Stay on this step by step Illustrator and Photoshop tutorial to start a retro style tome cover featuring a stylized vector illustration of Superman. We’ll start the Superman illustration with simple vector shapes before laying out the complete retro style tome cover with textures in Photoshop.
The design we’ll be making has similar character to ancient tome covers early publishers such as Penguin. The colour palette replicates the vital printing mode of the originals while document textures with burns and creases give the design that ages and retro advent.
Open up Adobe Illustrator and start a new document. Use the Circle and Rounded Rectangle tools to start the high parts of a ‘man symbol’. Use the align palette to centre them both up.
Take up again drawing and overlapping shapes with the Rounded Rectangle tool to start the arms and legs. Toggle on Smart Guides (CMD+U) for help aligning the shapes accurately.
Select all the shapes that make up the body and merge them together with the Pathfinder palette.
Use the rounded rectangle tool to magnet intersecting shapes between the arms and legs. Select each of these shapes in isolation along with the foremost body shape then click the subtract icon in the Pathfinder to punch out the shape.
Change the colour of the reputation to a skin/flesh tone, then copy (CMD+C) and paste in adjoin (CMD+F) a duplicate. Fill this duplicate with blue then punch out the hand areas with temporary shapes using the Pathfinder palette.
Paste in another copy of the body shape. This time fill it with red, then magnet a large temporary shape over the total body excluding the lower legs. Punch out this shape to leave a duo of red boots.
Use the Pen tool to magnet in a duo of red pants. The Smart Guides will help lock the points exactly in house over the original body outline.
Magnet one half of the vital outline of the Superman emblem. Copy and paste, then go to Differ > Transform > Reflect. Merge these two halves with the Pathfinder palette.
Use the Pen tool to magnet the high part of the cape. The Smart Guides will help align the points and paths again.
Magnet the remainder of the cape using the points of the before shape as early and ending positions. Hurl the cape to the bottom of the stack with the shortcut CMD+Budge+[.
Our vital stylized vector Superman is complete. Now let’s go over to Photoshop to lay out the complete retro tome cover.
Start a new Photoshop document and paste in a cool document feel as a social class. This fastidious feel gather in a line is a freebie early LostandTaken.
House on top another document feel, this time point out one with a reduced amount of creases and folds, but with extra prominent grain. Adjust the hue/infiltration and change the blending mode to Linear Burn.
Use the marquee tool to magnet selections across the top and bottom of the design and fill them with blue. Change the blending mode to Multiply to allow the feel to show owing to.
Paste in the vector Superman early Illustrator and extent it centrally on the cover design.
Change the blending mode of the reputation to Multiply at 35%, then duplicate the layer and change the mode to Linear Burn at 50%.
Use the Text tool to type in the title of the tome using a classic font such as Helvetica or Gill Sans. Use a colour selection early the top secret colour palette.
These handy price tag brushes early DeviantArt user chokingonstatic come in handy to add a retro style sticker to the cover.
The mixture of the vital design style, top secret colour palette and various textures all help replicate that vintage style of aged books. If you loved this tutorial, why not start a complete series for all your favourite super heroes?
Download the source gather in a line