Hello everyone! Welcome to this freakishly awesome tutorial. This tutorial describes in detail every step needed to make the wallpaper seen below. Even beginners can follow this, given that you pay attention! We will create this creative wallpaper with mostly Photoshop but also a slight hint of Cinema 4D. This tutorial will be pretty long since there are many elements that we will be integrating into the design and the intricate description along with them. Hold on to your seats and jump in!

Before getting started there are a bunch of things you’ll need to download first.

Paper Texture #1: [link]

Paper Texture #2: [link]

Cement Texture: [link]

Portrait Image: [link]

Lion Stock Image: [link]

Butterfly Stock Image: [link]

Mountain Stock Image: [link]

Ink Swirls Brush Pack: [link]

Ink Stain Brush Pack: [link]

Step 1

Open Photoshop and create a new file. Make it 2300px wide and 3000px high. Next double click the background layer to unlock it. Go to File>Place and import the three textures that you downloaded. Be sure to have the smooth paper texture as first, the rough paper texture as second, and the cement texture as third. Next select the smooth paper texture layer and hit Ctrl+T on you keyboard and adjust it so the texture covers the entire background (you are allowed to distort this texture). Do the same for the wrinkled paper texture but this time when changing the size hold down shift to maintain the original proportions. Now select the cement texture and rotate it 90 degrees and scale it up while holding down shift so that it covers the entire background. Delete the white background.

Step 2

Change the blending mode of the paper 1 and cement 1 layer to soft light. Now right click on the paper 2 layer and select rasterize, do the same for the other two layers. On the bottom layer go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and bring the saturation all the way down. Now select the Cement 1 layer and go to Image>Adjustments>Curves, change the curve to the line you see below.

Step 3

With the burn tool darken the bottom right edges of the cement layer with a 1000px, 0% hardness brush size. Select all three layers and hit Ctrl+G to add them to a new group, name the group BG (for Background).

Step 4

Open the image of the face, that is linked to above, in Photoshop. Take the pen tool and trace around the face and neck to isolate it from the background. This selection doesn’t have to be completely perfect since some of the edges will later be less defined once we paint over them with the brushes from the brush pack that you downloaded. Once you’ve traced around it and closed the path Ctrl+Click on the path to select it, and right click on the selection and press on “Select Inverse” (have the marquee tool selected while doing this). Hit delete on your keyboard.

Step 5

Press Ctrl+A on your keyboard to select all, press Ctrl+C to copy and paste it into your original photoshop file. Hit Ctrl+T and scale down the image to 50% on both the width and height settings. Rotate it slightly so the face is straight, and move it upwards like in the final product. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and bring down the saturation all the way. Now take the clone stamp tool, change the size to 20px and the hardness to 0%. Hold down alt+click right next to a skin imperfection and then color over it to get rid of it.

Step 6

Now duplicate this layer, Layer>Duplicate Layer, and change the blending mode of this layer to vivid light. Let’s rename this duplicate layer to “Face 2″ and the original to “Face 1″. Add a mask to both of the face layers. Select the layer Face 2 mask and press Ctrl+i to change it to black, thus hidding all its contents. On the mask of Face 1 start brushing in the neck area with a black colored brush to hide it. Use the brushes from the Ink Swirls brush pack to do this.

Step 7

Now take a white brush from the same brush pack (it’s important that you change brushes every few strokes so that you don’t see any repeated edges) and reveal some areas on the Face 2 mask. Now create a new layer, name it “Swirls”. With a black brush add a stroke or two on the forehead and the left cheak, try erasing parts of what you brushed in with the eraser using a brush from the pack. Change the opacity of this layer to 30%.

Step 8

Select the three face layers and press Ctrl+G on you keyboard to add them to a new group. Name the new group “Face”. Create two new layers inside this group, name them “Hair 1″ and “Hair 2″. Place the Hair 1 layer at the very bottom of the group and the Hair 2 layer on the very top. Using some brushes from the pack start creating a painted hair edge around the skull of the model. Whenever you’re brushing away you will want to erase parts that cover the face with the eraser. Be sure to also paint with a black brush on the Face 1 mask to hide the outer edge of the hair line (especially the top left part where part of the original background is still visible).

Step 9

Open the lion image that you downloaded. Unlock the layer by double clicking it. Select the magic wand tool and change the tolerance to 50. Now sample the color from the white area and press delete. With the lasso tool select the head of the lion and press Ctrl+C to copy and Ctrl+V to paste it into your original composition. Hit Ctrl+T and change the width of the layer to -100%, hit enter. Press Ctrl+T again and this time change the width and height to 82%. Place the layer right behind the Face group and rename it to “Lion”. Add the Lion layer to a new group called “Lion”. Make sure you move the lion to the location you see below in the screenshot.

