If you like outcome be sure to keep reading – you will learn a lot of advanced and interesting features to build these two icons.

Final preview

Step 1

Start by creating a new group, named pen. We’ll put everything there to keep layers organized.

Activate rectangle tool and draw a rectangle. Click top, right, and left middle to add points. Move some points to create pen’s base. Use image below for reference.

Step 2

Add these layer styles.

Step 4

Select path we just created, copy it by pressing  - CTRL+C.

In Path panels, create new path and paste (ctrl+V). Modify the path to make it longer. See picture below (#2). Change path to selection by ctrl+click the path. In Layers panel create new group and click Add Layer Mask icon. Every details on the pen will be placed inside this group.

Step 5

Draw a small rectangle on top of the pen. Use color #906a00. Press ctrl+T for transformation, right click and choose warp. In the option bar select Warp: Arch with blend setting 30%.

Step 6

Add these layer styles.

Step 7

Using similar steps above, create another shape on the pen. Use layer styles shown below.

Step 8

Using an ellipse tool create an ellipse. Add these layer styles.

Step 9

Zoom closer to see more detail. Create new layer. Create selection with polygonal lasso for highlight. Fill the selection with white (Edit > Fill). Remove selection ( ctrl+D ) then add Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur). Make the highlight more subtle by lowering its opacity to 80%.

Step 10

Create shape shown below. Change its fill layer to 0% and add these layer styles.

Step 11

Duplicate shape a few times and place it below.

Step 12

Create new layer. Using soft brush, draw white line along the pen’s body. Add Gaussian Blur to soften it. Change its opacity to 65%. Erase both ends using soft eraser. Duplicate highlight layer to make it stronger.

Step 13

The gold metal is more reflexive and need to cast more lights. Create new layer. paint it with white, add Gaussian blur and change its opacity to 50%.

Step 14

Now, we’ll add marble texture to the pen. Add another layer above all layers. Press D button to change foreground and background color to black and white. Click Filter > Render > Clouds then Filter > Render > Difference Clouds. Do this a few times until you have satisfying result. Change blend mode to Overlay and opacity to 40%.

Step 15

Use pen tool and draw pen’s handle. Add Inner shadow.

Step 16

Draw small circle under the pens handle. Add these layer styles.

Step 17

Draw small circle and put it under all the other layers.

.

Step 18

Draw small rectangle to connect pen and its handle.

Step 19

Draw pen’s tip underneath the pen’s body. Add some layer styles.

Step 20

We’re done with the pen. Right click pen’s group and choose Convert to Smart Object.

Next, we’ll focus on the envelope so click the eye icon to hide the pen.

Step 21

Create new group named envelope. We’ll put every shapes here.

Activate rounded rectangle tool. Choose radius 3px in the option bar. Draw a rectangle on the stage. Add these layer styles.

Step 22

Draw another shape like shown below. Add these layer styles.

Step 23

Draw similar shape, this time on top. Use layer styles shown below.

Step 24

Copy the path, and transform it until it looks like this.

Step 25

Ctrl+click on path to change it to selection. Create new layer, fill it with black.

Step 26

Remove selection ( ctrl+D ). Add Gaussian Blur.

Step 27

Change its opacity to 40% and erase shadow outside the envelope using soft brushed eraser.

Step 28

Draw a rectangle shape. Press ctrl+T, right click and choose Warp, then move its top side. Duplicate rectangle by pressing ctrl+alt+T

and right arrow a few times. Press ctrl+shift+alt+T few time to repeat the duplication.

Step 29

Duplicate layer ( ctrl+J ) and change its color to #f1b6c1.

Step 30

Select rectangle number 1, 3, 5, 7, … and delete it. This way, we’ll alternating red and blue shape.

Step 31

Select both red and blue shape layers, alt+drag to duplicate it. Put it in every side of the envelope.

Step 32

Remove unneeded shape by adding layer mask and paint it with black.

Step 33

Okay, we’re done. Right click envelope group and choose Convert to Smart Object. Press ctrl+T and rotate the envelope.

Step 34

Unhide the pen by clicking its eye icon. Ctrl+click pen to create selection base on its shape. Create new layer and fill it with black. Press ctrl+T, move pivot point to bottom left corner and start dragging to rotate it.

Step 35

Click Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Add layer mask and give it a white to black gradient. As you can see below, we have just creating its shadow.

Step 36

Oops, I forgot the envelope’s shadow. This one is easy, just add drop shadow layer style to the envelope layer.

Final Result

We’re done. I hope you like the result and enjoy doing this tutorial.

At the end, I also wrote a short tutorial on how to create this brush set, you can use these skills to create any brush you want yourself! Want better quality – just open Illustrator and create your own specific brush set now!

