PSDFan Extra

Members Area Tutorial: Create a Suitcase Portfolio Illustration in Photoshop

Hey PSDFANs!

In this week’s advanced tutorial we’re going to be learning some awesome drawing techniques in Photoshop.

Never used Photoshop for drawing or illustration? Don’t worry! I’m going to walk you through every step of the way.

We’ll be creating a super realistic suitcase portfolio pretty well from scratch using Photoshop’s powerful drawing capabilities. You’ll also be following a very professional workflow, using non-destructive techniques and cutting edge organization.

Let’s get started!

Final Image

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

Step 1

Open Photoshop and hit Control + N to create a new document. Enter all the data shown in the following image and click OK. Enable the Grid (View > Show > Grid) and the Snap to Grid (View > Snap To > Grid). For the moment you need a grid every 5px. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices and focus on the Grid section. Enter 5 in the Gridline Every box and 1 in the Subdivision box. Also, set the color of the grid at #a7a7a7. Once you set all these properties click OK. Don’t get discouraged by all that grid. It will ease your work. You should also open the Info panel (Window > Info) for a live preview with the size and position of your shapes.

Step 2

Pick a light grey for the foreground color. Grab the Rounded Rectangle, set the radius at 10px and create a 355 by 160px vector path. Select it and go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Select Arc Lower from the Warp drop-down menu, enter 5 in the Bend box and hit Enter. Move to the Layers panel and double click on this vector path to open the Layer Style window. Activate the Inner Shadow, the Bevel and Emboss, the Gradient Overlay and the Pattern Overlay enter the properties shown in the following images then click OK. For the Pattern Overlay section you will need this pattern.

Step 3

Next, you need a grid every 1px. Simply go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices and enter 1 in the Gridline Every box. Set the foreground color at #74573a, grab the Rounded Rectangle Tool and draw a 1 by 5px vector path. Switch to the Direct Selection Tool, select all the anchor points that make up this new vector path, hold Alt, click on this shape and drag up 10px. This should add a copy of your path. Make sure that there’s a 5px gap between these two paths.

Step 4

Repeat the technique mentioned in the previous step and add nine new paths as shown in the first image. Select this dashed path and place it as shown in the second image. Open the Layer Style window for this path and enter the properties shown in the following images.

Step 5

Duplicate the path made in the previous step (Control + J). Select this copy, drag it to the right and place it as shown in the following image.

Step 6

Return to "gridine every 5px". So, go to Edit > Preferences > Guides, Grid & Slices and enter 5 in the Gridline Every box. Pick a light grey for the foreground color. Grab the Rounded Rectangle, make sure that the radius is set at 10px, create a 355 by 180px vector path and place it as shown in the first image. Select it and go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Select Bulge from the Warp drop-down menu, check the Orientation button, enter 7 in the Bend box and 2 in the "V" box then hit Enter. In the end your vector path should look like in the second image.

That’s the end of the preview!

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