Blog | Galactic Being Tutorial

In this Advanced tutorial I will show you how to draw a really neat Galactic Being. It is done entirely in Photoshop using Layer Effects, Brushes, Blends, and some very useful textures.

Final Image

Step 1

I started off by doing a very quick sketch of my idea for the Being using a Wacom Intous4 Medium Tablet in Photoshop. This is the basis for the rest of the illustration.

Step 2

Next I outlined the Being sketch using the pen tool. Once you draw the shapes with the pen tool, open up your Paths window (Windows > Paths) and click the option button at the top right of the window. Click “Stroke Path” and choose Brush as the path stroke type and check “Simulate Pressure.” Press OK and it should automatically stroke your penned path with a pressure simulated brush stroke. Either press ESC or click your layer again to leave the Path Mode. This gives the outline a penned cartoon look. After you outline the entire Being, color the illustration using flat colors on a “base color” layer. I have a separate layer for the Being Body (the gray-blue color), Secondary Body Parts (brown extremities), Eye Layer (keep the black eyes on a separate layer for future purposes), and the Cane (brown stick in his hand). I created the background gradient to have some color contrast while working on the image.

Step 3

Create your Shadows and Light Source

Now it’s time to add some light and shadows. First I added a Gradient of White to Transparent on a light source layer on top of everything set to Screen at 75%. With my light source decided, I used a 25px 0% Hardness Brush to shade the shadows on the Being. Create a new layer named “Shadow 1″ above the body layer and set the Layer Blend Mode to Multiply at 50% Opacity. Hold ALT and click in between the new shadow layer and the base layer (Clipping Mask) to mask the top shadow layer within the body base color layer. This prevents your shadows from showing up outside of the body. Duplicate this step and shade the secondary body and Cane layer using the same technique. Select all Shadow 1 Layers and Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur at 13.0 Pixels. This will soften your shadows and give your illustration a greater feeling of depth.

Add your light source highlights

To add the border highlight to the Being I setup an Inner Shadow using Layer Styles set to Blend Mode > Color Dodge (to change the Blend Mode on a layer, click the drop down box on the top of the Layer Palette and select the Blend Type accordingly) at 100% with a White Color, Distance 3px, and Size 7px. Duplicate this Layer Style by holding ALT and dragging the FX icon to the right of your Layer in the Layer panel to the Secondary Body Parts layer and the Cane Layer. This is a quick way to copy exact Layer Styles.

Step 4

Add highlights

Next up is adding some of the lighting. The light source is coming from the top left so I use a 25px 0% Hardness White Brush to color the white highlights on the Being. Also use the “Alt+Click Between the Layers” technique for this new highlight layer to keep it masked in the original body and second body layer. Set it to Blend Mode Overlay at 75% to give it the soft highlight look. I decided to smooth out the highlights using Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur at 8px. The final highlight touch was drawing the circle white eye reflections on a new “Eye Reflection” layer above the original “Eye Layer.”

Touching up the eyes

Before moving on the the rest of the picture I wanted to finish some soft details on the eyes. I created a new layer “Eye Gradient” above the eye layer using the Clipping Mask technique. Using the Gradient Tool, I drew a soft White to Transparent Radial Gradient coming from the center bottom of the eyes. This and a soft 4.0px Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur on the eye highlights gave the eyes a softer feel. Using Layer Styles on the Eye Layer, I setup a Drop Shadow set to Blend Mode Multiply at Opacity 75%. Distance 4px, Spread 0%, and Size 0px. You always want to contrast a shadow with a highlight so I set another Layer Style on that same layer with Inner Shadow setup to Blend Mode Normal at Opacity 75% with Distance 2px, Choke 0%, and Size 2px. I set the Angle at 150 Degrees to leave the light source on the top left.

Step 5

Creating the Brain Abyss

Before working with the Galactic Stock Photo, I wanted to create the dark abyss in his head of wisdom. I simply used a 20px Black Brush with 40% Hardness and drew a circle in the top of his head on a new layer, Galactic Head BG. Don’t worry if it overlaps the eyes, we will be masking it next. Select the layer Galactic Head Bg and look at the bottom of the Layer Palette. There should be 7 icons, the third icon from the left should be “Add Layer Mask.” Press this and it will create a all white “mask layer” to the right of your layer icon. Wherever you color black in this layer will become “invisible in the image.”  Remember this as this will be used very often in all of my tutorials.

Now that you have the layer masked, select the Gradient Tool and setup a Black to Transparent Linear Gradient. Drag it Upwards to fade the Galactic Head BG into the rest of his head. The result should be as seen below. I set the layer to Blend Mode Multiply at 95% just to give the fade a softer feel.

Step 6

Putting the Galactic in Galactic Being

This step involves adding the “Galactic” look to the Being by both giving his body a starry and textured look as well as putting the universe inside his head. Using the Stock Photo Nebula 1 from Stock.Xchange, I achieved both of my goals with one image. I copied over the Nebula 1 stock to the image and put it in between the Shadow 1 Mask and the original Base Body Layer. By dragging images in between Clip Masked, it automatically includes the image in the mask, only showing the parts of the image within the original image shape. With the Galaxy now masked in the Being, I set the layer to Blend Mode Overlay at Opacity 50%. Resize the stock photo accordingly to get more lights/shadows and stars within the body of the Being. Now you have a a subtle Galactic feel to your being! Duplicate this layer (you can hold ALT and drag the layer somewhere else on the layer palette to instantly duplicate it or you can drag the layer to the “new layer” icon on the bottom of the palette.) and create a Clipping Mask above the Galactic Head BG layer. This should now place the Nebula within the black abyss you drew earlier. Change the new Nebula duplicate Blend Mode to Normal at Opacity 100%. Resize it so that the entire Nebula fits inside the head and Voila! You now have the core design of your Galactic Being!

