In this tutorial we’ll create a surreal and magical desert scene featuring a pretty girl, a hybrid camel and butterflies. The emphasis is on model manipulation, or how to adjust your models in such a way that they fit the image you want to create, whether they’re human or animal.

This is a super advanced tutorial that covers a range of professional techniques including:

• Image Extraction
• Hair Replacement
• Color Blending
• Working with complex layer arrangements and smart objects
• Working with fabric in your manipulations

Let’s get started!

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Start up Photoshop if you haven’t done so already and press Ctrl+N/Cmd+N to create a new file. When the New dialog appears, type a name for the new file in the Name field. I called mine “Desert”, but you can call yours whatever you think is appropriate.

Set the Width to 2200 pixels, the Height to 2500 pixels and the Resolution to 300 pixels/inch. The Color Mode we’ll use is 8-bit Lab Color and the Background Contents should be set to Transparent.

Step 2

When the new file opens, rename the transparent background layer to “Sky gradient”.

Press G to activate the Gradient tool and click on the Gradient swatch in the Options Bar. The Gradient Editor will open. Set the first color to a sky blue (#008410) and the second color to pure white (#ffffff).

Click Ok to accept those settings.

Position the cursor at the top of the image and click+Shift+drag all the way down to the bottom to create the gradient.

Step 3

Next, open the Sky Fractal image (Fractal.jpg) from the assets pack you downloaded. Press Ctrl+A/Cmd+A to select the whole image, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C) and close it (Ctrl+W/Cmd+W). Back in the Desert image, press Ctrl+V/Cmd+V to paste the fractal above the Sky Gradient layer. Rename the new layer to “Sky fractal” and use Free Transform (Ctrl+T/Cmd+T) to scale and position it as shown below.

Set the Sky fractal layer’s Blend mode to Overlay.

Step 4

The sky looks quite nice but it hasn’t quite got the drama we’re looking for. To get the look we want, let’s bump up the contrast a little. With the Sky fractal layer still selected, click on the Add New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Curves from the list. Rename the new curves adjustment layer to “Contrast” and, in the Adjustments palette, set the curve for the Lightness channel as follows:

The sky is now done. Click on the Sky gradient layer and Shift+click on the Contrast layer to select all sky layers. Press Ctrl+G/Cmd+G to group them and rename the new group to “Sky”.

Step 5

To complete the background we’ll put in the desert floor. Open the Beach image (). Select the whole image by pressing Ctrl+A/Cmd+A, copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C) and close it (Ctrl+W/Cmd+W).

Paste the sand above the Sky group by pressing Ctrl+V/Cmd+V. Rename the new layer to “Sand” and use Free Transform (Ctrl+T/Cmd+T) to scale and position the layer like so:

Step 6

To make the sand recede into the distance (also called atmospheric perspective), we’ll add a gradient layer mask. Click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to add a layer mask to the Sand layer, followed by pressing G to activate the Gradient tool.

Click on the arrow next to the gradient swatch and choose Black, White from the presets menu. Create the gradient by positioning the cursor just above the top of the sand and click+Shift+drag to just below it.

When you’re done, the Sand layer and its layer mask should look similar to the image below.

Step 7

Right now, the sand looks exactly like what it is: a Dutch beach in the winter. Not very exotic if you ask me. To make it look more like a desert floor, we’ll change the color.

Click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Levels from the list. Rename the new Levels layer to “Color”. In the Adjustments palette, first click on the Clip icon at the bottom. This ensures that the Color layer only affects the sand and nothing else.

Next, set the Lightness channel’s black point to 73 and its black point to 240. Switch to the a channel and set its black point to 243. Lastly, set the b channel’s black point to 229.

The background is now done. Click on the Sand layer and Shift+click on the Color layer. Group the layers (Ctrl+G/Cmd+G) and rename the new group to “Ground”.

Your image and Layers palette should now look like this:

Step 8

We’re now ready to start working on the characters. We’ll start with the camel. Open the Camel image (132037_5463.jpg) and separate the animal from its background as shown below. I used the Pen tool (P) for this but you can use any selection tool you feel comfortable with. Just make sure the selection is as smooth as possible.

