Abstract Vector Waves

In this tutorial, you will learn:

• How to design a custom abstract vector shape
• How to use layer sets to adjust your abstract vectors
• A creative way of coloring your vector art work

This tutorial is targeted towards photoshop users who want to increase their knowledge in abstract design. Below is an example of what you will be creating:

This example piece was taken from a release from the GreyCobra Art Pack #1, with the theme Marine.

This same effect has been used a countless number of times in the digital art world, and is becoming exceedingly popular.

Setting up your Document

Before we jump right into creating the shape, first lets set up a document in photoshop to design in. I am going to create a 400x400 PSD, with a semi-dark blue background. You may wish to make your document larger (I am keeping the size down for tutorial load time).

Designing the Basic Shape

To begin, we must first select the Pen Tool in Adobe Photoshop. If you are unfamiliar with the pen tool, you may want to try our Basic Pen Tool Tutorial , otherwise, I will try my best to explain it in this lesson.

Set Up the pen tool as shown in this diagram. We want to make sure that we are in the Shape Layers mode rather than the paths or fill pixels mode.

Set your pen tools color to white, and then create a point in the bottom left of your document:

Create a second point about midway in the document, and drag your cursor out to the upper right as shown in the diagram below.

Do not drag too far, or you will have no room for your third point, but make sure you create a nice curve with your two points that are connected together.

For the third point, simply click near the top right of your document:

Your next point will lie under your second point, and you will need to drag to the bottom left a bit to get a decent curve:

Almost Done! Finally, click your original point:

That's it for our basic shape. Now we need to add some more color to it to spice it up a bit.

Creating a second vector

There are quite a few ways to do this part of the tutorial, and I plan on showing you one which I find the most efficient when I am editing my own art work. First zoom in quite a bit on the top right of your shape, and create a point (a new shape / new layer) where the two curves meet:

Create a shape very similar to the one you have just completed, but have it offset to the right a bit as shown in the diagram below (the green is the new shape, just for clarification, you do not need to change your shapes color at this point):

Try to have the ends of your new shape intersect exactly where the endpoints of your other shape are. This will create the illusion of one seamless shape later in this tutorial.

Adding Color to your vector

Go into the blending options for your new vector shape. In your Blending Options, go into the gradient Overlay, and create a gradient to fill your shape with:

By Adding our color this way, we will be able to resize and deform our shape in the future and still retain all of the color settings without any loss of quality.

Your shape should now look something like what is shown below:

The next will show you how to edit both of your shapes as one grouped object called a layer set.

How to create a layer set

Layer sets allow you to group multiple layers together (or multiple sets together) for ease of editing multiple parts of your document at once. You will be able to retain all of your individual layers, and may remove any from the set at any time you wish.

Create a new layer set (Layer > New > Layer Set). Drag both of your shape layers into your set in your layers panel:

Now, whenever you have your layer set selected, you will be able to move both of your shape layers at once, set the opacity of both of them once, transform them all at once. You can duplicate your layer set just as you would a layer.

After playing around with multiple layer sets and the transform tool, here is a little something I put together:

Good Luck!