Making Metal

**Maяcel** · December 23, 2009, 12:26 PM

Making Metal

Index
Title: Making Metal
By: Maяcel
Difficulty: Novice(Basic photoshop knowledge needed)
Required Software: Photoshop
Summary: You'll learn how to make realistic metal.

Tutorial:

Step 1
Start by drawing the shape of your metal object. Use a medium dark gray color.

Now we’re going to make a new brush to draw the battered edges of the metal.Use this brush as base:

With this brush selected go intro the settings, and change the size jitter(shape dynamics tab) to 100%, and the scatter(scattering tab) to 0%.
Now make a new layer above the metal, and paint(with white) scratches on the edges of the metal.

Step 2
Now let’s find some good metal textures, o to a good texture site like www.mayang.com or do an image search on Google. This is what I got from Google(scratched metal):

- http://mayang.com/textures/Metal/images/Flat%20Metal%20Textures/scratched_metal_texture_5132552.JPG

- http://nl.tinypic.com/view.php?pic=30js9b8&s=5

Put the first one above the metal layer, and set the blending mode to overlay.(also scale it down and reposition it of course)
Apply a filter>other>high pass on this texture layer. Use a radius that looks good, I used 100 pixels

Now past the second picture above the other texture. And aply a high pass of something like 2 pixels, which gets you this:

Now change the brightness/contrast till you get something like this:

Now set this layer to screen, linear doge or color dodge, and change the opacity to have it look right. You can also duplicate the layer, and rotate it|(and of course rescale it to match the object you’re working with before doing all this.)
Result:

*tip, use Ctrl+Alt+G to add a clipping mask.(just Ctrl+G for versions below CS)

Step 3
The basic thing is now done, you can now add some shadow and highlights on the base layer if you wish, using the doge and burn tools, or add color/paint, which will be handled in the following step.

Step 4
To change the color or brightness of the metal, just add an adjustment layer (layer> new adjustment layer.) don’t forget to use clipping masks, or the layer will affect the whole image.

To add paint on your metal select the bucket tool, and make sure ‘all layers’ is checked, and select a low tolerance like 20(change it for higher or lower amount of coverage) also make sure contiguous is off. Now make a new layer, ad fill it with color using the bucket tool (click on a normal part of the metal, not a dark or bright piece.) Erase the part(s) you don’t need and you’re done

Set this color layer to something like overlay, or any other blending mode that looks good
You can also change the layer style to add some undercoat, or rusty edges

You can also do the same thing with textures, instead of the bucket tool use the magic wand tool (use the same settings as on the bucket tool) to make a selection, invert it (so that the scratches are selected) and press delete

I hoped you enjoyed this tutorial and learned some new stuff, if you have any questions ask them

**abbews** · December 23, 2009, 01:31 PM

Great tutorial! I might find this useful!

**♖TMB Total War♖** · December 23, 2009, 01:43 PM

I totally like it!!! thank you!

**Killerbee** · December 23, 2009, 02:46 PM

Looks awesome man ! Too bad I only got GIMP

**DAVIDE** · December 23, 2009, 02:49 PM

very interesting

**Lü Bu** · December 23, 2009, 08:11 PM

Beautifull!!

**Lü Bu** · December 23, 2009, 08:23 PM

But I cant draw scratches.What flow and opacity and what is your document size?

**Maяcel** · December 24, 2009, 03:03 AM

I have the brush set to 2 pixels big, havent changed the opacity or flow of the brush, but you can lower the flow slightly. I'll upload the brush when i get on my pc.