To get a stronger shadow and highlight effect on the Being, create a new Adjustment Layer (the 4th button from the left on the bottom of the Layer Palette.) Create a Levels Adjustment Layer and set the 3 input numbers to 13, 1.00, and 211. Make sure you put this Adjustment Layer above all of your shadow and highlight layers on your Body layer and use the Clipping Mask technique to make sure the level only effects your body layer. You can duplicate this layer and apply a Clipping Mask to the Secondary Body layer as well.

Step 7

The Tentacles of Existence

To draw the tentacles I used a 25pt brush and a few custom settings. In the Brush option panel, check Other Dynamics to automatically set an Opacity Jitter which fades the Opacity to zero depending on Pen Pressure (if you use a Wacom Tablet) or at a set distance using the Fade Control option. I personally use a Tablet so experiment with Fade distances to get the perfect fade for your tentacle. Next you should check Shape Dynamics to ensure your brush fades off at the end. Once again, Pen Pressure for tablets and Fade for a set distance. I actually used Fade at 100 for my tentacles to ensure that all of the tentacles are the same distance. Use a White Brush and enable an Outer Glow Layer Style set to 75% Opacity and a Light Blue color. The default settings work pretty well.

Create a new tentacle layer and draw more tentacles with a 15pt Light Blue Brush and a Red Outer Glow. Set this new tentacle layer to 60% Screen. Create a Layer Mask on the Blue tentacles and use a Black to Transparent Gradient Tool to create a diagonal Gradient going towards the points of the tentacles. This will give the appearance of the tentacles fading into the light.

The Particles of Understanding

This particle technique is very popular now a days and extremely easy to do. Select a 5pt Brush and open your Brushes panel. Under the Brush Tip Shape tab, change the Spacing to 1000%. Change Size Jitter to 100% under Shape Dynamics and leave the other settings at default. Go to the Scattering tab and change Scatter to 1000% and Count to 3. With your new Particle brush, draw some partciles falling from his mouth. Create a new layer and draw some smaller particles with a blue brush. Copy the Outer Glow FX from your white tentacle layer to both of the particles layer (Hold ALT and drag the FX icon to the right of the layer thumbnail to the other layers. Set both of the particle layer’s Blend Modes to Color Dodge 100% and press CTRL+E to merge them. Duplicate the layer it should really increase the glowing effect.

The Light Source of Acceptance

Create a new layer and create a Radial Gradient from White to Transparent with the Gradient tool. Place it under where the light from the tentacles would fall on the body. Change the Layer Blend Mode to Overlay at 50% Opacity and Clip Mask the light to the body and secondary body layer.

Step 8

Ominous Backdrop

The background is actually very easy to do. First and foremost, you need to go to that light source layer you have above everything else and create and Clip Mask it to your Body layer. Duplicate it and Clip it to your secondary body layer as well. Next, I went through my huge Texture Resource folder and found a nice, swirly background to use as the backdrop. Place it below all of your other layers. Using CTRL+U (the shortcut for Hue and Saturation), change the colors to a nice strong purple. With that done, create another layer below this and color it all black. If your Foreground color is Black right now, ALT+Backspace completely colors the entire selected layer with the Foreground color. Likewise, CTRL+Backspace colors the selected layer with the current Background color. Go back to the texture background layer and create a Layer Mask

Step 9

Omnipotent Shadow

Next up is creating the shadow. Select all of the Being layers and merge them (CTRL+E). Rotate this layer to the right away from the light source and then go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Move each point accordingly to make the shadow skewed and growing at one end. Create a Layer Mask and select the Gradient Tool. Using a Black to Transparent Linear Gradient, create a Gradient from the top right corner towards the bottom left of the shadow on the layer mask. Now change the layer Blend Mode to Multiply at 61% Opacity and there you go, a quick and easy shadow!

Step 10 – Final Touches

Now that we have the gist of the image done, I decided to do a number in final touches to the image. Lets start from the top down.

Head

I felt I should put an emphasis on the Galaxy inside his brain so I duplicated the stock image layer and set it to Blend Mode Overlay at 50%. This gave it a more vibrant feel. I also duplicated all of the tentacle layers and it immediately give it a stronger glow effect. That is the value of using Screen and Outer Glow Blend Modes, when duplicated over each other, the effects dramatically increase.

Body

I reduced the Fill Opacity of the core Body layer to 80% This gave it a translucent effect. This gave it a “jelly” like effect. Since the body is now transparent, I want back to the Secondary Layer and cleaned up the shapes under the body. I chose to make them all end at a point like pieces inside the body.

Textures

I added a few other textures to the Secondary Body Part layer and the Cane. I chose a nice wood grain texture for his Cane and a miscellaneous texture for the Secondary Body Layer.

Shadows and Highlights

I went back and increased the shading on the correct areas of the image to make the lighting more emphasized. I put a shadow on his left leg where the arm would be covering the light source from the tentacles and some around the bottom of his legs and joints. This gave the image more depth overall. I felt that his left arm (your right) was missing the proper highlights so I manually shaded it appropriately using a soft white brush and set it to overlay. Once I got all of the shading and highlighting done properly, I duplicated all of the Body and Secondary Part layers and merged them together (Highlight all layers accordingly and press CTRL+E to do a quick Merge.) I set this new complete body layer to Overlay 75% and it increased the overall effect of the lighting and shadows. You now have your own Galactic Being!

Glowing Effect

I created a new layer set to Blend Mode Color Dodge above all of the layers. I also set an Outer Glow effect to Screen at 31% Opacity, Spread 0%, and Size 18px. Using a soft White Brush at 15px, I drew in the highlights at the at the edge of where the light hit each body part. This gave the body a nice glowing effect.