Tutorial: A Simple Pumpkin Vector Graphic

Here is what your pumpkin vector will look like when it is finished.

First of all open Adobe Illustrator and click new to open a new document. Then make sure you fill colour is blank but the stroke colour is filled and click on your pen tool. Start to draw the outline of the main shape of your pumpkin like below.

Once you have drawn this out you want to fill it. I choose to fill it with a gradient to give a bit of volume to the shape. Go to windows drop down menu, click swatch libraries, then gradient then fruit and vegetables, then choose the carrot gradient. If you hover over the gradient swatch you will see the name of it.

Click on your gradient tool to make it vertical by dragging it up or downwards and it should look like the image below.

I filled my stroke colour with a dark orange C 0 M 75 Y 100 K 25.

Now you need to give you pumpkin detail to make it look realistic. Click new layer (name your layers as you go along) and choose your pen tool again then start drawing skinny crescent moon shapes and fill then them with the same colour as your stroke on the pumpkin shape. You can see the desired effect in the image below.

Now your pumpkin is starting to take shape (excuse the pun). Now we will add a green stubb on the top of the pumpkin. Make a new layer for this. Get your pen tool and start to draw a stubb and fill with green C 100 M 0 Y 100 K 25 and fill the stroke with a darker green C 100 M 0 Y 100 K 50. Add some detail into your stubb using the pen tool again if you wish. I added some shadow lines in same green as the stroke of the stubb as you can see below.

When you have this done add a new layer and we will start the eyes and the mouth of the pumpkin. Again select your pen tool and start draw the eye like a triangle turned sideways. I curved the side of the eye for a better shape. When you draw one, select it, hold Ctrl and Alt and drag your mouse away from the eye to make a copy of the eye then with the copied eye selected go to windows and transform and click the down arrow at the top left to see the drop down menu. From that click horizontal to change the angle of the eye. Fill the eye with a yellow gradient, I thought it best to make a gradient with light and dark yellow. Do the same for the mouth draw it to your desired shape and fill it with a gradient to match the eyes. You do not need to copy the mouth or change the transformation. It should look something like the image below.

The last thing you need to do is fill the strokes with black on the shapes and now you have a very simple but detailed pumpkin vector. I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

Tutorial: How to make a Disco Ball in Photoshop

In this tutorial I would like to show how to make a nice bright, fun and shiny disco ball. Here is what the final result with be.

The effect on the disco ball was created by http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/digital-star-effect and this is an amazing tutorial on how to get the effect of a Digital Star Effect. I will do this effect and show you how to use it in a shape and change the tones to get your desired effect. 

This could also be used for concert lights or a nightclub poster, serious props to http://photoshoptutorials.ws/ for coming up with this effect.

Lets get started...

Step one: 

Choose an image, any picture that has a bit of detail and a few colours in it will work. * I an using an image of me and friend on halloween because I like it *

Step two: 

Open this image in Photoshop, duplicate the layer and make guidelines like the image below for disco ball shape.

Step three: 

Select the path tool and start to draw your circle as accurate as you can get it.

Step four: 

Press control on your path and copy, then add a new layer and paste it into the new layer. Deselect the image layers.

Now it should look like the image above.

Step five: 

Now you need to add the effect I mentioned above. Click this link and follow the instructions http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/digital-star-effect . When you have done this it should look like the image below. I have adjusted the brightness and contrast here to add effect.

Step six: 

Make a new layer and draw a circle that covers your existing disco ball fill it and add a black stroke at your desired width.

Apologies for the random line across it that is not supposed to be there but I think my pc is acting up. So ignore that but now you can see an outline and glow from the disco ball.

Step seven: 

Go to layer adjustments to change around brightness and contrast and hue and saturation until it looks good to you.

Step eight: 

Now go to your brushes and select assorted brushes and click on the star brush number 50 like below.

Step nine: 

Select the white fill colour and dot your stars on where you think needs a bit of sparkle. Add new layer and fill colour it with black so the disco ball pops out and your stars can be seen.

Here is the final design

I hope this tutorial was helpful to you.