Magical Fantasy Book

Create A Fantasy Story Book

After reading a classic fantasy book, “The Treasure Island”, I am inspired to create something fantasy and epic. This is the second tutorial from “PSD Imagine & Create Tutes”.

Here is a little bit of preview for what we are making today!

Files needed can be downloaded here

Preparation

Unzip the file, open ‘Wall.jpg’ and ‘paper.jpg’ in Photoshop. Go to wall.jpg, select Edit -> Define Pattern; do the same for paper.jpg. We will use them later.

Create a new file. Go to filter -> add noise.

Go to Filter -> Blur -> Motion Blur

Crop it, somewhere in the middle, to get rid of the sides. Again, define pattern.

Now we are ready to start. =]

Chapter 1: The Beginning

We will start with the background. The first part is the wooden table. I have explained the method to create this in the previous tutorial . If you haven’t check it out, Just follow through, i’ll explain it again.

Create a new layer. Set the foreground colour to black and background colour to dark brown.

Fill the layer with either black or brown. It doesn’t matter.

go to Filter-> Render -> Fibers

Use this setting.

Sweet! Now, rotate it so the fiber-effect goes horizontally. Then, you will distort it. Not destroying it! Just use the distort function. Edit->Transform-> Distort.

You want to have a 3D perspective look.

Apply these settings

Go back to Wall.jpg; drag it onto the canvas where we have our “table”. Resize it accordingly to fit the canvas. Arrange the layer, so the wall layer is below the table.

Apply these settings.

We got our background! The next step is the book

Go back to Wall.jpg. Edit-> Define Pattern. Save the pattern with any name you want. We will use this texture for the book, once we finish making it!

Group the background layers and turn them off.

Create a rectangle with the rectangle tool. Go to Edit -> Transform Path-> Perspective; pull down the right line by selecting the dot shown below.

Once you are done, use the following settings. The pattern that we will use is from the file that we have created earlier (wall.jpg).

Voila! We got the cover!

Create another rectangle, position the layer underneath the “cover” layer. Distort it using the same Perspective technique that used above. Remember to visualize the perspective feel.

That’s the back cover of the book. Once you go that shape, use the following settings.

Let’s move on to the next step (This is quite a long tutorial). We will create the side.

You have two option, use pent tool or the rectangle tool. Either way, you want to make it fit between the back and front cover.

The settings are pretty much the same as the front cover, except for the ‘gradient’ section.

Now we will create the first page of the book. Create a rectangle, and again, give it a tweak, it has the perspective of the back cover.

Once you got it right, add the following settings.The pattern that we will use is the one that we have created at the start, from paper.jpg.

Don’t forget the top, we will create a fake ‘pile of papers’. Create a rectangle, tweak it accordingly. and add the following settings.

Turn on the background layer, so you can have a look at your progress. It should look something like this.

Chapter 2: The Tentacles

The tentacles are positioned to look like they are coming out of the book. First we need to draw them, then apply some settings, and add highlights.

If you are familiar with pen tool, well done! if you are not, this is for you to practice! Draw three tentacles. Choose a dark teal colour. All three tentacles, use the same settings below.

It will look something like this.

It doesn’t look too good, does it? Well, let’s fix it. This is where highlight comes in.

Select the first tentacle, using direct selection tool (usually it is located below Text tool). Right click and choose make selection, and set the feather radius to 2 px.

Create a new layer. Choose brush tool, use a big round and feathered one. Choose a lighter teal colour.

Once it’s done, change the layer setting to linear dodge

Looking better! group them and create a new layer. Place the new layer below the tentacles group. Use a big soft brush, choose black colour, and paint around the tentacles to create shadow on the book. Set the layer to Multiply and set the opacity to 80%.

Open the water.png file. Drag it into the tentacles group. place it on top of the tentacles. Select the area on top of the cover, (i used rectangular marquee tool) and delete it.

Copy the layer and place it, below the front cover.

Fantastic! Oh by the way, i used gradient overlay to blend it in. Change the opacity of the layer to 80%

The text; You can use any name you want and any font you like.

Use Skew (Edit -> Transform -> Skew) and tweak it, to fit the cover.

I changed, the blending mode to Linear Dodge and opacity to 48. Apply these settings.

Open ‘tree_bark.jpg’, drag it and place it above the cover layer of the book. Use Big soft eraser brush to delete the area around it.

Change the blending mode to Soft Light and reduce the opacity to 56%.

Well it is pretty much done! Now add some adjustment layers.

Chapter 3: The Final Pieces

We need three adjustment layers.

First, the curve.

Use an ellipse marquee tool, set the feather to about 50 – 60 px (depends on the size of your canvas). Select an area of the canvas, try to cover the book and tentacles. Now, inverse selection, Apple + Shift + i or Ctrl + Shift + i; or go to Select -> Inverse.

Now create a new adjustment layer of Curves, and bring it down low. You have just created a vignette!

You can use photo filter to create different moods. I’ve made a couple of different examples here. Just be imaginative!