TUTORIAL | The Norwegian Blue Method

Whether you’re a professional or amateur designer it is never easy to create good looking characters or mascots from scratch; to help you I will share some of my methods of approach using only Adobe Photoshop CS2 and some harmless Googling. Let’s start of by deciding what kind of mascot you want to create, that is actually the hard part.

Preferably for this tutorial I recommend you to Google your favorite animal; find an image at least 200×200 pixels and open it in Photoshop (I’ll assume that you’re somewhat familiar with the basics). I’ll show you my method using a “Norwegian” Blue Parrot. I select the blue color of the parrot using the Eyedropper Tool (#325da1), this will be used when we apply a new cartoon-styled surface over the parrot’s body.

Before we apply any color we need to cut out the parrot from the background, for this we use the Magic Wand Tool (for any leftovers just use the Eraser Tool). I know this is a time-consuming process that takes some practice to master, but stick with it and you’ll learn soon enough. Now that we have the parrot against a solid background we can start to cut it up in different layers and build ourselves a character from scratch using the original image as a blueprint (blue parrot).

Basically you use the Marquee Tool and cut out each detailed part of the parrot. Using Layer > Layer Style > Color Overlay you then color each part building yourself a nice looking mascot, it takes practice but it’s not that hard to achieve impressive results using this technique. I recommend you duplicate the original part and then displays it with about 25% opacity, for shading reference. Don’t be a slave to the original, adjust the parts to create a unique piece of art, if you like finish it off with some Drop Shadow and Bevel.

If you have any questions or need help just post a comment at my portfolio >
http://www.eurogame.se/?p=51

 

thanks for your info. it seems more simple than my won. I do this with brush and photocopy filter

 

It's quite easy If I get some free time during the weekend I'll might put together a small video tutorial for those of you that are not that familiar with Photoshop. I always found it easier myself to just watch and learn.


Example banner using the finished mascot!

*Here is a finished PSD-sample to go with the tutorial for reference

 

Wow great share! thanks

 

Great tutorial! I also like your blog; nicely designed and very interesting posts! I have bookmarked it and will be browsing it often for inspiration and to share in your sense of humor!

 

Thanks mate I'll keep on writing those tutorials then