Press Ctrl+J/Cmd+J to copy the camel selection to a new layer. As you can see, some of the rope the camel is tethered with is still visible on its body and we need to get rid of it because it looks strange.

Select all pieces of rope with the Lasso tool (L), like so:

Next, press Shift+F5 to bring up the Fill dialog. Set the Use field to Content-Aware and click Ok. The rope disappears.

NOTE: if you’re working with a version of Photoshop older than CS5, Content-Aware fill is not available. If that’s the case, just use the Clone Stamp tool (S) to remove the rope.

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In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create an illustration using techniques such as creating a stylized background, applying patterns effectively and adding ink outlines.

The template for today’s subject, an airship, was created in the Blender 3D suite. If you’re interested in including 3D in your workflow, I highly recommend this Open Source 3D software. You can download it for free at www.blender.org.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

Start Photoshop if you haven’t already done so and open “Starter.psd” from the Assets.zip file. Inside this psd you’ll find 4 layers: BG, which is a plain white layer, and 3 layers each representing the airship. The first layer, Shaded, we’ll use as the foundation for the art work. The second one, Perspective guide, we’ll use as a guide for placing textures and the third, Selection guide, is rather garish but very handy for making quick and accurate selections of the various parts of the airship.

Step 2

Before going any further, let’s set up the brushes and patterns we need. The brushes are first. Activate the Brush tool (B) and right+click somewhere in the image. The brush presets dialog appears. Click on the small arrow at the top right and choose Replace Brushes from the menu. Locate the “Airship.abr” file and click the Load button.

Next, click on the arrow again and, this time, choose Load Brushes from the menu. Find the lightning brushes you downloaded (firestorm_lightning4.abr) and click Load to append these brushes to the brush presets.

Step 3

To conclude the preparations, we’ll load the patterns. Press Shift+F5 to bring up the Fill dialog. Set Use to Pattern and click on the arrow next to the Custom Pattern swatch. The pattern presets dialog will be displayed. Click the small arrow at the top right of the dialog box and choose Replace patterns from the menu. Locate the “Airship.pat” file and click Load to load the patterns into Photoshop.

Step 4

Alright, let’s get going! First off, save the Starter.psd file to another name (Ctrl+Shift+S/Cmd+Shift+S) to keep the original safe. I called my version “Airship.psd” but you can call yours anything you like.

We’ll start with the background. Turn off all airship layers (Shaded, Perspective guide and Selection guide) by clicking on the eye icons in front of the layers. Click on the BG layer to make it active. Create a new layer by clicking on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and rename this layer to “Sky Gradient”. Activate the Gradient tool (G) and click on the Gradient swatch in the Options bar. When the Gradient Editor appears, set the first color to a bright sky blue (#0277ec) and the second color to pure white (#ffffff).

Click Ok to set the gradient to the colors you just specified. Click at the top of the image, Shift+drag all the way down to the bottom and release the mouse button to create the gradient.

Step 5

Open the Sky 1 image (1077522_97541131.jpg). Press Ctrl+A/Cmd+A to select the whole image. Next copy it to the clipboard (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C) and close the Sky 1 image by pressing Ctrl+W/Cmd+W. Back in the Airship image, paste the sky above the Sky Gradient layer (Ctrl+V/Cmd+V). Rename the new layer to “Sky 1″.

As you can see the sky image is a little too small. Use Free Transform (Ctrl+T/Cmd+T) to scale it up so that it fits.

Next, set the Sky 1 layer’s Blend Mode to Multiply and its Opacity to 70%.

Step 6

Open the Sky 2 image (1263723_42231450.jpg) and copy and paste it into the Airship image as you did with Sky 1. The new layer should sit above the Sky 1 layer. If not, drag it into place in the Layer’s palette. Rename this new layer to “Sky 2″.
As with the previous sky image, it’s too small. Again, use Free Transform to scale it until it fits.

Next, in the Layer’s palette right+click in an empty space next to the Sky 2 layer’s name and choose Convert to Smart Object from the popup menu.

