Homemade Tutorials

Hey there, people! I have returned with yet another Dark Knight tutorial. In this one, we’re going to attempt to recreate a Dark Knight poster (unofficial, mind you) that you can see here in all its glory. It’s a rather complex poster in my opinion, but I think we can pull off something similar looking. Now, I know The Dark Knight is long gone from the cinemas; this was an old tutorial I wrote, but haven’t published until today due to lack of time.

I just want to say from the start that this tutorial will not produce an exact replica of that poster, due to a number of factors. That said, let’s begin.

This is the poster I’m trying to recreate. This is the final outcome of this tutorial:

Step 1

Create new document (Ctrl+N), size 728×1024 (portrait), then fill up the layer with black. Download the image of the card that we will use, open it in Photoshop, then paste it in our document. Name this layer “Joker Card”.

Step 2

Duplicate the Joker Card layer, then hide the original layer. Open up the Layer Styles window by double-clicking on the copy layer inside the Layers window. Give it a Color Overlay of #040b15 and a white 1px Stroke, positioned inside. See below:

Right-click on the layer inside the Layers window and from the menu select Create Layers. This actually converts and divides the styles of the layer (Stroke, Color Overlay) into actual visible layers. Select the “Inner Stroke” layer and press E to bring up the Eraser Tool. Set it up as you see below and erase around the edges of that layer to give it a “worn” look to the stroke.

Select the “Color Fill” style layer. Load the “Chain – Torn Paper.abr” brush set and use them with the Eraser tool on this layer until you get something like below.

Select the layers “Color Fill”, “Inner Stroke” and the layer to which these are connected, by holding Ctrl and clicking on each of them inside the Layers window. Press Ctrl + E to merge them into one, then name the resulting layer “Card Back”.

We’ll be using this layer to fill out Batman’s head shape later on . Hide this layer for now and grab the batman’s face screenshot here.

Step 3

Open the screenshot in Photoshop and drag it or paste it into your poster document.

Next up, desaturate the screenshot layer by pressing Ctrl+Shift+U. Grab the Smudge tool (R), size 20, strength about 50% and start working the mouth area.

Try to smudge the whole area (the part where the skin shows) into a solid looking color. Basically, you want to erase his “original” mouth, as it doesn’t fit the look of our poster (we will add a better mouth later). Try to make this part look as smooth as possible, like the screenshot.

You should also use the Patch Tool (J) with the Patch property set to Destination. The way this works is you draw circular selections with it on the smoother areas and drag these over the not-so-smooth areas. It works kind of like the Clone Stamp Tool (S), which you will need to use to further “refine” and smooth the look of the skin. It should look something like the screenshot below.

Step 4

Cut using the Lasso Tool (L), leaving just the shape of the head and the upper torso. Then duplicate the head layer (Ctrl+J). Give the duplicated layer the blending mode Linear Dodge. This will enhance the details on the head and basically add contrast, so its features are much more visible.

Step 5

Time to add that new mouth on there. Grab a screenshot of Christian Bale here. Open it with Photoshop. Grab the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and draw a selection around the mouth, like the screenshot.

Copy that selection and paste it into our poster document. Press 5 to drop its opacity to 50% (to allow us to better appreciate where we should place it), then position the mouth where it should be (the mouth area of Batman’s head). It should now look something like this:

Grab the Eraser Tool (E), then from its properties at the top, select Mode: Brush, Opacity: 100%, Flow: 10%. Start erasing the parts of the “new mouth” layer that are overflowing the mouth area. When finished, press 0 to bring the “new mouth” layer’s opacity back up to 100% and you should have a result looking more or less like the image below:

Duplicate the “mouth” layer and give the duplicate layer the blending mode Overlay. This will saturate the mouth area and add some contrast. Select both “mouth” layers in the Layers window and press Ctrl+E to merge them together into one layer. Press Ctrl+Shift+U to desaturate this layer, then give it blending mode Overlay.