Step 10

Make a duplicate of your lion layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) and name it “Lion Blue”. On this new layer go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, check the colorize box, change the Hue to 220 and the saturation to 100. Change the blending mode to soft light and the opacity to 50%. Now on the Lion layer go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and bring down the saturation to -100. Go to Image>Adjustments>Levels and change the left, center and right swatches to 45, 0.30, and 255 respectively.

Step 11

Create a new layer above the two Lion layers, name the layer “Darkened”. On this layer start coloring in the light parts of the mane of the lion with some of the brushes from the brush pack. Also take a brush and add a sort of ramp where the lion cuts off at the bottom to create a steady transition. Now open the Face group and create a new layer also called “Darkened” and place it on the very top of the group. Paint in the right edge of the face very subtely, this is for the sole puropse of blending it with the lion behind it. When doing this you can Ctrl+Click on the thumbnail of the “Face 1″ layer to restrict the painting in to just what is inside the head.

Step 12

Open the butterfly image in Photoshop. Unlock the layer by double clicking it. Take the pen tool and trace around the butterfly, this path doesn’t have to be perfect. Once you’ve closed the path ctrl+click on it to create a selection of the path. Right click the selection and press “select inverse” now press delete. Press Ctrl+A and copy and paste it into your original composition. Press Ctrl+T and change the width to -42% and the height to 42%. Rename the layer to “Butterfly” and add it to a new group also called Butterfly and move the group right below the face group.

Step 13

On the Butterfly layer go to Images>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast and change the contrast to 60 (with the use legacy box checked). Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation, change the hue to +5 and the saturation to +70. Holding down Alt click and drag the butterfly, with the move tool, upwards and slightly to the left. Select the two buttefly layers and go to Layer>Merge Layers. Make a duplicate of this layer and name it “Butterfly 2″, name the original layer “Buttefly 1″.

Step 14

Change the blending mode of the Butterfly 2 layer to linear light. Duplicate this same layer and move it downwards and to the left, change the fill to 60% (the fill is right underneath the opacity setting), and rename the layer to “Butterfly 3″. Add a mask to butterfly layers 2 and 3. Select the masks (first one then the other) and press Ctrl+i to invert the mask to black. Now using a white brush and using the same brush pack paint in some areas you’d like to reveal on the masks of the two butterfly layers. Now change the blending mode of the Butterfly 1 layer to soft light.

Step 15

Create two groups. Name one group “Red Ink” and the other “Blue Ink”. Move both groups underneath the lion group. Now you are going to create around 3-5 layers in each one of these two groups and you are going to carefully paint the area surrounding the lion with blue and the left side with red using both brush packs (Ink Stains and Ink Swirls brush pack). Be sure to switch layers as you are painting and change the blending modes of the layers to color burn (you can also change 1 or 2 layers to soft light). Also make sure that you change your color often, and that you don’t use the same brush in an obvious manner. See my result here:

Step 16

We are now going to create the 3D part of this image, so go ahead and jump into Cinema 4D. Once in C4D go to Objects>Primitive>Platonic, press “C” on your keyboard to make the object editable (allowing us to edit the figure). Go to Tools>Polygons (to be able to select the individual polygons of the object) and press Ctrl+A to select them all. Now go to Structure>Extrude and in the Attribute manager (the window in the bottom right) uncheck the box that says “Preserve Groups”, now change the ‘Offset’ to -15m, click apply. Without deselecting proceed to the next step.

Step 17

Go to Selection>Set Selection (this will create a triangle next to your layer name, if doube clicked this will reselect the selection you currently have). Now go to File>New Material in the material manager in the bottom left of the C4D window. Double click on the new material and you will by default appear in the color tab of the material. Click on the color and change it to white. Now activate the reflection tab, change the brightness to 200% and check the “Additive” box. Close this material and create another one. Double click on your new material and change the color to something that’s virtually black. Activate the reflection and next to the “texture” option click on the little triangular arrow and select “Fresnel”. Close this material and click and drag it onto the orange selection of the platonic object. Do no deselect your current selection.