Why we’re doing this will become clear in a minute. For now, set the Sky 2 layer’s Opacity to 70%.

Step 7

To start building the effect we’re after we need to apply a filter from the Filter Gallery to the Sky 2 layer. However, as you’ve probably noticed, the image is in Lab Color mode. Although this is a great color mode, many filters, including all Filter Gallery filters, are not available in Lab Color, which means we have to perform some special ops to work around this limitation. Fortunately for us, since Smart Objects are available to us from Photoshop CS3, this is not a problem.
Double-click on the Sky 2 layer’s thumbnail. This will cause the Smart Object to open in a separate window as Sky 2.psb.

In order to apply a Filter Gallery filter, the image needs to be in RGB color mode. To make it so, choose Image>Mode>RGB Color from the menu.
Next, choose Filter>Filter Gallery from the menu and locate the Dry Brush filter, which lives under the Artistic heading. Set Brush Size to 4, Brush Detail to 6 and Texture to 1. Click Ok to apply the filter.

Save the Smart Object (Ctrl+S/Cmd+S) and close it (Ctrl+W/Cmd+W). The main Airship image will now be automatically updated to reflect the changes we made. Note that, although we converted the Sky 2 Smart Object to RGB color, the main file is still in Lab Color mode, which is exactly as it should be.

Step 8

Now it’s time to give the sky the right atmosphere. For this we’ll need a number of adjustment layers. The first one will lighten the upper right corner of the sky. Click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the layers palette and choose Hue/Saturation from the list. Rename the new adjustment layer to “Lighten”. Set the Lightness to +43.

Press G to activate the Gradient tool. Click on the arrow next to the gradient swatch and set the gradient to Black, White. Click on the Reverse checkbox to turn it on.

Click on the Lighten layer’s layer mask to make it active and draw a gradient from just below the upper right corner of the image to just left of the center as shown below.

Your image should now look like the one below.

Step 9

Create another Hue/Saturation adjustment layer by clicking on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon and picking Hue/Saturation from the menu. Rename the layer to “Desat”and set the Saturation slider to -64.

Click on the Desat layer’s layer mask to make it active and, using the Gradient tool (G), draw a mask as indicated below.

Step 10

To make the clouds on the left hand side of the image look like storm clouds, we need to darken them quite a bit. To do this, create a new Curves adjustment layer, rename it to “Darken” and set the Lightness channel like so:

The Darken layer needs the same layer mask as the Desat layer. To make that happen, click on the Desat layer’s layer mask and Alt+drag/Opt+drag it onto the Darken layer. When Photoshop asks if you want to replace the layer mask, click Yes.

Step 11

We need one more adjustment layer. This time we’ll bump up the contrast in the sky to make it look even more dramatic. Create a Levels adjustment layer and rename it to “Contrast”. Adjust the Lightness channel by setting the black point to 6 and the white point to 224.

Step 12

Next, we’ll make the sky look as if it was painted with water colours over pencil lines. Make sure that the three airship layers are still turned off and that all the sky layers are turned on. Press Ctrl+A/Cmd+A to select the whole image, followed by Ctrl+Shift+C/Cmd+Shift+C to send a merged copy of the sky to the clipboard. Make sure that the Contrast layer is selected and press Ctrl+V/Cmd+V to paste the merged copy of the sky as a new layer above the Contrast layer. Rename the new layer to “Pencil lines”.

Press Ctrl+Shift+U/Cmd+Shift+U to desaturate the Pencil lines layer and set its Blend Mode to Multiply. To complete the effect, choose Filter>Stylize>Find Edges from the menu.

Below you see a before and after shot of the sky.

Step 13

Click on the Sky gradient layer and Shift+click on the Pencil lines layer to select all sky layers. Press Ctrl+G/Cmd+G to group them and rename the new group to “Clouds”.

As a finishing touch, let’s put in some lightning. Create a new layer above the Clouds group and activate the Brush tool. Right+click and choose one of the lightning brushes from the presets. I picked lightning brush 7 but you can pick any you like. Set the brush’s Size to 1100 pixels and your foreground color to pure white (#ffffff).

