In this tutorial, it is going to present you how to make a Christmas card. Hope you will appreciate it!
Step 1
Prepare a background in blue by Paint Bucket Tool (#160336). Gradient > Linear Gradient in combination of purple & grey (#655480 & #af90e1).
Step 2
And now, you can make the snowman for your Christmas card. The snowman is created by two 3D balls. Use Gradient > Radial Gradient (#6e6c65 & #faf9f8), then apply the Noise function to the ball by pressing Noise > Add Noise and the setting is as follow:
The snowman body texture should be as below:
Step 3
After the ball’s creation, we can go to do some color adjustments for the snowman body by Gradient Tool (Gradient > Radial Gradient) with these two colors purple (#51436f) & grey (#ece8c4). You should achieve something like the following:
Step 4
After the completion of the snowman body, we can add a little bit reflection at the bottom of the body. Ctrl + Click on the ball, and fill up the snowman body with color, then shift the circle a little bit upper as the following. Delete the white circle.
Step 5
Apply Blur > Gaussian Blur (Radius: 6.0 pixel) and turn the Opacity into 63%. Here, you can slightly adjust the Blur setting to achieve different reflection strength. And the follow is my result.
Step 6
Repeat the same steps to create the snowman head. And add some eyes and nose on its face. The appearance of snowman should look like the following.
It is time to make some decorations for our snowman. Let’s make the hat first. The hat is just created by few different shapes.
Step 7
Create the ellipse circle, and apply the Gradient function (Gradient > Linear Gradient) #9e9ca1 & #070707.
Step 8
Now, you just need to create a rectangle, then combine the ellipse and rectangle to form the middle part of the hat. Repeatedly apply the Gradient function with the same setting as Step 7.
Step 9
Add a girdle in red (#7f0e08). And repeat the Step 7 to make one more ellipse circle as top bit of the hat. After that, apply the texture to the hat and the setting is as follow.
When you complete, the snowman should be as below.
Step 10
Let’s give a scarf for the snowman. It is believed that there are many ways to achieve a scarf. However, it is a bit difficult to create a good one. In my case, it is started with a Rectangular Marquee Tool to create a simple rectangle on the neck part. Fill it in red (#7f0e08). And apply Transform function (Edit > Transform > Wrap) and shape the scarf. And add some shadow on the scarf by lasso tool. In the mean time, you can easily apply the shadow to the right position by brush tool with this color (#4f0202).
Step 11
This step is a bit complicate, as you need to have imagination about the real scarf shape. It is equally difficult to draw a cloth as the shape and shadow is very irregular. However, trial and error is the way to accomplish this. My result is as follow.
Step 12
Now everything for the snowman is created. We can move to make some snow for the background. Since the snow is irregular, I have used the brush to make it. Apply the Brush in this colour #d0c7de and choose the brush tip shape into soft round 45 as below. Then spray into the area you like.
Step 13
Now, we have snowman, snow plus other decorations. Let’s make a shadow for the snowman. It is like the snowman which created by 2 circles (Refer to Step 2)and fill the circle in deep purple #382754. And the hat’s shadow is just made by the simplified steps as the Step 7 & 8. Use the Transform function (Edit > Transform > Rotate) to move and turn your shadow into the right position.
Step 14
Finally, you can add some nice words “Merry X’mas”, snow and some leaves for final decoration.
Hope you will like my tutorial.
Thank you!
Linear Mode