Step 18

Go to Selection>Invert and now drag the white material onto your selection. You can now deselect, by clicking anywhere in your composition. Now we are going to add three different deformers which will give a more abstract form to our object. It will be up to you to edit the deformer to your own taste. Go to Objects>Deformation>Explosion. Click and drag the object it created onto the platonic object (this will place it inside of it, like a group, effecting whatever it is in). In the explosion settings change the strenght to 1% and the speed to 10m. Go to Objects>Deformation>Twist, drag it into the platonic object and change the angle to around 260 degrees. Now with the Move Tool (E) and the Rotate Tool (R) place it inside the platonic in a pleasant way. Finally for the last deformer go to Objects>Deformation>FFD. Drag it into the platonic object and in the settings of the deformer change the grid points on all three axes to 2. What this deformer does is it creates a cube with a series of points which you can move, by moving the points you can move the object inside it as well. To actually edit the points you’ll have to go to Tools>Points and select the move tool (E). Now select the individual points and move them around in whatever crazy way you want.

Step 19

Go to Objects>NURBS>HyperNURBS and drag the platonic object into the NURBS object (the hyperNURBS adds more polygonal surfaces to the object within it giving it a smoother look). Copy and paste the HyperNURBS with all its content in it. Edit the position, rotation, and the values of the deformers to fit your taste.

Step 20

Copy and paste one of the HyperNURBS objects with all of its content. Delete all of the deformers and move the platonic outside the NURBS object. Delete the NURBS object. Go to Objects>Modeling>Atom Array and place the platonic inside the Atom Array. What this object does is it converts all the points on your platonic object to spheres and all the lines that connect the points are converted to cilinders. In the attribute settings of the Atom Array change the Cylinder Radius to 0.4 m, the Sphere Radius to 4 m, and the subdivisions to 30. Now go to Tools>Points and Selection>Rectangle Selection. Select some of the points and move them in random directions. Make a copy of this Atom Array with the platonic object inside it. Go to Objects>Deformation>FFD, change the Grid Points to 2x2x2 and place the deformer into the newest platonic object you made. Start moving the deformer points drastically, try to have a point lying outside the general shapes. This point will be the point that will appear on the left eye of our model in our finished project. Place the white material onto both of the Atom Array objects. I hid the deformer lines of all the other objects so you can see more clearly what is relevant in this step.

Step 21

Go to Objects>Scene>Light and create a copy of this newly created light. In Attributes of the first light change the shadows to Shadow Maps (Soft). Now in the Coordinates window (to the immediate right of the material window) change the X position to 950m and the Y position to 750m. On the second light change the Y position to -50m and the Z position to 450m. Now go to Render>Render Settings, click on the Effect button (bottom left) and select Global Illumination. Under the Irradiance Cache File tab check the Prepass Only box. Now go to the Output tab (of the main render settings) and change the width to 2000px and the height to 1500px. Close the window and go to Render>Render to Picture View. Be sure to place your camera view on an angle that you want your final render to be on.

Step 22

Once it finished rendering go to File>Save As, change the format to JPEG, and save it anywhere you like. Switch back to Photoshop and go to File>Place, find the image you just rendered and place it into your image, be sure to place it on the very top of all the layers. Right click on your layer and select Rasterize Layer. Go to Select>Color Range, sample the color from a completely black are of your render, change the Fuzziness to 10 and press okay. Hit delete and go to Image>Adjustments>Curves and add a point and move it to almost the very top left corner (you can change the Output of the point to 212 and the Input to 28). Change the blending mode of the layer to Screen.

Step 23

Press Ctrl+T and move the abstract render onto the left side of the head. Right click on the transformation rectangle and select Warp. Now warp it so that one of the points of the Atom Array is in the center of the eye. Go to Layer>Duplicate Layer and press Ctrl+T and select the warp mode once more. Edit the layer so that it isn’t 100% the same as the original. Double click on the layer to bring up the Layer Styles and activate the Gradient Overlay. Click on the gradient and change the left side color to red (#ff0000) and the right side color to orange (#ff9300). Press OK and right click on the layer and convert it to a smart object. Make sure the blending mode of this layer is set to Screen as well. Add a mask to the original render and with a black brush from the ink swirls pack hide some part of the layer. Select both render layers and add them to a new group, name the group “3D Render”.

