Hosted by Bert Monroy.
Be amazed and learn as master digital artist Bert Monroy takes a stylus and a digital pad and treats them as Monet and Picasso do with oil and canvas. Learn the tips and tricks you need to whip those digital pictures into shape with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Read More
We take another look at signs in Bert Monroy's Times Square piece. Learn how to make 3 dimensional letters in lights!
Take a look at some existing 3 dimensional letter signs in Bert's Times Square episode. The basic skills needed for this lesson were covered in episode 145, so download the episode if you haven't already watched it! This week, we focus on a half an inch high sign with a lot of detail.
Launch Adobe Illustrator and type a word with a thick font. In this example, Bert uses "R3" using Helvetica Neue Bold. Convert your type to outlines (Type > Create Outlines) so you can manipulate the letter shapes. Use 3D effects (Effect > 3D > Extrude & Bevel) to make your letters 3 dimensional (turn on Preview to see what is changing). Use Object > Expand Appearance to outline the shapes. Copy and paste these objects as paths into Photoshop. You can transform the path to enlarge your letters.
After transforming the letter paths to your desired shape, you can add color to the letters. Select the front of the R and the 3, and add some color to the path in a new layer by filling the stroke. Add color as desired to the extruded parts of the letter in a new layer behind your previous layer. Repeat this step for the bottoms of the letters, and use color gradients and manual shadowing for some dimension along the edges.
To create the backing of the box, create a new layer that is a copy of Layer 1 with a yellowish color. Clip the layer and move it's positioning so that the new layer looks like the bottom of a container. Then, create a lightbulb pattern and fill a new layer with lightbulbs. Scale down the layers to make smaller bulbs and then clip to the layer that represents the bottom of the container. Distort the bulb layer as necessary, and mask out some of the bulbs completely as you see fit so that the lights fit the enclosure.
Want your artwork on PixelPerfect?
Make sure to send in your artwork to bert@revision3.com if you'd like your image used as Bert's background on a future episode of PixelPerfect. Your image should be a 1280x720 JPG.
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