Step 6

Alright, now comes the fun part! If you remember the “Card Back” layer from way back on Step 2, you’ll need to unhide that layer. Give it a Drop Shadow with the settings like below:

Next, you will duplicate this layer to cover Batman’s face and basically draw a rough shape of his upper torso, like in the screenshot below:

Next up, let’s unhide the “Joker Card” layer from Step 1. Give it a Drop Shadow, same as the “Card Back” layer with the settings above. Make sure it’s above the “Card Back” layer and its duplicates in the Layers window. Duplicate the Joker Card all over the rest of the canvas, carefully rotating and placing the cards that are closer to center to “draw” Batman’s shape. See the screenshot of what I mean:

Select the Batman’s head layer and press Ctrl+L, then use the settings in the screenshot to alter its colors for a bluish tint.

Duplicate the Batman’s head layer and give it a Color Overlay with the color #162025. Give this layer the blending mode Color. In the Layers window, select this layer and the Batman’s head layer under it and merge them together (Ctrl+E). Name this layer “Batman”.

Step 7

Next, we’re gonna try to add some detail/texture to the neck and shoulders. Using the Clone Stamp Tool (S), follow the directions in the image below:

Use the Smudge Tool and Patch Tool alternately, as per the directions below:

Use the Dodge Tool with the shown settings:

Use the Smudge Tool and Patch Tool on the neck and shoulders area:

Step 8

What we’re gonna do now is add the image of Batman on each of the cards laying on their face. The process goes like this:

• Duplicate the “Batman” layer from Step 6 for each and every card we have on our canvas, except for the Joker cards.
• Place each of the Batman layer duplicates just above its corresponding card layer.
• With the Batman layer selected, we then hold Ctrl and click on the thumbnail of the corresponding card layer under it to create a selection area the shape of the card. We then go to the menu Select > Modify > Contract… and we contract the selection area by 1 px.
• Click the Add Vector Mask button at the bottom of the Layers window to mask the selected Batman layer.

Repeat this process for each of the cards until we have something looking like the image below:

Next, we must move the cards forming Batman’s image around a bit to give the impression of them being chaotically thrown around, as opposed to cleverly arranged

In the Layers window, select each group of two layers: the Batman layer and its corresponding Card Back layer. Move them around a bit (10-20px) in any direction you prefer, just enough to give the illusion of the image made up of random cards, but careful not to break it too much. My phrasing not making sense? See the image below:

Step 9

At the bottom of the Layers window, click on the Create new fill or adjustment layer button and from the menu, select Photo Filter. Use the settings in the image below. Create another adjustment layer, this time selecting Levels from the menu. Use the settings as shown below. Finally, create a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer, again using the settings below.

Place these 3 adjustment layers above all other layers in the Layers window. (heh, used the word layers a lot in that sentence.)

Our document should now look like this (more or less):

Step 10

Next up, we’re going to have to colorize the mouth area a bit. Grab the pen tool and draw a shape like below:

With the shape layer mask selected, press U and give it a fill color of #F6D18B, then give it a Linear Burn blending mode and an opacity of 60%.

Step 11

Time to add some blooooood on the cards. Download the blood brushes I used here, here and here.

Now, the basic procedure of adding blood on the cards goes like this (we’re going to need to repeat this procedure each time we want to add blood to a new area):

• Download and load the brushes into Photoshop
• Create a new layer above the layer you want to add blood onto.
• Select a red color. I used #4d0000.
• Grab the Brush Tool (B), select and use the brush you want to use. I used some blood spatter brushes, as well as drag marks etc. It’s all up to you.
• Once you’re done adding the blood stain, give the blood layer a Hard Light blending mode.

Once you’re done with the blood, your poster should look somewhat like this:

Step 12

Adding a little texture to the poster. Download the texture here. Open it in Photoshop, then paste it just below the 3 adjustment layers.

Desaturate it (Ctrl+Shift+U), then give it an opacity of 30%. Using the Lasso Tool (L), draw up a selection following the visible shape of Batman. Once you’re done drawing the selection area, press Ctrl+I to invert the selection (that is, select everything BUT Batman). Make this selection a layer mask for the texture layer by pressing with the texture layer selected. Give the texture layer a Hard Light blending mode. The outcome should look like this:

Step 13

Time to add some scotch tape to stick the cards together. Download the scotch tape brushes here, here, here and here.