Click once somewhere inside the image to create a lightning bolt. Use the Move tool to position it over the dark clouds on the left.

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In this tutorial you’ll learn how to create a photo manipulation of a fallen angel using advanced skills. You’ll master some techniques such as:

• Extracting hair the correct way.
• Blending various photographic elements seamlessly.
• Creating realistic, custom lighting for your scene.
• Working with smart objects and a professional non-destructive workflow.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image you’ll be creating:

Step 1

First off, create a new file (Ctrl+N/Cmd+N) which is 2000×2313 pixels at a Resolution of 300 pixels/inch, set the Color Mode to Lab Color and the background to Transparent. Save this file as “Angel.psd”.

Step 2

Click on the foreground color swatch in the tool box to open up the color picker. Set the color to a dark blue-gray (#181a1e).
Press Alt+Backspace/Opt+Delete to fill Layer 1 with this color. Rename the layer to “BG”.

Step 3

Open up the Wall image (PlasterLeaking0046_1_L.jpg), press Ctrl+A/Cmd+A to select all, followed by Ctrl+C/Cmd+C to copy the image to the clipboard. Switch to the Angel.psd image and copy the wall into it (Ctrl+V/Cmd+V). The new layer should sit above the BG layer. Rename this layer to “Wall”. Use Free Transform to scale and position the Wall layer as indicated below.

Next, set the Wall layer’s Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Step 4

Alt+click/Opt+click the Create new fill or adjustment layer icon at the bottom of the layer’s palette. Hold the Alt or Opt key while choosing Hue/Saturation from the pop-up menu.

When the New Layer dialog appears, type “Desat” in the name field and tick the Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask box. Click Ok to create a new Hue/Saturation adjustment layer.

When the Hue/Saturation dialog pops up, set the Lightness to -50 and the Saturation to -22.

Click on the Wall layer and Shift+click on the Desat layer to select them both. Press Ctrl+G/Cmd+G to group the layer and rename the new group to “Wall”.

Step 5

Although the wall won’t be playing a vital role in the overall composition, it helps to tell the story if we add some interest to it in the shape of pipes. Open up the Pipes image (Pipes0081_L.jpg). We need to separate the pipes from the wall. The easiest way to do that is to duplicate the background layer first by pressing Ctrl+J/Cmd+J. It’s always a good idea to duplicate the layer you’re going to work on, in case something goes terribly wrong. Next, create a layer mask for the new layer by clicking on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layer’s palette. Make sure the layer mask is active (it’ll have a double border around it) and that the foreground color is black. Use the Pen tool (P) to draw around each section of the wall. Every time you finish a piece of the wall press Ctrl+Enter/Cmd+Return to create a selection from the path and fill the selection with black by pressing Alt+Backspace/Opt+Delete. If you’re not sure how to use the Pen tool to create selections effectively, have a look at this tutorial.

When you’re done, the result should look like this:

Now we’ll transfer the masked layer to Angel.psd. Right+click in an empty space next to your masked layer’s name and choose Duplicate layer from the pop-up menu. When the dialog appears, click on the arrow next to the Document name and choose Angel.psd from the list. Click Ok to confirm. You can now close the Pipes image.

Step 6

Back in Angel.psd you’ll see that the pipes are copied and pasted on their own layer. Make sure this layer sits above the Wall group and rename it to “Pipes left”.  Next press Ctrl+T/Cmd+T and scale the pipes so that they fit vertically on the wall. When you’re done, right+click in the transformation rectangle and pick Flip Horizontal from the pop-up menu.

Right+click on the Pipes left layer mask and choose Apply Layer Mask from the list.

Use the Lasso tool (L) to select the right hand side group of pipes as shown below. Press Shift+Ctrl+J/Shift+Cmd+J to cut and paste the selection to a new layer. Rename this layer to “Pipes right”.

Activate the Move tool (V) and position the Pipes right layer against the right hand side edge of the image. Next, select the Pipes left layer by clicking on it and move it over to the left edge of the image.

