Grunge effects are very popular with today’s apparel designers. This tutorial takes you through creating a t-shirt design using vector graphics.   Everything you see in Hot Topic or Pac Sun these days features some combination of skulls, flourishes, splatters, and miscellaneous grunge effects. Why? Don’t ask me, but I’m sure it’s got something to do with the recent rise of popular screamo, metalcore, and hardcore bands into the mainstream. This aesthetic can look ultra lame if done badly, but hella cool if done right. I’ll show you how it’s done right. Before You Begin How do you make all those flourishes, splatters, and other design elements? Some do it by hand and draw their own flourishes, wings, skulls, etc. But what most t-shirt designers are doing these days is using stock design elements and clip art. It’s a quick and easy way to get that cool look without actually doing a lot of custom work. You can do a Google search for “vector packs” or “stock vector art” and you’ll find some resources that will give you just the effects you are looking for. You’ll be amazed and what’s out there. This tutorial was made using a vector pack available at Go Media. (www.gomedia.us) {module:ads/rectangle} Advertisement On With the Tutorial! You’ll need these programs: Photoshop Illustrator CS2 Let’s get on with the tutorial! First, open up Photoshop and Illustrator, as you’ll be using both. Mostly Illustrator. So get that Pen Tool ready! Step 1. Decide what your client wants. Or if this is a personal project, what YOU want. Your client should give you some ideas. But I find that quite a few just want something “dark” and “scary.” So that’s what we’ll give them. Step 2. Come up with an original idea! You might be tempted to use skulls or other typical dark imagery, but you really should try to come up with something new. If you want to sell shirts however, skulls are so trendy right now it might make you some cash. Think of an original concept and go with it. That’s the best way. Step 3. Get out your sketchbook or open up Firefox. Once you have an idea, start sketching around. For those who can’t draw, search the Internet for a stock photo. For the sake of this tutorial let’s stick to photos. We can make that work! Step 4. Find a photo. It helps a lot if you find an image that’s fairly large – preferably over 1500 pixels. I just searched Google Images for this one. Now some may ask about copyright laws and whatnot. For the sake of this tutorial, it’s just learning. If you want to use these images in your client projects, then it’s good to ask the owner of the photo, but most times you can get away with it if you are manipulating it beyond comparison, which is what we are planning to do. If you are worried about it, then purchase a stock photo or take your own photos. Here’s the one I found: Step 5. Cut out the image you want to use. Copy the image and paste it into a new Photoshop document of the same size. Use the Pen Tool and create a selection around the image. Select the Inverse and press Delete. Step 6. Convert it to 3 colors. I’ve actually created an action to do this, because I do this quite often. Here are the steps. Make a new layer. Go to Select > Color Range > Highlights and Fill with White. Next, make another new layer. Go Select > Color Range > Shadows and Fill with Black. Make another new layer underneath those two and Fill with Grey. Ctrl+Click on the original photo you cut out to make a selection around it. Then go to Select > Inverse. Select each layer and press Delete. You are now removing any unnecessary background color to your object. You should end up with something like this: Step 7. Live Trace (Vectorize) each of those layers. This is the point where we take this project into Illustrator. The newest version CS2 has a handy tool called Live Trace. This will save you lots of time! Here are the steps: In Photoshop, select the white layer and press Ctrl+I (Command+I on Mac) to invert the color. You just made it black. Now, with that layer selected, physically drag your art (not the layer) to your Illustrator button on the task bar and Illustrator should pop up. Let go of the mouse and your layer should drop right into your empty Illustrator document. (Tip: If you are having a hard time doing this, you can press Ctrl+A (Command+A on Mac) to Select All and then copy and paste the layer into Illustrator. Another option is to actually save the image as a JPG and then place your art into Illustrator. Basically, you have to get your art into Illustrator so you can Live Trace it.) In Illustrator, select the newly placed image and click Object > Live Trace > Make and Expand. You will get something like this: Ungroup it. Now deselect everything and then select a white shape. Live trace makes both black and white shapes, so click on an area where there may be white shapes and you will see it become selected. Select > Same > Fill Color. Delete all the white shapes and leave just the black shapes. Select the black shape and change its fill color to white. Draw a big black square around your shape and send it to the back. This will be your background. Go back into Photoshop and drag the “black” layer over to Illustrator and do the same thing you did for the white layer. Go back into Photoshop and select your grey layer. Use brightness and contrast to get your layer to look black. Then drag it into Illustrator and Live Trace this layer. Ungroup it and delete any white shapes. Then change its … Continue reading Designing Ultra SceneXCore Apparel in Photoshop and Illustrator