Step 24

Create a new layer inside a new group. Name the group “BG Goodies” and move it underneath the lion group. Select the Ink Swirls brush number 25, rotate it 150 degrees, and change the size to about 700px. Now with black as your main color add one stroke to the bottom part of the neck. You will have to go to your face group and create a new layer in which you will have to paint in some dark paint swirls to the bottom part of the neck using a low opacity and flow. This is to blend it with the bottom paint stroke. Now find a splatter brush in which paint is dripping down and paint it right next to the previously place paint swirl, you can place it on the same layer or a different layer (I brought the opacity of the layer down to 80%). You can use a brush from your own collection or you can use the pack that I used. Brush King: Splatter Brushes Set

Step 25

Open the mountain image and double click the only layer to unlock it. Select the magic wand tool, set the tolerance to 100. Select the blue area and without deselecting hit delete on your keyboard. Press Ctrl+A and copy and paste it into your original composition.Create a new group right above the face group and call it “Mountains”. Place your layer inside it and make a mask on the layer. Hit Ctrl+T and change the width and height to 50%. Move the mountains so the top left side appear ontop of the recently added paint stroke. Ctrl+Left Click on the layer of the paint stroke in the BG Goodies group. Right click on the selection it just made and press Select Inverse. Now select the mask on the mountain layer and with a black color and the bucket tool fill the selection with black.

Step 26

Change the blending mode of the mountain layer to Luminosity. Duplicate this layer (Layer>Duplicate Layer) and change the blending mode of this layer to Linear Light. Select the Move Tool (v) and select the actual icon of the layer. Make sure that there isn’t a little chain between the layer icon and the mask icon of the layer, if there is simply press it to deactivate it. This chain chains the position of the layer to the mask. Now move the layer a little bit to offset it from the original. Now with the paint swirls brush pack start hiding parts of both layers by paint onto their respective masks with a black colored brush.

Step 27

Go into the Lion group and create a new layer at the very top of it. Name this layer “Eye”. With a very small ink swril brush start coloring an eye (I used mainly this color: #00e9ff). The trick to this is to lower the opacity and fill to 30-60% and to later use the eraser tool, also at a low opacity and fill setting, with a custom swirl brush. Change the blending mode of the eye to Screen. Now using one of the smoke brushes referenced to at the top paint a small wisp of blue at the left side of the eye. Erase a large part of the smoke and move and distort it so that it is just a subtle wisp of smoke at the end of the eye. Change the blending mode of the wisp of smoke to Screen and change the opacity to 50%.

Step 28

Duplicate the eye layer and move it to the top of the face group. Now move the actualy eye ontop of the right eye of the model and scale it down a little bit. Create a new layer right beneath the eye layer and with a very small round black brush paint over the white glare in the eye.

Step 29

Download some goodies before carrying on.

Wire frame Pack: [link]

Blue Print Brushes: [link]

We are now going to start adding a bunch of things to the BG Goodies group, I’m going to do this through rather vague instructions since this will require more effort from your part. Import two wireframes from the wireframe pack. Change the blending mode of both of them to Multiply, scale them down, and move them to appropriate locations. Next add in some schematics and some tech brushes, change the blending mode of these layers to Soft Light. Create another layer and add some white wavy lines. Create a new layer at the bottom of the BG Goodies group and select one of the Ink Stains brushes. Keep it at around it’s original size and place one stroke behind the face. Change the blending mode of this layer to Soft Light. Finally, select the Rectangle Tool and create a very thin line. Rotate the line to about -54 degrees and place it where you see it in the screenshot below.

Step 30

We are now going to create the tagline at the bottom of the image. Create a new group and call it “Imagination is Limitless”, place it at the top of all the groups. Select the text tool and write out “Imag” in Times New Roman font, 125pt size, and active the small caps setting. Create another text layer right next to it and write out “nation”. Create another text layer that just contains “I”, make it 137pt big and place it inbetween the the other to word segments so that it write out Imagination. Align the text from the top part of the small letters. Make another text layer and write out “s Limitless”, make it 48pt big and move it to the right of the big “I”.

Step 31

Right click on the “Image” and “nation” layers and rasterize them. Select the Rectangel Tool and create a thin line. Duplicate this line and rotate both of them as you see below. Once the lines have been positioned select the Polygonal Lasso Tool and select the parts that are on the outside of the lines, simply trace your selection on the line you made (you’ll first have to do one side then the other). With the move tool move the top parts of the letters down the line a little.

Step 32

Finally as the last step add some complimentary text to the sides of the face. I used Times New Roman with small caps for all of them and the only things that changed is the positioning and the size. This you can do on your own, I will provide you with the text I used although you can very well use your own.

1: Explore the
Depths of your Soul

2: Travel the
World of your
Imagination

3: Let Your Spirit Soar

4: Imagination is the
Beginning of Creation -George Bernard Shaw

5: Creativity can come
when you least
expect it to

Once you’ve added in these text lines you are finished! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and that you were able to learn something. If there were any steps you didn’t understand don’t hesitate to leave a comment with a question.
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