Check the picture below to see the brushes in action:

Download Link

Click here to download brush set.

Not a Photoshop user? Don’t worry, this brush set is also available in transparent png. Click here to download it right now!

Tutorial

This brush set is made using Illustrator and Photoshop. Here’s a short tutorial on how I did it.

Step 1

First, open Illustrator. Create new file with size 2.500 x 2.500 px. This is the size of our brushes. You might asking, why only 2500×2500 px? Why not making it bigger? Because that’s the maximum size for brush, you can’t go bigger than that. Next, using pen tool draw two curve without fill and black stroke.

Step 2

Click Object > Blend > Blend Options. Select Specified Steps with 25 next to it. Hit OK.

Step 3

Select both lines and click Object > Blend > Make or ctrl+alt+B. Illustrator will automatically add 25 transition lines between the two selected lines. Hit ctrl+A then ctrl+C to select all lines and copy them to clipboard.

Step 4

Open Photoshop. Create new file, size 2500×2500 px.

Step 5

Paste lines into our new file by pressing ctrl+V. Click Edit > Define Brush Preset. In next dialog box fill brush name and click OK. Our first brush tip is done!

Step 6

Repeat all previous steps to create another brush tip. You can go wild and try to experiment with shape like I did here.

Step 7

After you have enough brush tip, click Edit > Preset Manager. Select brush tips you just created and click Save Set. Selected brush tip will be exported as a brush file (*.abr). This file can be distributed to your friends or to a site like what I’m doing right now.

Conclusions

Finally, I hope you like this brush set and also learn how to create your own brush set. Feel free to use it on your next artwork.

Before we start, let’s see what we’ll be creating below. Notice that you can even see the USB symbol on its cable. As I said, highly realistic.

Our Final Output

Step 1-Creating Wacom’s Base

Start by creating a new file, 512×512 px, RGB, 72 dpi, white background. Create a rounded rectangle with 5 px radius. Add some drop shadow. This will be our Wacom’s main body.

Step 2

Create new layer above it. Fill the layer with white. Click Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Give a small amount of monochromatic noise.

Step 3

Hit ctrl+alt+G to turn layer into a clipping mask. Change blend mode to Multiply and lower its opacity to 50%. This way, our Wacom will have a bit of texture on it.

Step 4-Add 3D Look

Currently, our Wacom looks very flat. It’s just a 2D rectangle. To turn it to a 3D shape we can’t just use a bevel and emboss style. We’ll play with lights and shading to do that. In new layer, create a transparent to white gradient in lower part of wacom. Change its opacity to 20%.

Step 5

Draw another gradient to the other side. See picture below to see light direction for each side.

Step 6

Draw a black rectangle with 20% opacity. Add layer styles Bevel and Emboss and Outer Glow.

Step 7-Separating Buttons

Now, we need to create gap between Wacom’s panel and its body. The trick here is using thin line in white and black. Together, these two lines create depth and make our brain thinks “It’s a 3D shape!”

Create new layer. With pencil tool, diameter 1 px, opacity 70%, draw a black line. Underneath it, draw another line, this time white with 50% opacity.

Step 8

Draw another black and white line to separate other panels.

Step 9-Scroll Area

Next, creating big scroll area. Using ellipse tool, shit+drag to draw a perfect circle. Add some layer styles.

Step 10

Draw smaller circle inside previous one. Add another layer style.

Step 11

Use polygon tool with 3 sides to draw two triangles.

Step 12

Inside the scroll area, draw a circle. Select the path circle, hit ctrl+C and ctrl+V. Press right and down arrow few times to move it. In the option bar select subtract to create a crescent shape. Next, draw path to remove top part of the crescent.

Step 13

Duplicate crescent layer. Move it to other side of the scroll area. Hit ctrl+T and right-click choose Flip Vertical.

Step 14

Write FN1 and FN2 in lower button. I use a bold italic Helvetica here. If you don’t have Helvetica, you can use similar sans-serif font like Arial. Add layer styles shown below.

Step 15

Next step is creating arrow for next and previous button. Draw arrow directly using pen tool is not recommended. It’s just too hard.

Here’s what I prefer to do, create a blue rectangle then using pen tool click one of its top corner. We have a triangle now.

Select the path and duplicate it. Move it by pressing left and top arrow a few times. Choose subtract from the option bar.

Last thing to do is select both path and rotate it -45 degree.

Step 16

Duplicate the arrow and flip it vertically to create arrow for opposite direction. Give both arrow these layer styles to make them glow.

