3D renders are often combined with vector elements and photostock elements to create stunning visual effects.  While some artworks can be created merely in Photoshop, most designers are forced to call upon other programs in order to achieve truly brilliant effects.  In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create a Poser figure, create a shatter effect and render it in 3DStudio Max, then use Photoshop and some simple stock images to create a brilliant and [...]

Advertising is one of the primary markets for graphic designers.  Companies around the world rely on the talented and creative minds of designers to create visually impactful and memorable product advertisements.  Advertising differs from other forms of design, as you often have to incorporate a product, a logo, a company image and other details to meet the client needs.  Therefore, being able to manipulate results to match the color scheme, subject matter and target market [...]

Today we will be making a 2010 Olympic Gold Medal similar in style to those used in the current Vancouver Winter Games. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create an interesting warped metal effect using the Gradient Mesh Tool. You’ll also learn some interesting ways to create and use masks while we construct this gold medal. Author: Joshua Bader Joshua Bader is a graduate of Sheridan College’s Media Arts program with over a decade’s [...]

This Quick Tip tutorial will guide you through the process of making a vector portrait rapidly. A picture will be used as a guide for black and gray paths. We’ll review some shortcuts that will allow you to achieve good quality results with few steps and minimum fuss. Author: Getulino Pacheco Getulino is a brazilian illustrator and designer. He uses all his know-how to use computer as an artistic medium and is considered a pioneer [...]

In this tutorial, we’re going to teach you how to replicate Apple’s iPod Nano. Not only will we recreate it’s signature body form, but also the headphones and put them in a unique setting that makes it pop. This an easy to follow step-by-step tutorial, and altering the final appearance should be a piece of cake. Changing the appearance is only a metter of picking a few different colors or adding your own textures as [...]

This tutorial is about how to draw a colorful, jolly, full-face, carnival mask in Illustrator. I explained how every part was made like: the jolly hat, the border seam brush, the bells, the small mask on the face, the glitter symbols and the other decorations on the face. Hope you enjoy it. Author: Diana Toma This is a VECTORTUTS contributor who has published 2 tutorial(s) so far here. Their bio is coming soon! Final Image [...]

I really love this kind of style, so I thought just I’d share another tutorial with you guys (and girls, of course) on how to design something like what I’ve shown below, a kind of glossy, carbon fiber navigation set 1. Grungy Background Creation I know this navigation set will most likely be going on a clan website design or something like that, but I really love designing really cool, grungy backgrounds for my tutorials [...]

In this tutorial we will learn to create abstract an compositions of dots. This will help you to create interesting effects for backgrounds. Let’s learn to simulate a surface of any complexity. Author: Lazunov Iaroslav My name is Lazunov Yaroslav, I am a graphic designer from Zhytomyr, Ukraine. I love Illustrator. Tutorial Details Program: Adobe Illustrator CS3 Difficulty: Beginner to Intermediate Estimated Completion Time: 30 minutes Step 1 Open a new document (800 by 800 [...]