Photoshop Tutorial: The Making Of A Line Horse

In this tutorial I will explain how I made the line horse. To begin, I had to look for a reference image with good potential. I like to work with reference images which are very helpful for people who are not very skilled at drawing.
The source image also gave me the idea to do something with lines. Lines are very simple and easy to work with once you put them in patterns. The secret is to have lots of patience and determination. This is what we'll get by the end of the tutorial.

The hi-res source image we'll use to make our lines:
map stack

End result:

Author:

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Practice tutorial

Tags:horselines

Step 1

the source used is a wire sculpture I made in one of my classes; always choose reference images that have some potential to give ideas and one should deviate from it and create something original by itself. the result should be much better and have a stronger impact than the reference used.

Step 2

source parts

Step 3

here is a screenshot showing different layers for different lines that you want to duplicate

Step 4

warp each line in a different shape

Step 5

By using the warp tool I was able to obtain different shapes and arrange them in a way that could show the shape of the reference pic underneath.

Step 6

here is the head completed; you can see the reference image under it; this is helpful in getting the shape you want and also the depth; as the body is completed, lines that are far from view (such as the back and back legs) will be thinner and smaller.

Step 7

here are the parts that make the horse. to keep things organized u want to put layers in groups and name them something u can remember. for example; I had one major group for each part: the head, the legs, the chest, the body, the neck and the tail. I also made a group for the eyes but deleted it later.

Step 8

screenshot of grouped layers

Step 9

as you can figure by now, there are lots of layers organized in groups; however, the total size of the file increased to 80MB and it was very hard to move or edit or do anything else with the horse; therefore an easy way to "reduce" the size is to convert it to a Smart Object. Smart objects are like images of the psd file and are very easy to manage. To turn the horse groups into one smart object you go to Layer-Smart Objects-Convert to Smart Object. If you want to make changes to it, simply double click it and a new psd file will open; any changes have to be saved and will show up in your working file as well. Smart Objects save lots of time when working with big files.

also u can see shadows going beyond the outline of the horse; to get rid of those u can either mask them or erase them

Step 10

To make the sphere I have selected the source image while living plenty of space between the image and my selection; this allowed the Spherize Filter to give a convincing result. I have also used the Ellipse Tool to make a sphere like circle to which I applied the Spherize tool again.

Step 11

sphere layers

Step 12

I have created a background using the Radial Gradient Tool. File dimensions 1425*1500 at 150 dpi. I like to set my files at 300 dpi for a better resolution in case I want to print them later but in this case I went for 150 because the file was too large.

Step 13

I've created the planes with the Polygonal Lasso Tool, filled the selection with a grey color; Added the bottom orange and the shadows with the gradient tool. I have also dented the plane so it looks like it's about to fall; you can do this with the warp tool

Step 14

I have added the horse and some more spheres and planes and arranged them in an asymmetrical way to give a sense of balance to the whole image.

11 Comments:

slayyou says:

good job explaining your work flow and how you put it togheter

(2 years and 276 days ago)

Guest says:

i can't understand

(2 years and 276 days ago)

Guest says:

I liked it a nice looking horse and a nice explanation of the work process. thanks.

(2 years and 263 days ago)

Guest says:

Hiya, Great tut ... Just one thing ... might want to re-name the title on the linked page ... you have 'hores' not 'horse' ... it poped up on my google reader as 'Create an abstract hores with 3D lines' ... had me thinking

(2 years and 263 days ago)

akasha says:

hey, thank you all for the nice comments. I've already contacted the mods to fix the mispelling

(2 years and 262 days ago)

devangel says:

cool

(2 years and 257 days ago)

Dragon09 says:

Bravissimo

(2 years and 246 days ago)

Guest says:

omg I LOVE this!!!

(2 years and 170 days ago)

Guest says:

Looks like 3d. =)

(1 year and 296 days ago)

Guest says:

Looks like 3d. =)

(1 year and 296 days ago)

robvdn says:

nice one

(1 year and 203 days ago)

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