Step 7

There are several things we need to do to make the pipes fit in with the wall. We’ll start with the pipes on the left. Open the Drips image (DecalsLeaking0181_1_S.png) and use the Rectangular Marquee tool (M) to select a piece of it as shown below. Copy it (Ctrl+C/Cmd+C) to the clipboard. Don’t close the image yet, we’ll need it again in a moment.

Switch to Angel.psd and press Ctrl+V/Cmd+V to paste the drip. In the Layers palette and rename the layer to “Drip”. In the Layers palette, grab the Drip layer and drag it below the Pipes left layer.

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This tutorial is a mammoth, and actually our longest, most in depth tutorial on record! It’s great to welcome Caroline to the team, and I’m sure you guys will learn a lot from her.

This tutorial was simply too long to post as a single post, with around 200 images and 57 incredibly detailed steps. As a result we have split it into two sections.

Part 1 was published earlier this week (you can access the preview for it here)and taught you how to construct a complex building structure from scratch using the free software Google Sketchup. Part 2 today shows you how to take the 3D Sketchup model and use advanced matte painting techniques and advanced Photoshop skills to turn it into a realistic final scene.

Let’s get going!

A note from Caroline:

In this tutorial you’ll find out how to use a “sketch” created in a 3D application as the foundation for a matte painting. To create the 3D template we’ll use a nifty little program called Sketchup. Most 3D programs have a very steep learning curve but Sketchup, which was designed with 2D artists in mind, can easily be learned in as little as an hour or two. Best of all, Sketchup is free!

After we’ve created the 3D sketch, we’ll take it into Photoshop and turn it into a matte painting using photo manipulation techniques and some simple brush work.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 21

First of all we’ll load the brushes and the color swatches we need for this project into Photoshop. Start Photoshop if you haven’t done so already and choose Edit>Preset Manager from the menu. The first dialog you see should be the Brush presets. If not, press Ctrl+1/Cmd+1 to make it so. Next, click the Load button, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the Brushes 01.abr file and double-click on it to load the brush set into Photoshop.

Still in the Preset Manager press Ctrl+2/Cmd+2 to switch to the Swatches panel. Click Load and find the Colors 01.aco  file. Double click on it to load the color swatches.

Click Done to close the Preset Manager.

We’re now ready to start on the matte painting proper.

Step 22

Press Ctrl+N/Cmd+N to create a new file which is  2000×2880  pixels at 300 dpi. Set the Color Mode to Lab Color and the bit depth to 8 bit. The background contents should be set to Transparent.

We’ll work in the Lab Color mode for two reasons. Firstly, it’s device independent so it doesn’t matter on which monitor it’s viewed or on which printer it’s printed, it will always look the same. Secondly, unlike in RGB mode, in Lab Color mode the grayscale levels are separate from the color levels, which means that it’s much easier to keep light and dark values under control without changing the colors in the process. If you’d like to know more about Lab Color mode, you  might want to have a look at this short tutorial.

Step 23

In the next few steps we’ll prepare the canvas so that we’ll be all set for the work ahead. Some of the work is a little tedious but it’ll save us a lot of jumping back and forth later on.

First of all, load the Template.png that you exported from Sketchup into the new document by choosing File>Place from the menu. Find the Template.png  file and double-click it to place it in the new document as a smart object. When placing the file the Free Transform mode becomes automatically active because Photoshop guesses you want to resize the smart object to fit the document, which is indeed the case.

Enter the values shown below in the Free Transform option bar and press Enter to fit the Template onto the canvas.

Step 24

Create a new layer (Shift+Ctrl+N/Shift+Cmd+N) above the Template layer. Rename this new layer “Front walls”. Next, select the areas in the Template layer on either side of the building. I used the Pen tool (P) to do this, but you can use any selection tool you feel comfortable with.

Save this selection as an alpha channel by choosing Select>Save Selection from the menu. Type “Front walls” in the Name field and click OK to create the alpha channel.

Make sure that both the selection and the Front walls layer are active and press Shift+F5. When the Fill dialog appears, choose 50% gray from the Contents list and press Enter to fill the selection with this color. Press Ctrl+D/Cmd-D to remove the selection.

