New Year Design Tutorial

Resources:

VAL Font from DaFont

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This will be the finished result

Click anywhere on the image for full size view

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Open a new file 800 x 800, 72px resolution, white background

Select the Text Tool and VAL Font, size around 150pt, foreground colour yellow #FFF833.

Type in Happy New Year on 3 lines. Set the leading to around 130pt so the lines are quite close together.

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click on Rasterize Type.

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Stroke settings:

Create a new layer

Select the Brush Tool and set to a round, hard 13px brush

Select the Pen Tool using the following settings:

Follow the instructions below for drawing the mouth:

Ctrl + T for the Transform Tool, and holding down the shift key, reduce the size of the mouth to fit the letters.  Also rotate to the desired angle.

Duplicate the letter and place the mouth on the next letter.

Repeat until all letters have a ‘smile’.

Select the Text Tool

Make black the foreground colour, and still using VAL Font, reduce the size to 80pt.

Type a full stop (period) and place it as an eye on the first letter.

Repeat until you have eyes on each letter.

If you require one winking eye, use the ) and Ctrl + T to transform it – rotate into position.

Create a new layer

Select the Brush Tool and a hard, round brush, size 9px

Set the foreground colour to white and place a dot in each eye.

Turn off the visibility of the background layer and right click on any visible layer, click on Merge Visible.

Double click on the layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Bevel & Emboss settings:

Filter>Distort>Spherize – use the following settings:

Make the background the active layer

Select>All

Make the text layer active

Select the Move Tool and click on the alignment icons in the tool bar to centre the text vertically and horizontally:

Create a new layer between the two existing layers

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and holding down the shift button, drag out a circle that almost fills the canvas.

Select the Gradient Fill Tool and use the following settings:

Set to Radial Gradient and drag the cursor from the middle to the outside of the circle.

Ctrl + D to deselect.

Use the Transform Tool (Ctrl + T) to resize the circle if necessary

Set the foreground colour to dark blue #0931A2

Select the Move Tool and move the blue circle down a little (temporarily)

Select the Pen Tool with the same settings as previously and create a path around the top part of the circle.

Select the Text Tool and Harrington Font at 100pt, make sure text is set to Centred

Click on the centre of the path and type 2010:

Right click on the layer in the layers palette and click on Rasterize Text – the path should disappear.

Now using the Move Tool, move the circle back up and the 2010 text down into place (use the arrow keys for minor adjustments)

Double click on the 2010 layer in the layers palette to bring up the blending options and apply the following Drop Shadow settings:

Create a new layer above the blue circle layer

Select the Brush Tool, select a soft round brush, size 100px

Set the foreground colour to white and run a line near the left side of the circle:

Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur – set to 30, click OK

Reduce the layer opacity to 90%

Make the background the active layer

Set the foreground colour to #F9F7C7

Use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill with colour

The finish project. Click anywhere on the image for full size view