Step 17

Wacom put a small light under the button and it make the indicator really glow. So, create a new layer. Activate brush tool and choose star shape brush. With foreground set to light blue, click once on top of every button indicator to give them subtle sparkle.

Step 18

Upper part of bamboo and its lower are different. The upper part is very slick and glossy. Select the upper part and add adjustment layer Curves. In the Curves dialog box create a small S curves and hit OK This will increase its contrast and give it a glossy look.

Step 19

To make it looks more glossy, we’ll add some reflections. Again, select the upper part and add a transparent to white gradient.

Step 20

Don’t forget the brand. Here, i just use a light italic helvetica and wrote BAMBOO. Then I add a layer mask and paint the line inside B with black.

Step 21

So far, here’s what we have.

Step 22-Creating Cable

Move on to the detail. Draw a black rectangle in top right corner. This will our cable’s head.

Step 23

Draw a smaller rectangle. Use gray color and add Inner Shadow.

Step 24

Inside the gray rectangle draw a USB symbol.

Step 25

Duplicate the gray rectangle.

Step 26

Add a bold B. Hit ctrl+T and flip it vertical and horizontal. Add Drop Shadow and Outer Glow.

Step 27

Finally, draw a triangle shape. With tool brush hardness 95% draw a black cable. Underneath it draw the shadow manually.

Step 28-Drawing Pen

To make things easier we’ll create pen in a separate file. We start from a simple gray rounded rectangle with 5 px radius. Select some points using white arrow tool and move it until we have basic pen shape. To give a 3D look add gradient overlay.

Step 29

Upper part of the pen is very slick and glossy. Draw a black shape, hit ctrl+alt+G to create clipping mask. Add gradient overlay.

Step 30-Creating Pen’s Button

Draw a rectangle in lower part of the pen. Add layer styles shown below.

Step 31

Draw smaller rectangle in the middle of the pen’s button and add a gradient overlay.

Step 32

Almost done! Draw a very small rectangle at the end of the pen.

Step 33

Draw a black rounded rectangle on top of the pen. I also draw a very small reflection on it.

Step 34

Our pen is done! Now, we’ll import it to our wacom picture. Select all layers and right-click choose Convert to Smart Objects.

Drag our new smart object to Wacom file. Hit ctrl+T and rotate it.

Step 35

Duplicate the pen, right click and choose rasterize layer. Hit ctrl+T and distort it until it seems laying on our wacom. This pen will be our shadow.

Step 36

Hit D and shift+alt+Delete to fill the duplicated pen with black.

Step 37

Give it a Gaussian blur and add a layer mask. Draw a white to black gradient until the shadow gradually fades away.

Step 38

Here’s our wacom right now.

Step 39

I don’t really like the plain white background. So, I found this texture and paste it under the Wacom.

Conclusion

For final touch, i want to make Wacom really stands out from the background. I create a new layer. Fill it with a radial gradient gray to white. Change the blend mode to Overlay. That’s it! I hope you have some fun with this tutorial and learn something new.

Free download PSD file

Wait! To help you following this tutorial, I also give you the psd file. Click here to download it.

In this tutorial we will learn how to create selection, adjusting color, and adding depth to image.

Source Needed

For this tutorial, we will need these images:

• Water Tower from fairiegoodmother.
• Premade Background from night-fate.
• Brocade Victorian Gustov 3 from falln-stock.
• Top Hat from luna-8.
• Old Top Hat collection from azenor-stock.

Step 1: Selecting The Victorian Man

We’ll start by cutting this man from his background. For this type of selection, I prefer to use the manual way, path. From paths panel create new path then using pen tool draw path around the man. As you can see i don’t care much about his face because we will remove it later.

Step 2

Once we’re done creating path, hit ctrl+Enter to change it to a selection. Press ctrl+J to duplicate the selection to a new layer. You can also do this by selecting menu Layer > New > Layer via Copy. To help focus on the man, hide Background by clicking its eye icon.

Step 3: Removing Face

To remove his face we can just use an eraser.

Step 4: Fixing Floating Hat

Now, we need to create his bottom hat. To do this we must draw manually using clone tool. Activate clone tool and check Sample All Layers. This option allow us to clone on a separate layer and keep the original picture safe. Then create a new layer. With clone tool sample a similar color from his hat by alt+click it.

Step 5

With clone tool, draw his bottom hat. This might take a while, I spend 10-15 minutes for this. To keep it natural I suggest you to use different clone source every time you click.

Step 6

Using lasso tool, create ellipse selection underneath his hat and fill it with black.

Step 7

Add Gaussian Blur (Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur) to give it a soft realistic shadow.