Double-click in an empty space next to the Front walls layer’s name. When the Layer Style dialog appears, Click on the Stroke option to activate it and enter the following values:

Step 25

To save some time later on, we’ll create an alpha channel for each piece of the composition. This is very repetitive work and to make the process a little faster, I suggest that you assign shortcut keys to the Save Selection and Load Selection menu options.

To do this, choose Edit>Keyboard Shortcuts from the menu. When the dialog pops up, make sure that the Shortcuts For: option is set to Application Menus. Find the Select folder and click on the arrow in front of it to open it. Next, scroll down until you see the Load Selection and  Save Selection entries. Click on Load Selection to activate it and press Alt+F1/Opt+F1 to assign that shortcut combination to the menu option. Click on Save Selection  and press Alt+F2/Opt+F2 to assign the key combination to that menu option. Then Click the Accept button followed by clicking OK to close the dialog.

Alt+F1/Opt+F1 is now assigned to the Load Selection menu option and Alt+F2/Opt+F2 to the Save Selection menu option.

Select the top portion of the back  wall, press Alt+F2/Opt+F2 and save the alpha channel as “Back wall top”.

Proceed to select the remaining areas and save them to alpha channels one by one as shown below.

When you’re done you should have 16 alpha channels, including the Front walls channel we made earlier.

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This tutorial is a mammoth, and actually our longest, most in depth tutorial on record! It’s great to welcome Caroline to the team, and I’m sure you guys will learn a lot from her.

This tutorial was simply too long to post as a single post, with around 200 images and 57 incredibly detailed steps. As a result we have split it into two sections. Today’s section (Part 1) teaches you how to construct a complex building structure from scratch using the free software Google Sketchup. Part 2 will be posted this Friday and shows you how to take the 3D Sketchup model and use advanced matte painting techniques and advanced Photoshop skills to turn it into a realistic final scene.

Let’s get going!

A note from Caroline:

In this tutorial you’ll find out how to use a “sketch” created in a 3D application as the foundation for a matte painting. To create the 3D template we’ll use a nifty little program called Sketchup. Most 3D programs have a very steep learning curve but Sketchup, which was designed with 2D artists in mind, can easily be learned in as little as an hour or two. Best of all, Sketchup is free!

After we’ve created the 3D sketch, we’ll take it into Photoshop and turn it into a matte painting using photo manipulation techniques and some simple brush work.

Final Image

As always, this is the final image that we’ll be creating:

Step 1

When you start Sketchup, you’ll see the start up screen. First of all, and this is optional, you might want to print the Quick Reference Card. It’s very handy to have close by, especially when you’ve never used Sketchup before.

Next, click the Choose Template button and pick “Architectural Design – Millimeters” from the list. To create a new file using this template, click the “Start using Sketchup” button at the bottom of the dialog.

Step 2

When the main screen appears, choose View > Toolbars from the menu and activate the toolbars we need as shown below.

Step 3

We’re now ready to start creating the structure.

Click on the Rectangle tool in the toolbar or press “R” on the keyboard. Position the cursor where the 3 axes converge until you see the word “origin” appear. Hold down the left mouse button and draw up along the blue line (the up or z-axis), Then draw along the red line (the across or x-axis), making sure not to stray from the red line. You’ll see a rectangle appearing. Without clicking anywhere, type “8m,10m”. The measurements appear in the bottom right corner of the screen as you type. Press Enter and a rectangle of 8 meters wide and 10 meters high is created.

The figure (which is called ‘Susan’ by the way) has vanished but we’ll sort that out later.

Step 4

Zoom out and pan the view with the middle mouse button as indicated on the Quick Reference Card, so that you can see the whole rectangle you just created.

Select the Push-Pull tool or press “P”. Click on the rectangle and pull towards the horizon. Type “10m” and press Enter. Take care not to forget the “m”, otherwise Sketchup thinks you mean millimeters instead of meters. The rectangle has now become a box of 8 meters wide, 10 meters high and 10 meters deep.

Press the spacebar to activate the Selection tool. Click on the front face of the box so it becomes selected. Press “Delete” to get rid of it.

