Illustrator and Photoshop Colorful Balls Text Effect for the holidays or any time

Just in time for the holidays, our friend Ainsley Bevis from BloomWebDesign.net sendis this great Adobe Illustrator tutorial! Now, you can run like this, or modify the color scheme for perfect holiday decoriations! She covers a number of good techniques good for beginner to intermediate Illustrator users, and then takes you all into Adobe Photoshop for the finishing touches.

Ainsley Bevis BloomWebDesign.netfinished_image Just in time for the holidays, our friend Ainsley Bevis from BloomWebDesign.net sendis this great Adobe Illustrator tutorial! Now, you can run like this, or modify the color scheme for perfect holiday decoriations! She covers a number of good techniques good for beginner to intermediate Illustrator users, and then takes you all into Adobe Photoshop for the finishing touches.
Ainsley writes . . .

In this tutorial I’ll teach you how to create a Colorful Balls Text Effect/Typography Poster using Adobe Illustrator to create the text, and Photoshop to add some finishing touches. We’ll be going through some basic Illustrator & Photoshop methods to create this fun & colorful text effect.

Final Result at right


Illustrator

1. Create a new document that’s 600×300 pixels. Using a thick/bold font, write out your letters in black. Lock the letter’s layer and create a new layer.

beginning_typography

2. Using the Ellipse Tool draw a circle while holding down the shift key (to keep the shape perfect). Duplicate the circle 3 times by dragging the circle away while holding down the ALT Key. On each circle put on a different colored gradient like below.

create_the_balls_t

3. Draw a smaller circle with the Ellipse Tool again and put in the gradient below. This will create a nice light glare on the ball.

create_gradients

4. Duplicate the light glare and place it on the other circles.

5. Next select each ball with the light glare and click on the Merge button in Pathfinder to merge the 2 shapes together.

pathfinder_joins_shapes

6. Now comes the most time consuming part! Select each of the balls and duplicate them over the letters, changing the size of them by selecting the balls with the Selection Tool and dragging a corner down or up while holding down the shift key. If you want to rotate them so the light glare is in a different direction, select them with the Selection Tool and rotate a corner.

Do this with all the colored balls until the black letters are hidden. lots of sizes, lots of variety!

replicating_bubbles_t

7. Remove the black text layer from view, and save the document.

remove_type

NEXT we take the whole piece into Photoshop for finishing touches

Photoshop : Decorate your type with bubbles and globes

To add in some finishing touches to the text effect, create a new document in photoshop with the size of your choice with a white background (I’m using 700×400 pixels). Double click on the background layer to unlock, then again to go into Blending Options and put in the Gradient Overlay below:

photoshop_gradient_overlay

9. Create a new layer and select a fairly large soft edged brush. Using the same colours as the colorful balls, draw on some colourful spots around the canvas and set the Opacity to 10%.

colorize_set_opacity

10. Open the Text Effect Illustrator document and copy/paste the text onto the canvas. To make the text smaller press CTRL+T and drag the top corner down while holding down the Shift Key (to keep the image perfect).

insert_decorated_type

11. Double click on the text effect layer to go into Blending options and put in the following Outer Glow.

set_blending_to_outer_glow

12. Duplicate the text layer by dragging it to the new layer icon, press CTRL+T and flip the duplicate layer down for the reflection.

reflecting_the_image

13. Click on Add Mask Layer to place a mask on the duplicate text. While on the mask layer, select a soft edged black brush & erase the bottom of the text. Make the Opacity 14% to finish off the reflection.

set_layer_masking

14. Create a new layer & select a 2 px solid white brush. Hold down the Shift Key and draw a vertical & horizontal line. Place a Mask over the layer like in step 13 and erase the edges of the white lines over a light glare for a nice light effect. Duplicate the light lines and place them over a couple of other light glare areas. If you want to rotate a layer press CTRL+T and rotate an edge.

adding_sparkle

Final Result

finished_image_600

And, thanks for reading

Ainsley,
      designer for Tutorials Share.com


Ainsley Bevis BloomWebDesign.net
Special Thanks to Ainsley Bevis for sending in this tutorial. Be sure to visit Ainsley at BloomwebDesign.net
      Ainsley is a passionate, and mostly self taught, Web and Graphic Designer based in Melbourne, Australia. As well as designing websites and graphic material for her clients she also enjoys playing guitar, piano, walking her dogs and cooking vegetarian food! Don’t miss all her great Adobe Illustrator Tutorials!


thanks for reading!

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