Step 8: Fixing Collar

We need to manually draw his back collar. The step is a bit similar to what we do when creating bottom part of his hat. Create a selection in collar shape, sample color from his front collar, then draw it directly with brush tool. To avoid flat color we must use many color source from his front collar.

Step 9

Draw shadow inside his collar and add another Gaussian Blur.

Step 10: Import Man Without Face To New Background.

Now we’re done with this man. Select all (ctrl+A), click Edit > Copy Merged (ctrl+shift+C). In our new background paste the man (ctrl+V) and resize it (ctrl+T). See image below for reference.

Step 11: Dodge and Burn

We still need to fix lighting on the man. To do this, we will use non-destructive burning and dodging. First, alt+click New Layer icon. In the dialog box select Use Previous, Mode: Overlay, and Fill with Overlay.

Step 12

See picture below! The light source is behind the man so his back must be lighter than his front. To fix this, paint with burn tool to make it darker and dodge tool to make it lighter.

Here’s what we see if the layer is in Normal blend mode.

Step 13: Add Shadow

Off course this man must have shadow. We know that the light source is behind him, so the shadow must be in front of him. Duplicate the man layer and hit ctrl+T. Hold ctrl and move its corner until it lies on the ground.

Step 14

We don’t want to see his twin lying on the ground right? We want his shadow.

So, here’s the trick. Hit D, this will change foreground color to black. Then hit shift+alt+delete, this will fill layer with foreground color (in our case, black).

Step 15

We still need to focus on the detail. As you can see below, cane’s shadow moves a little and there’s a hole between his feet. I fix this by doing minor transformation and painting with black.

Step 16

Add Gaussian blur to create a soft realistic shadow.

Step 17

Farthest shadow need to be more blurry. So, select those part, soften the selection with Feather (Select > Modify > Feather), and another Gaussian Blur. Here’s a tip: because we’ve just perform a Gaussian Blur we can just hit ctrl+F to repeat it again. If you want to use different radius use ctrl+alt+F.

Step 18

Add layer mask and add black to white linear gradient to make the shadow fades away.

Step 19: Add Water Tower

Selecting the water tower with path is not a good idea. You’ll get frustrated doing it. The easiest and smartest way is using color information in channel. Our image is in RGB, that’s Red, Green, and Blue. The water tower stands in front of a clear blue sky. So, the sky will be very visible in Blue channel. Now, I want you to duplicate Blue Channel by dragging it to the new channel icon.

Step 20

Add Levels (ctrl+L) with this setting.

You can see that the sky has magically disappear. Try that with pen tool!

Step 21

Some part of the water tower is turning white. We can fix it easily by painting it with black.

Step 22

Here’s the basic principle of masking: “White reveals, Black conceals.” We want to select the water tower, not the sky. So, the sky has to be black and the water tower has to be white. Wait! Our image is completely wrong. That’s easy, just hit ctrl+I to invert it.

Step 23

Ctrl+click blue copy channel to convert it to a selection. Copy the image and paste it behind our faceless man.

Step 24

You might notice that the there’s a small part of the sky in the water tower. Here’s one easy way to fix it. Ctrl+click water tank layer. Contract selection by 1 px (Select > Modify > Contract). Click add layer mask icon.

Here’s the result.

Step 25

Fix the lighting with non-destructive dodging and burning. We have done this in step 11.

Step 26: Adding Depth of Field

It’s time add depth to this image. Cut one of the hat collection from old top hat set. Paste it and place it near the edge of the canvas. Hit ctrl+T and rotate it to give a more dynamic movement.

Step 27

Give it a Gaussian Blur. Because this hat is near us, we’ll give it a big radius.

Step 28

Add another hat and give each different radius depends on its position.

Step 29: Add shadow

Dont forget to give shadow to the water tower. The step here is similar to what we did when creating the man’s shadow. Duplicate water tower layer, fill it with black, transformation, add Gaussian blur, and fading it with gradient mask layer.

Step 30

Again, don’t forget to add shadow for those hats.

Step 31: Final Adjustment

I want to add more blue to the sky. For this, I add adjustment layer Channel Mixer on top of all layers with these settings.

Step 32

Paint everything with black except the bright sky in top right. Now, only that part is affected by the Channel Mixer.

Step 33

To add more contrast add adjustment layer Levels with this setting.

Step 34

Paint everything with black except the faceless man.

Step 35

Finally, I want to make this picture warmer. Add an adjustment Layer Photo Filter with Warming Filter (85), Density 25%.

Conclusions

And here’s what we have now. I hope you like the final effect. If you have better tips about the technique used here I’d love to hear it.

Download FREE PSD File!!!

To help you learn this tutorial you can download the psd file here.