Step 1:
I started out by creating a new document, I've used 1024x768 with 72dpi with a black background.. because this one is just going to be on the screen, rather than print. Select the brush tool and change your brush to 1px with 0% hardness. Create a new layer and change to the pen tool, make sure paths is selected and draw a wavy line:
Step 2:
While you still have the pen tool in use, right click anywhere inside the document and select "stroke path", make sure you have brush selected in the drop down menu and tick the simulate pressure check box. Click on ok, then hit the ESC key twice to get rid of the path. You should end out with something like this:
Step 3:
Now select the layer that the line is sitting on, do this by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the layer in the layers panel. Next go Edit>Define Brush Preset, give your brush a name and click ok to save the wavy line as a brush
You can now either hide or delete the layer that your curve is sitting on as you won't be needing it again.
Step 4:
Select the brush tool again and bring up the brush settings by going Window > Brushes, select the brush you just created (it will probably be the last brush in your list) and put in the following settings:
Shape Dynamics:
Scattering:
Step 5:
Create a new layer for our lines to go on, I'm aiming to create a nice abstract set of lines at the bottom left hand corner of the document, so I'm going to start at the bottom left and drag diagonally upwards until I get something like this:
You can play around with the angles and the other brush settings to get a design that you like.
Step 6:
Lets get our lines glowing a bit, double click on the right of the lines layer to bring up the fx panel, alternatively you can right click on the layer and select blending options. Select outer glow and use the following settings:
Click on Ok and then right click on the lines layer, select "Duplicate Layer" so that we have another layer exactly the same on top of our first layer. Then open the Blending options for our new layer (either double click on the layer or right click and select blending options). The only thing we're going to change is our gradient setting:
You should now have something that looks roughly like this:
Step 7:
Create a new layer on top of the other layers and with a large soft round brush (something like 100px with 0% hardness) paint some colour over the top of our lines. Bright colours work better than darker colours. You should end up with something like this:
It looks pretty bizarre at the moment, but bear with me. Next you want to blur your colours a bit, to give it even softer edges.. so go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and use a value of 120px.. you should end up with a haze of colours over the top.
Step 8:
Change the blend mode of this layer to colour:
And change the layer opacity to suit your taste.. I've used 90% in my design. You can now draw some more on the 2 layers of lines if you want and you can end up with a design something like this:
I'll post up some links to some really effective Photoshop Brushes that can be used for these type of designs in the next couple of posts.
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