Create Abstract Colorful Balls illustration in Photoshop CS5
September 28th, 2010 by ART-D Posted in Adobe Photoshop, Designing, Drawing Techniques
In today’s drawing tutorial, you will learn how to create abstract colorful illustration using simple tools and techniques like Ellipse Tool, Brush Tool, Gradient Tool, Layer Style, etc. in Adobe Photoshop CS5. Layered PSD file included. Let’s get started!
Learn more tips and tricksin the following 10 unique photo editing effects tutorials.
Final Image Preview

Taking inspiration from Andrew Footit and his LightSpeed poster.
Start working by creating a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with the size 1280px by 1024px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Use the Paint Bucket Tool (G) to fill with #23123F color the new background layer.

Take now the Ellipse Tool (U) and drag to draw a small ellipse on the top of the canvas.


Set Fill to 0% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Outer Glow.

Add Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next effect on the ellipse:

Make now many copies of the drawn ellipse (Duplicate layer) and choose the Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes and their position on the canvas.

Make a copy of one layer with the ellipse on it, select Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command and change the copy’s size and its position on the canvas as shown.

Create a new layer above the last made one, select both layer and press CTRL+E to Merge Down. On the rasterized layer we’ll apply the next filter: Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur.

We’ve got the next result:

Make one more copy of the ellipse’s layer and choose Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to enlarge the copy’s layer and place it as it is shown below.

We need to rasterize the layer with the circle the same way described above (Create a new layer above the last made one, select both layer and press CTRL+E to Merge Down). Apply on the rasterized layer the next next filter: Filter>Blur>Gaussian blur.

We’ve got the next result:

Combine in a group all the layers composing the ellipses (press CTRL button and select the necessary layers on the Layers panel. Then hold on the left mouse’s button while draging the selected layers on Create a new group icon from bottom part of the Layers panel.
Use again the Ellipse Tool (U) to draw a small ellipse under the made group already.

Set Fill to 0% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Make many copies of the last made layer containing the ellipse and choose Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes and their placement as shown.

Combine again in a group all the layers containing the last made ellipses (press CTRL button to select the necessary layers and hold on the left mouse’s button when draging the selected layers on Create a new group icon from bottom part of the Layers panel).
We have to draw now the next ellipse between the groups, using the Ellipse Tool (U).


Set Fill to 0% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Make many copies of the last made ellipse’s layer and choose Free Transform (Ctrl+T) command to change the copies’ sizes and their placement, placing them as it is indicated below:

Let’s represent now the next ellipse, placing its layer above all the previous ones, using the same Ellipse Tool (U).

Set Fill to 0% for this layer and click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Gradient Overlay.

Click in the color bar to open the Gradient Editor and set the color stops as shown. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor dialog box.

We’ve got the next result:

Post Pages: 1 2
Tags: abstract, background, ball, brushes, colorful, cs5, design, effect, free, Illustration, Photoshop, poster, psd




























Childmonster
28/09/2010
Very nice tut
Jozhee
28/09/2010
Omg! So Amazing! ive used some of your tutorialz to made my own work! and this is one is bautiful! wow i truly love this website!
Natraj jog
30/09/2010
Hiii can I get some help plz….i have struct on making line(line tool)…i draw the line but not getting the effect as you shown…and also with marque tool is same proble…im new to PS..plz help me
versatigon
01/10/2010
I will try it soon, thanks for the tut…
Logikal Art
01/10/2010
Fantastic tut, very accurately explained easy to follow. Really nice result
Shafiq Najam
05/10/2010
Well, I love it. I am sure everyone can find something for themselves in the resources provided by you!
Mia Lazar
15/10/2010
Thanks, good step by step tutorial.
fran
18/11/2010
cool! thanks!
Ali
28/12/2010
Hi
Nice
Seth Waite
26/01/2011
Wow that was great. Short and sweet and I did it all in less than 15 minutes. Great job.
sakib
26/02/2011
wow do u know wen u group evryfin do u group the blurred ones aswell?
templatebase
21/03/2011
Nice effect I like it.The result is very close to a 3D space.Whit some little improvements you can archive the 3D effect what is very close.
I will play and make some experiment on your tutorial to achieve the perfect 3D effect.
Good tutorial.Thanks for sharing you knowledge with us.
am!t bajaj
12/04/2011
vo vo , awesome
learned a new thing ,
awesome
thkx bro
Anon
04/06/2011
didn’t explain everything that well. I am pretty advanced with photoshop and my circles didn’t come out like yours. And I did it exactly as you said. Plus it didn’t go into much detail.
kcyo
28/07/2011
Very nice tutorial, but I must have to agree with Anon, I’m not getting the same results with the circles, the radial style don’t look the par. If you choose linear instead, and play with the angle you get something similar but is still not the same. thanks in advance for you help :]
Tom Baker
07/09/2011
awesome tutorial
Santosh Jha
29/03/2012
Great tuotorial specially ray beam
Saqib
16/03/2013
awesome and nice. These tuts are very nice to create ………..