Paint Type — Photoshop Tutorial
I’ve been seeing this style of lettering popping up a lot lately on Behance/Dribbble and figured I would give a quick tutorial on how to achieve a similar look.
I’m sure there are a number of way to achieve this effect but this is the way I’ve come up with.
UPDATE!
Found another way to achieve this effect that I think is much better and likely the way other people are doing it.
Step 1 — Reference Colour Palette
So first you need your colour palette. I’m just going to grab an image off Behance with a rad colour palette but of course you’ll be able to use your own colour palette going forward.
I’ve set the document up to be 800x600 but again you can use any size you want, although a warning large files can get sluggish when you get to the brushing.
You want to have your reference image on one layer and the layer you’re drawing on as a blank layer on top of that one.
Step 2 — The Mixer Brush Tool
The mixer brush tool is supposed to simulate actual paint brush painting so colours mix and it simulates wetness etc (read more about it here). Start with the settings below 👇
Step 3 — Start Drawing
There are two ways you can do this.
The first way, you want to make sure you’re working on a transparent background. Then you’re going to eye drop the colour sample you want by option+clicking somewhere on the reference image. This will load that colour into your “well” and you can start drawing with it.
The second way: you want to make sure the “clean brush after each stroke” option is turned on and then you’re going to draw directly over your reference image (on a blank layer of course). This way gives a lot more variety to your strokes but both have a lot of applications.
You can play around a bunch with the mixer brush tool settings to achieve different results. I’ve only just discovered it so let me know any tips you pick up!
NOTE: Below are the previous instructions using the smudge tool.
Step 1 — Reference Colour Palette
So first you need your colour palette. I’m just going to grab an image off Behance with a rad colour palette but of course you’ll be able to use your own colour palette going forward.
I’ve set the document up to be 800x600 but again you can use any size you want, although a warning large files can get sluggish when you get to the brushing.
You want to have your reference image on one layer and the layer you’re drawing on as a blank layer on to of that one.
Step 2 — The Smudge Tool
So you’re going to be using the smudge tool, make sure “Sample All Layers” is checked, and make a new blank layer above your colour palette layer.
Once you’ve done this select your smudge brush tip and select the little gear icon and select “Thick Heavy Brushes” and then select the Smoother Round Bristle brush. Note: You’ll be able to do this with any brush and achieve different results but this is the best one I’ve found so far.
Last step before you get brushing, go to the brush menu and make sure “Transfer” is checked and the Strength Jitter slider is between 2–8% for different results.
Step 3 — Start Drawing
So now with the smudge tool, and your blank layer selected, you can start drawing. The smudge tool will sample the reference layer and transfer it to the new layer while creating the paint smudge effect.
After you’ve done the above part it’s down to some post processing to achieve the look you want, adjusting the colour balance, adding highlights manually, brushing out the stroke edges, adding shadows between strokes are a couple things you can do to improve the overall aesthetics.
If anyone has any other techniques they would like to share or to show off some of their experiments with the above technique drop them in the comments
