The Chrome Robot Tutorial - Page 3

Open your rendered image in PhotoShop.  Zoom onto the area you are going to add detail to.  Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (see Figure 15).

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Figure 15

If the area you chose is perfectly straight, then you can use the Rectangular Marquee Tool.  Because the area I chose is on an angle, I'll have to create angular lines.  With the tool you chose, create a rectangular box as in Figure 16 below.  Once you've made your selection, do an Edit, Copy and Edit, Paste.  You will have created a new layer and your marquee lines will disappear, but don't worry about that.

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Figure 16

Now, select Layer, Effects, Bevel and Emboss (see Figure 17).  A pop up box will appear and you will see your selection beveled.  Of course it is beveled too much so we will have to make adjustments. 

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Figure 17

Figure 18 shows the controls we will be adjusting. 

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Figure 18

We want to change the Style to Inner Bevel, the Depth to 2, Blur to 2 and click on the Down radio button.  Look at Figure 19 for the settings and how it affects the selection.

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Figure 19

Now the fun begins.  The reason I selected a large area was so that I could get a little fancy.  As in Figure 20, create another rectangle only make it narrow.  With it, we are going to cut out strips in our selection.  When you have made your selection, position it by aligning the top edge to the top of the first line of the beveled selection.  The, use the Down arrow key and nudge it till you get to the size strip you want to make.   Remember your count so that we make everything even.  Now that it's in place, hit the Delete key.

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Figure 20

You have now cut out the first strip.   Nudge your rectangle down again and measure out your next strip and repeat the steps until you have all your strips.  See Figure 21.

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Figure 21

The amount of strips depend on how narrow you made your rectangle.  Now as you can see, the strips look cool but the go off the body which means we have some cleaning up to do.  Figure 22 will be our Before image.

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Figure 22

We will be using the Polygonal Lasso Tool to help in our clean up.  As in Figure 23, carefully trace on the outside of your chrome figure and go around the excess of your beveled selection and when you have joined your selection, hit the Delete key.

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Figure 23

Now repeat the above for the other side as shown in Figure 24.

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Figure 24

Figure 25 is our After image.  As you can see, there is highlighting on the right side of our beveled strips.  This can't be avoided and I normally clean it up with a paint brush after everything is done and I have flattened the layers.  If you try to do this now, your paint strokes will come out beveled.

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Figure 25


In Figures 26 - 30, I used the same technique to create a belt like image.  The images should be self explanatory so there's no need for me to write down how I did this.

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Figure 26

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Figure 27

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Figure 28

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Figure 29

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Figure 30

     If you notice, I used the Elliptical Marquee to for the circular shape.  All I can say at this point is that I have given the basics to get started.  Experiment with shapes to carve out your selections.  Also, on some of my images, I used the Eraser tool to get some neat shapes.

     Also, experiment with the Layer Effects.  There are several types of Bevels to choose from, each having a different look.

Now we move on to the Copper Bands.  At this point, you may want to go to sleep and continue tomorrow.  If not, go get some more coffee.


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