BEFORE WE BEGIN...

ANYWAY so yeah. Welcome~ Just a couple of things to note: The images are resized to fit on the page, but you can view the full size in a simple and easy way. Right click the image you ant to see the full size of and go to properties. There you should find a link that when pasted into your address bar should give you the full image. Also, this tutorial assumes that you have a basic set of brushes that most people have. If not, there is a list at the bottom of various places to get some brushes/stamps. PLEASE DO NOT neomail me asking for stamps.

Last but not least, have fun and enjoy yourself! Making layouts should not be a chore. When you do make a layout using this tutorial, neomail me! I would love to see what you come up with and maybe I can help you in where to improve.  Now on to the layout~

STARTING OFF...

STEP ONE - RAY BACKGROUND

Now to start the layout: first take a ray brush and lay it down. Then, since the ray is pretty big, make it a bit smaller and stamp this smaller version 3 or 4 more times around the edges. I used all 3 of the colors I set aside. This gives it a sort of backdrop. Set this layer to color burn.

STEP TWO - BRUSH LAYER 1

so now we start with our first layers of brushes. You are going to end up with a minimum of 3 layers: one for each color. I try to go in somewhat of a circle because it ends up framing the layout better that way. If you have a big circle brush, you can make a new layer and put it down as reference. just make sure you delete it later.

The first layer of brushes I used was purple. Lay down a few of them and set the layer mode to either soft light or color burn. I chose color burn. Now go to the layer settings and give this a 1px white border. Then, give it an outer glow. Change the setting to normal and the color to white. You may need to increase the size tab depending on how much you want to show. Add some more purple brushes and move on.

STEP THREE - BRUSH LAYER 2 & 3

repeat step 2 twice more; once with the dark blue and again with the light blue. Also try overlapping brushes - it gives a cool effect. Also, don't be limited to circle brushes, but stay away from text brushes and brushes with thin lines that won't look good when the glow is added.

STEP FOUR - SPLATTERS

once you've finished this, its time to move on to the splat. make a new layer. take your splatter brush and position it so it is in the center of your circle of brushes. use a color that will show up very lightly on soft light. you might think its odd, but we are going to use a light orange (#FFE16E). Make the splat and set it to soft light. Now, we add a 1px purple border and a white outer glow. the point of this is so the splat is kind of there, but the outline stands out.

repeat this step with a different brush and a different outline color. This time I am going to use the dark blue. Place the brush, and add the effects. note: It might look better if you move the splat layers underneath one or two of the target layers--depends on your layout.

STEP FIVE - HALFTONE

Now, to fill up the middle a bit more and also to make it look cooler, we use a halftone brush (the arrangements of dots brushes). make this purple, with an outline of white (1px) and an outer glow of dark blue. Set this layer to soft light.

STEP SIX - FINISHING BRUSHES

Right in the middle, I added another ray brush in purple on color burn. now on this same layer, add some text brushes/random other brushes towards the outside Try not to put the brushes on the outside too close to each other. This should be a subtle touch.

STEP SEVEN - FINAL TOUCHES

lastly, add some glow-y asterisks, hearts, butterflies, whatever it is that you have with you. I used dark blue and set it to color burn on 75%. You can adjust the opacity until you find something you like.

At this point, I usually save the base as a psd and set it aside in case I need to look back on to see what I did or in case I want to repeat the same technique or even just if I need to change something later.

Hold on now, you aren't done quite yet! make a merged copy (select all, ctrl+shift+C or edit: copy merged) and make a new canvas to paste it on. Sharpen the base once or twice. make sure its not over sharpened! I sharpened this particular one twice.

Well what do you know! You just made a base! Now all you need to do is slap on a psd, blog, and some text and you are done! Be sure to neomail me with the finished product -- I would love the see what you got!

STAMPS