Hello hello! I am marsdood6 and I have created a video tutorial on how I created this flyer! Everything is done with Photoshop CS5.

The video is a little quiet because this is the first attempt I have made at this so please accept my apologies for that.

Otherwise enjoy, and I hope this helps you in some way!

-marsdood6

Step 1: Sketch!

So we start with a sketch on 50% brackground. After it is where I want it, I start using the eliptical marquee tool and the lasso tool to create the shapes of the objects and drop in their appropriate colors. Eventually I turn off the sketch layer, only turning it on when I want to make sure I am following the plan I have created.

-lasso tool the shapes of the bats and move them where you want them to be.

Step 2: Shapes

...and now we just do a lot of rinse and repeat.

-lasso the shape of the pumpkins, drop their color.

-new layer, lasso the shadow/highlight shapes and paint those in with the selection you made.

-lasso in the eyes, drop their color (alt + delete)

-with the selections you already have, paint a thin blue rim light in the shadows of the pumpkins to separate them from each other.

-on a new layer, use the gradient tool to make a blue gradient from the bottom and lower the opacity so the pumpkins are a little subdued. we want the Owl to be the main focus.

Step 3: The Owl

The owl is the exact same process as the pumpkins, with just a few differences.

-After the lasso selection for the owl, I go back over those shapes with the pen tool to create a nice smooth curve and replace the lasso color with that. This way the owl is the most "finished" looking and brings more attention to him.

-The feathers. Create one feather, and simply duplicate (ctrl + j) move and then merge (ctrl + e) until you have them in the shape you want.

-Once the feathers look good, select the shape of the owl body, and then click on the mask option at the bottom that looks like a rectangle with an oval in the middle. This will create a mask over the feathers in the shape of the owl and make it fit much better.

-On the actual shape of the owl body I used an inner glow layer style to give it uniform shadows. This same thing was done on the wings and beak as well.

Step 4: Finish

Now that the characters and backgrounds are done, its time for the text. I simply found a free text I liked and used these layer styles to get it to have the colors I wanted:

-Yellow outer glow

-dark purple outer stroke

-gradient overlay from a lime green to a blue-green at the top.

After that it was just moving and scaling until I found a placement that worked for me and the person I was making it for.

Thanks for checking this out, I hope it was helpful. If I get a decent reaction to this I will make more, much better tuts in the future! :D

THANKS!

-marsdood6