Welcome to the fifth and last tutorial in the “Creating a Set of Digital Painting Icons” series. We will end with an icon that depicts both a tool and a typical application of digital painting: a large display with a finished matte painting.

The screen will be drawn in a few easy steps using familiar Photoshop tools. We will then employ techniques and workflows utilized by professional matte painters to create a finished cityscape. Far from being an exercise on matte painting, this tutorial nonetheless gives us a peek into this fascinating branch of digital arts.

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Tutorial and Series Details

Below are the five icons we are creating in this series.

Take a look at the icon we’ll be creating in this tutorial, which is a large LED display with a finished cityscape matte painting on screen.

• Program: Adobe Photoshop CS2 and later
• Difficulty: Intermediate
• Estimated Completion Time: 1.5 hours

Step 1

Today’s operating systems give us the chance to work on big icons. Open a new document and set the canvas to 512px by 512px. Set the foreground color to light gray. Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U) from the toolbar, make sure the Radius is set to 10px, and draw a 480px by 300px rectangle at the center of the canvas. This will be the outer frame of the display.

Step 2

Select the frame’s pixels by Command-clicking the thumbnail in the Layers palette. From the Select menu choose Modify > Contract and enter 2 pixels (2a). Fill the selection with black on a new layer. This is the glass that covers the LCD panel (2b).

Step 3

Command-click the glass and contract the selection by 1 pixel (3a). Fill the selection with a white-to-black vertical gradient on a new layer, which we’ll call “reflection” (3b). Select the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) and make a trapezoidal selection around the right half of the display (3c). Apply it as a mask to the “reflection” layer, which should be set to the Screen blending mode and 20% Opacity (3d).

Step 4

Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) create a new layer above the “glass” and below the “reflection” and fill it with a placeholder color, for example light blue (4a). Name it “screen.” Add a pinhole webcam at the top of the screen and a logo of your choice at the bottom. Let’s make the logo glow, too (4b and 4c).

Step 5

Now we need to draw the support. Draw a light gray rounded rectangle just like we created the frame at the beginning (5a). Pick the Direct Selection Tool (A) from the toolbar. Select the top points and nudge them toward the center, tapering the support (5b). Add a vertical Gradient Overlay style to simulate the shadow cast by the display and the curvature of the support. Refer to images 5c and 5d for the settings. The result (5e) looks good but of course we need to add some thickness to the support.

Step 6

Duplicate the “support” layer. Move the copy below it and name it “support thickness” (6a). Add a Gradient Overlay style to shade the rounded corners (6b, 6c). The support is complete (6d).

Step 7

To finish the display we need to draw the shadow it casts on the ideal floor beneath it. Create a horizontal black ellipse (7a) and set it to Multiply, 50% Opacity (7b). Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter 10 pixels (7c). An Opacity of 50% is a good value to start with, but in this case the shadow is too strong so let’s reduce it to 20% (7d). Now choose the Blur Tool from the toolbar and soften the edges of the shadow with multiple strokes until it resembles image 7e. The display is now finished.

Step 8

Create a layer group called “PAINTING” (8a). I use lowercase for layer names and uppercase for group names. It makes them easy to distinguish when the layer stack becomes long. Command-click the “screen” (8b) and add this selection as a mask to the layer group (8c). This way we ensure our matte painting won’t bleed over the glass.

Step 9

We will now create a very basic matte painting that features a cityscape on a shoreline set at dusk. Let’s start. Place the “screen” layer inside the “PAINTING” group and rename it “background” (9a). Using a Gradient Overlay (9b, 9c) we transform the placeholder blue into a complex gradient that represents the sky at dusk. For the sake of an icon we don’t need to be extremely accurate. We have quite a few colors, though, top to bottom: dark blue, blue, light hazy blue for the horizon, purple for the setting sun and a deep blue for the sea (9d).

Step 10

In order to draw the buildings that make up the cityscape we need perspective guides. Using the Line Tool (U) and a bright green color, draw a series of perspective lines, all converging to a focus point on the left. Make sure the point lies on the horizon (10a). Group the lines.

Next draw a series of parallel horizontal lines, using a contrasting color like red (10b). Group the red lines too. Now hit Command + T to invoke Free Transform, right-click on the canvas and choose Perspective. Modify the lines’ perspective so they converge to a focus point on the horizon, far to the right outside the screen (10c). Our perspective grid is now ready. Group the green and red lines together and reduce their Opacity to 30% to make them barely visible (10d).

Step 11

Pick a dark blue color. On a new layer, paint the shoreline using the Brush Tool (B) set to 100% hardness. Fill the layer up to the horizon and make sure the top is flat and horizontal. Hold down Shift to paint perfectly horizontal or vertical strokes (11a).

Now comes the fun part! Create a new layer. Using the Rectangular Marquee Tool (M) make multiple selections and fill them with the same dark blue from the shoreline. Try to create organic groups of taller and shorter skyscrapers (11b). Throw in some lowrises for variety. Continue the process until you’re satisfied with your cityscape.

Step 12

The buildings need to be adapted to the perspective grid. Specifically, their tops have to be cut off along the perspective lines. Do that by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L) to select and erase the extra pixels (12a). When you’re finished you will see how the city slowly takes shape (12b). My composition admittedly is not so good, I hope you did better!

The key here is to have a couple of tall buildings up front and enough variation in order to avoid regular patterns as the buildings recede toward the horizon. The beauty of this method is that it’s so easy and quick to build the cityscape that it’s no trouble to start from scratch until you like what you see. Let’s push forward.

Step 13

The buildings are lit from the front. This means that we have to paint the front facades with the purply-orange light of dusk (13a). Do this on a separate layer masked with the “buildings” layer. Alt-click between them (13b). Make sure you blur the base of the frontlit facades so they fade out into the lower levels of the city (13c).

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