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Using some free stuff to create a wallpaper

January 29, 2007 from

Last week, I had some free time while waiting for some layouts to be approved, so I thought that it was a great time to test some free stuff that I had gotten and never used before. As everybody knows there are tons of free icons, textures, clip arts and stuff like that on line, and every time that I find something I automatically download it, what makes my computer's desktop a mess.

Anyway, with a lot of brushes, textures and icons, I started to create my abduzeedo's wallpaper. The idea was pretty simple a collage of elements such as icons and brushes with a light beam coming from the sky as a UFO was abducting somebody.

I started using a wooden texture and a gradient color to give it a bit of depth.

Firstly I used a wooden texture with a gradient overlay
Firstly I used a wooden texture with a gradient overlay

After that I basically put some elements like a building with a woman, a crazy dude with a mask, an little deer on the top of the building.

Started messing around
Started messing around

The next thing that I did was pretty simple, I mirrored the elements, and aligned them in the center of the page.

Same elemets, duplicated and reflected
Same elemets, duplicated and reflected

The image needed more elements, I put a rainbow behind the towers, added some more elements like those balloons over the girl, those tribal elements behind the buildings, everything downloaded and free.

Spice it up a little bit
Spice it up a little bit

The abduction laser bean was created and, basically, it's a gradient mesh with the hard light blend effect.

The abduction part 1
The abduction part 1

To give more the idea of abduction, I put an illustration of myself behind the laser with a motion blur effect, so it looks like Im being abducted.

The abduction part 2
The abduction part 2

At last but not least I added another illustration in the middle of the page, with some green branches behind it.

The final result, really simple and fun to be done.
The final result, really simple and fun.

The whole image is nothing else than just a bunch of free stuff that can easily be found on the web. Anyhow, below there are some of the sites that I visited to get the elements I used on that wallpaper.

Brushes
http://gfxworld.org/web_templates/hi_res_tattoo_brush.html
http://www.misprintedtype.com/v3/goodies.php
http://www.psbrushes.net/index.php

J3Cons.07 Updated (icons)
http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/45651910/

More Icons
http://gfxworld.org/icons/
http://browse.deviantart.com/customization/icons/dock/
http://www.kde-look.org/

Textures and Patterns
http://44suburbia.org/
http://www.theinspirationgallery.com/
http://www.kavewall.com/stock/index.html

Podcast
http://www.revision3.com/pixelperfect

http://abduzeedo.com/files/imagecache/img690x320/originals/free-stuff-tut.jpg

About the author

Abduzeedo is a blog about design. There are all sorts of articles for those who want to look for inspiration. Also you will find very useful tutorials for the most used applications out there, with a special selection of Photoshop Tutorials and Illustrator Tutorials. You can get in follow us via Twitter at @abduzeedo

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