Learn How to Create Your Own AVATAR Fan Art Using Photoshop

Want to create your own AVATAR screen art? Try these tips for using Photoshop to create your own amazing AVATAR fan art. It's easier than you think.

Guest post by Ty Wingfoot

If you admire AVATAR screen art and would like to try our tips for using Photoshop to create your very own AVATAR art, you're in the right place. You can use Photoshop to create amazing AVATAR fan art. Here are some great tips on using Photoshop for your next AVATAR and fan art adventure!

When designing AVATAR art you want to keep in mind a few things that will make your art shine. Would you like it to be animated or will still photography do the job? Whichever route you choose, make sure that you can envision the finished product before you start. Whether you would like to create yourself or incorporate some friends into an AVATAR, you will undoubtedly have a great time with these tips to create your own AVATAR and fan art.

A good place to start is learning to create an AVATAR character base with Photoshop for this tutorial. Open up Photoshop, preferably CS3, but any version from 7.0 and up will do. Go to File > New and make a new document. A dialogue screen will appear, now change your height and width dimensions to 200 x 200 pixels. Go to your Tools palette, and choose the base color of your liking. If you’re not sure, just choose white. Next click the Paint Bucket Tool and point the cursor in the center of your 200 x 200 canvas. Your background should now be the color you previously chose to use.

Go to Layers > New Layer on the Layers Palette. Then, in the Tools Palette, change your color to White. You can use a couple of brushes in White, and set them at 100% Opacity. We will not need it to be transparent. You will now put the brushes on the New Layer. These brushes will now be used to create a sparkle for our finished AVATAR. Now let's use a grid Brush at an Opacity that you approve, try 20 percent.

Now you have just created an AVATAR character base. You can use this as a still image or you later you can animate it. But let's not stop here; we can also make AVATAR fan art from hand drawings with Photoshop. Let's create AVATAR fan art, from a different perspective.

If you are familiar with the amazing art in the film AVATAR, you can create a simple custom scene with a background and your own hand drawn artwork.

Begin by picking one of your favorite scenes from AVATAR or choose your favorite character. Start simple like using a hand-drawn Na'vi character. Open Photoshop and scan your hand drawn image, or if you have a Wacom tablet, you can draw it right into your workstation.

Isolate your Na’vi character. Use the lasso tool and Select the background, then go to Select > Inverse to select the character alone. Go to New > Canvas and once the dialogue box appears, click OK. We want to drag the Na’vi character to the new canvas, using the Move tool.

Once the Na’vi character is moved to the new canvas, create a New Layer on the Layers Palette. You want the background to be painted separately from the Na’vi image. For this example, you can create a traditional cloud sky behind your Na’vi character. Make sure your foreground color is set to blue or green, depending on what time of day you want to portray, and your background color is set to white. In your layers palette, make sure the background layer is selected; a brush icon will appear to confirm the selection. Choose the Gradient tool from the tool bar and then proceed to click on the background canvas to create a diagonal line. Now we have our sky gradient background.

Now let's add some color and a bit of texture to the Na’vi skin. Start with a flat blue color and follow the muscle shapes. You can achieve this with the paint brush tool or the paint bucket, for the larger areas. For the texture, select Na’vi arms with the Magic Wand and go to Filter > Texture > Mosaic Tiles. This creates a bumpy texture for the arms.

Would you like to add some light to the scene for a dramatic effect? Let's try it! Click on your Na’vi character in the Layers palette. Now you should see both the background and the character. Go to Filters > Render > Lighting Effects > Crossing. Point the light in a diagonal direction over your Na’vi character, and then click OK. Play with the lighting until it begins to look like you're desired effect. Finally choose both layers and look at your finished Na’vi over a cloudy sky. Congratulations on creating your first piece of AVATAR fan art! Now you can use it where you see fit!

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What's your favorite fan art?