Katy Bellotte
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HOW TO: 3D Bubble letters! 💭
🕑 Added 2022-03-08 22:35:41 +0000 UTCTUTORIAL: HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN BUBBLE LETTERS
By request, we are bringing you a tutorial on how to recreate one of the design trends mentioned a few posts back here.
Today, we will be showing you how to create your own bubble letters. So grab a pen or pencil, some paper and let’s get creating!
- You can either start by sketching out your letters or go directly to Illustrator and start building the shapes yourself. If you choose to sketch it out yourself, scan in or take a picture of it. Here some settings you can adjust on your iPhone to make it look scanned:
- Add a ‘Mono’ or ‘Noir’ filter
- Bring Exposure up to about 50+ or until the background becomes whiter
- Add Brilliance to thicken line work
- Add Highlights to about -50 to really bright up background
- Add Contrast up to ~30+ or until all remaining background speckles disappear
- Add Black Point up to 100 to distinguish line work even more!
Tadaaaah! You have a scanned-looking image without needing to use a scanner.
Here’s a before and after:
AFTER:
2. Next, pull your sketch to either Photoshop or Illustrator to edit it.
In Photoshop, you can open a new layer on top of the photo and start tracing your sketch with a brush.
In Illustrator, you can either select your photo and ‘Image Trace’ it using the ‘Sketched Art’ or ‘Silhouettes’ options (This will keep your rougher ink lines) If you want a cleaner look, you can lock your image layer, trace over your photo and vectorize the shapes with the ‘Pen’ tool.
I went with the image tracing option to save some time, and to keep that rougher/wiggly look of my linework.
3. Next, draw a rectangle underneath the letters and select both the rectangle and the letters underneath. While selecting both, click on the ‘Shape Builder’ tool or the shortcut ‘Shift + M.’ Click inside the fill of each letter. It builds a new shape that creates a ‘Fill’ of each letter like below.
4. After creating a composition I was happy with, I added some colored strokes to the new letter forms. You can play around with mixing and matching strokes and fills within words or letters here!
I also wanted to try out Illustrator’s newest 3D features. You can access the features with the newest version of the program and by selecting a word (make sure it’s grouped!) and going to Effect > 3D and Materials > Extrude & Bevel.
You should also get a new pop-up window with 3D settings you can play around with here like the depth size, bevel, or trying different 3D types like inflate!
5. After making all of my text and other decorative elements 3D, I exported my design as a jpg and brought it into Photoshop.
Next, I added layers of textures of varying blending modes until I was happy with the result!
Hope you have a fun time creating your own bubble letters! :~)
Don’t feel ready to create your own letters just yet? Here are a few links to existing bubble-y fonts you can download and use in designs instead:
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Tutorial by Anna Korol. Anna is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She loves creating vibrant illustrations that she hopes can positively inspire others.
