Home Photoshop Drawing Techniques Metal Orb

Metal Orb

Added: Oct 30, 2006 Level: Beginner Software: Photoshop

This tutorial will teach you how to make a Metal Orb.

Its really simple if you follow the steps correctly:

First open a document 400X400 pixels and set the background to white. Now create a new layer and name it "base".

Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and create a circle. Now fill that layer with #2F2F2F.

Create a new layer and name it "Bevel" Go to Select > Modify > Contract and set it to 2. Then go to Select > Feather and set it to 5. Now fill it with #5F5F5F. Now create a new layer and name it gradient. Make sure your foreground is set to white. Now select the Gradient Tool and set it to Foreground to Transparent and drag it from top to bottom.

Now create a new layer and name it "Orb Base". Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a circle inside the the metal orb. Then fill it with the color #3D6D9C. You should have something like this:

Now create another layer and name it "Orb Inset" and place it below the "Orb Base" Layer.

CTRL + Click on the "orb base" layer and with the "orb inset" layer still selected fill it with black. The image won't change much but that's because the layer is hidden, but no worries it'll all look good at the end.

Now select you "orb base" layer and go to blending options.

Select Inner Glow and apply these settings:

Now select Inner Shadow and apply these settings:

Now select your "orb inset". Go to Edit > Free Transform and up at the top, select the little chain link icon and then put 102% in the W box, it should automatically put the same value in the H box. Press enter to confirm the transform.

Now go to blending options. Select gradient overlay and apply these settings:

Now CTRL click your ORB base layer and then grab about a 100 px soft brush and set your foreground color to #3D6D9C. Now up at the top on your brush settings, set the mode to Linear Dodge and the Opacity to 30%, flow to 60 and start dodging the bottom half of your orb till you get something like this:

Now create a new layer above "orb base" and name it "orb reflection" Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and make a circle like shown bellow. Fill it with white and set the opacity to 30% and mode to overlay.

Now create another layer and name it "orb reflection 2" Make a circle like shown bellow, fill it with white and set the opacity to 40% and the mode to overlay.