Download and load the brushes into Photoshop, as usual. Using the color #f3ecbd, select the Brush Tool and create a new layer over the card you wish to put the tape on. Select the brush you want to use, Opacity 100%, Flow 100% and use it once. Give the layer a Drop Shadow with the settings as shown below:

Give the tape layer an Opacity of 50% and Flow 30%.

Repeat this process for the other tape pieces you want to add. The final outcome should look similar to this:

Step 14

I used a similar technique to the one I used on the blood to add the worn look to the Joker cards. Download the grunge/worn brushes I used here and here.

• Download and load the brushes into Photoshop
• Create a new layer above the card layer you want to add the worn look onto.
• Select a grayish color. I used #494845 for most part.
• Grab the Brush Tool (B), select and use the grunge brush you want to use.
• Try to brush in a non-uniform manner for a more realistic look (i.e. brush more on the corners or one side of the card).
• Give the grunge layer an opacity of 50%
• Add a layer mask () to the grunge layer in the shape of the card (Ctrl+click on the thumbnail of the card layer to load the selection).
• Do this for each of the Joker cards you have on your canvas

Final outcome:

Step 15

Time to get a little crazier still and mess up Batman’s face a bit.

Using one of the blood brushes, follow the steps in the image below, trying to keep each different brush stroke on a separate layer:

The final “smile” look should appear like this:

Add a bit of mold to the bottom part of Batman using the grunge brushes at flow of around 10-15%, then erasing around to give it an irregular shape.

It’s starting to look a bit better, eh?

Step 16

Download the exacto knife photo here. Cut out the background, then paste it into our document so that it’s above all of the card layers. Use the Burn tool on it to darken its edges a bit. Create a new layer and add a bit of blood using a brush. Mask the blood layer with the shape of the knife. Give the blood layer an Overlay blending mode. Add some wear the same way as you added the blood, using the color #0d140a. Give this layer a Difference blending mode.

Duplicate the exacto knife layer and give the original layer (the one below the duplicate) a black color overlay. Apply a Gaussian blur of 4px, then move the layer 5px to the right (press right arrow 5 times).

You should have something that looks like this:

Step 17

Let’s go ahead and add the title and copyright on there. I used the font TradeGothic LT.

Let’s add the crazy scratchy text now Unfortunately this will be up to you to draw, but I trust you will do just fine, given the fact that they look like they were drawn by a small child . I used the Brush Tool with the settings like below. The trick is to use only a couple of strokes per letter, but using more strokes for the “joints” of each letter. It also works to get in the mindset of the Joker, a crazy, erratic person, when making this writing. The color for the bat-shaped “hahaha” writing under the title is #51889c.

For the crazily drawn circle around the eye of Batman, you can use the same brush settings, except that you need to use black as the foreground color.

Make sure you use one layer for each doodle/writing chunk, so that you can move each of them around and change their properties (e.g. add Color Overlay) easily.

Step 18

A couple of final touches and we’re done!

Create a new layer and press D to bring up the default foreground/background colors (make it so that black is the foreground color). Press Alt+Backspace to fill the whole layer with black. Press 5 to make its opacity 50%. Add a layer mask to this layer.

Select the mask by clicking on it inside the Layers window. Press G to use the Gradient Tool, then, holding Shift draw a line downwards starting from the bottom of the title to about 10-15px above the bottom edge of the canvas. Press 0 to make the layer opacity 100% again. Place this layer right under the 3 adjustment layers at the top of the Layers window.

Repeat the process above up just before you created the layer mask. Now grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) and draw a selection of about 100px away from every edge of the canvas. Press Delete to remove the selection, leaving the poster with what looks like a black 100px wide border. Apply a Gaussian blur of 50px, then give the layer an opacity of 70%.

Great! It looks like we are done. Now, I know this only resembles the original poster, but the idea behind this tutorial was to shed light some of the techniques the creator of the original poster has (probably) used.

If you liked this tutorial, please drop me a comment on here. If anything was unclear, I’ll try to help you out. If you have ideas for a future tutorial, let me know. As usual you can download the PSD file below (yes, it’s huge).

Thanks for reading and I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial as much as I did making it!

Download Recreating The Dark Knight Poster PSD (18.3 MB)

Post comment