo (preferably a dramatic action pose) and turn it into a great looking "grunge" type poster.
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Step 1.)
So the first thing to do is to get yourself a photo, and turn it into a silhouette.
Not sure how to do that? Well you'd better read the Easy Silhouette tutorial and come back to this one when you're ready.
You need to have a silhouette photo ready to use with this tutorial. The silhouette l'm going to be using is a skater in a dramatic action pose:
If you want to use mine just right-click on the above photo and choose "save as".
I found it on google's image search...
So lets start off with opening a new document it can be literally any size, but for this tutorial l'm making an avatar so l'll be working with: 185 x 185
Step 2.)
Get out your gradient fill tool and set up your colors like so:
Go ahead and make a gradient for your background like this:
Step 3.)
Next paste your silhouette onto a new layer all by itself.
With the silhouette layer active, press CTRL + J on your keyboard 2 times, this will duplicate the layer 2 times
Step 4.)
Now select the bottom most silhouette layer to make it active, and go to:
filter->blur->radial blur
and apply these settings:
press CTRL + F two times to duplicate the effect twice more here's what you should end up with:
Change the blending option of this layer to "overlay"
and press CTRL + J three times to duplicate this layer three times, result:
Step 5.)
Now select the silhouette that is 2nd form the top, and press CTRL + i on your keyboard to invert the color from black to white.
next go to: filter->blur->Gaussian Blur with a setting of: 5 pixels
Press CTRL + J on your keyboard one time to duplicate this layer once. Here's the result:
Step 6.)
Now we want to open up a grunge brush, and do a little brushing onto the piece. The brush l'm going to use is called "innocence", you can download it by clicking here. This brush was designed by Mellisa W. whose website is Rebel-Heart.net I suggest you check out this site, it's got TONS of cool brush sets to use, I highly recommend it.
So after applying just a couple of these brushes (don't go overboard that's the trick with these things) here's what l have:
Step 7.)
after you have a few effects on the canvas, press CTRL + J to duplicate the layer with your brushes. And apply a Gaussian Blur onto the bottom of the two by going to:
filter->blur->Gaussian blur with a setting of 2 pixels
Drop the opacity of this layer down to around 70 or 80 percent to give it a nice "glowing" look.
Just continue to use the tricks and techniques taught in this tutorial to refine the piece until you're happy with it. Here's what l ended up with after applying a simple border made with simple lines, and boxes:
Good luck and have fun!
Props again to Miss M. for offering such great brush sets for free on her site. Please be sure to check out Rebel-Heart.net if you're looking for some great brush sets!