Step 5

At the moment the structure is nothing more than a box. Let’s do something about it by creating the roof. Activate the Line tool by clicking on its icon in the toolbar or by pressing “L”. Next go to the Top view by clicking on its icon in the View toolbar. Zoom out so that you can see the whole top rectangle. Hover the mouse over the top edge until you see a cyan circle, click and drag down to the bottom edge. Move the mouse over the bottom edge until another cyan circle appears, when it does, click to create a straight line.

Switch to the front view by clicking on its icon in the View toolbar. Hit the Spacebar to activate the Selection tool. Click on the line you’ve just created to select it. The line will turn blue. Press “M” or click on the Move tool icon in the toolbar. Hover the mouse over the selected line, click and drag it up along the blue axis. You’ll know when the Move tool is on the blue axis because a blue dotted line appears as you drag. Type “3m” to raise the roof 3 meters and press Enter to confirm.

The basic structure is now finished. Next we’ll create some details inside the building.

Step 6

The back wall will have the most detail, so we’ll start there. Position the camera so that you can see the whole of the back wall. Press the Spacebar to activate the Selection tool and select Susan, she’ll turn blue. Press “Delete” to get rid of her.

To make our lives easier, we’ll first create some guidelines on the back wall. Press “T” to activate the Tape Measure tool. Hover the mouse over the bottom edge of the back wall until a red square and the text “On Edge” appear. Click and drag up. Type “3.25m” and press Enter. You now have a horizontal guideline at a height of 3.25 meters.

Step 7

Activate the Rectangle tool (R) and  hover the mouse over the point where the left edge of the  back wall intersects with the guide line. As soon as you see a red cross and the text “Intersection”, click and drag diagonally to the bottom right corner of the back wall. When a green circle with the text “Endpoint” appears, click to create the rectangle.

Select the Push-Pull tool (P), click on the new rectangle and drag down to extrude it. Type “1.5m” and press Enter to complete the extrusion.

To tidy up, zoom out a little using the mouse wheel and actvate the Eraser tool (E). Click on the horizontal guideline outside  the building to delete it. Do not try to click inside the building because that’ll erase parts of the building as well as the guide. It’s good practice to erase guidelines as soon as you’re done with them. If you don’t, the work area gets very messy very quickly and it becomes difficult to draw the shapes you need.

Step 8

To create the detail on the bottom half of the back wall, we need quite a lot of guidelines. Let’s start with the horizontal ones.

Starting at the bottom edge, create 2 new horizontal guides, using the Tape Measure tool (T) and the same method as in Step 6. Create a guide at 2.75m and another at 2m.

Next, create 6 vertical guidelines by dragging each one out from the left edge of the back wall, typing its position and pressing Enter. The positions are: 0.5m, 2.25m, 2.75m, 5.25m, 5.75m and 7.5m.

Step 9

Activate the Rectangle tool (R) and draw 3 rectangles using the guidelines as shown below:

To turn the rectangles into arches, activate the Arc tool by pressing “A” or clicking on its icon in the toolbar. Hover with the mouse over the top left point of the first rectangle until a green circle appears, then click. Move the cursor over to the right top corner of the rectangle and click again when you see a green circle. Drag the mouse up until the arc snaps to the top most horizontal guide. Click to finish.

Do the same for the other 2 rectangles to create 3 arches in total.

Step 10

The arches and the rectangles are still separate surfaces. To be able to work with them effectively each arch and its rectangle have to be combined. Activate the Eraser tool (E) and click on each dividing edge in turn. This creates 3 complete arches.

Select the Push-Pull tool (P). Click on the left arch and drag the cursor up to extrude the arch inwards. Type “0.5m” and press Enter to extrude the arch inwards by half a meter.

With the Push-Pull tool still active, double-click on the center arch. This extrudes the arch inwards by the last entered distance, which is 0.5m. To finish up, double-click on the right arch to extrude it as well.

Zoom  out until you can see the whole building. Select the Eraser tool and delete all  guidelines by clicking on them in turn. Make sure to click outside the building to avoid deleting any geometry. If all went well, your building now looks like this:

That’s the end of the preview!

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