Create an Abstract Wallpaper for World Cup 2010 ~ Photoshop Tutorial

This tutorial will show how to create an abstract glowing background using the various brushes and warp transformation tool. We will also learn how to define brush patterns to make scanlines effects on layer masks.

Preview of Final Image

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Create a new document of size 1000×500 pixels. Fill the background with black color.

Create a new layer and rename it as Abstract Glow. Select the Brush tool and pick the Soft Round 300 pixel brush. Increase the Master Diameter to 650 pixel. With foreground as white color, paint two dots like what I have done below.

On the same layer, reduce the Master Diameter of your brush and draw several horizontal straight lines. You may use a different size for each line. To ensure that the line is straight, you can press and hold the SHIFT key while dragging your mouse across the screen.

We need to make a small arc. Go to Edit > Transform > Warp. Move the control points as shown in the screenshot below.

Right-click on the Abstract Glow layer and choose Blending Options. Check on Gradient Overlay and key in the settings as shown in bottom left. Then check on Outer Glow and key in the settings shown in bottom right. Leave the rest of the settings as default.

Using the same steps, let us create another abstract glow that is slightly more vertical.

You can also create large abstract glow and experiment with its Opacity value.

Now you have a nice glowing background. I believe this technique will be useful for your projects next time.

Moving on, create a new layer below the Abstract Glow layer. Rename the new layer as Background Lights. Using the Brush tool with large sizes, paint some huge dots with dark colors like red and green around the document area.

Download "3d rendering of a soccer ball with flags of the participating countries in world cup 2010" from ShutterStock. Place the image in between the Abstract Glow and Background Lights layers. Set the Blend Mode of this football image to Overlay.

Download "Football player with ball" from ShutterStock. Using Pen tool, extract the footballer from his white background and place it as a layer on top of the Abstract Glow layer. You can refer to this post for more methods of extraction.

Create a new document with size 1 x 2 pixels. Create a new layer and delete the original Background layer. Using the Pencil tool, make a black dot at the top. Select the whole document, go to Edit > Define Pattern. You have created a Brush Pattern that we are going to use later.

Select the footballer layer and make a Layer Mask on it. Click on the mask, pick the Paint Bucket tool and find the brush pattern created in the earlier step. Fill the layer mask with this pattern.

Pick on the Smudge tool, drag to blur and stretch some parts of the footballer.

Right-click on the footballer layer and choose Blending Options. Check on Gradient Overlay and key in the settings as shown in bottom left. Then check on Outer Glow and key in the settings shown in bottom right. Leave the rest of the settings as default.