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Design a Snowboarder Movie Poster in Photoshop

by Jono Lewis - Tutorials

What we are going today guys is create a fictitious movie poster in the snowboard movie style. It’s inspired by awesome snowboarders like Shaun White and films like First Descent and That’s It That’s All.

There is a story behind today’s tut. I’ll share it with Tutsarena’s readers briefly. I have a friend who is really keen on snowboarding. We went snowboarding in the Maluti Mountains in Lesotho, Africa. Yes, Africa – its not a country, its a continent. Its an awesome place. He broke his wrist jumping off a pretty big kick ramp. He lost control of his board when he went over a "death cookie" which is snowboarder jargon for a fist-sized hard block of frozen snow. These aren’t ideal when you are traveling really fast on a snowboard!

Final result

This is final result. We’re done! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and you’ve learnt something.

Before We Begin

Fonts You’ll Need:

While you are welcome to play around with your own fonts these are the fonts I have used. Links are provided where available so you can download their full fonts families yourself.

"GEORGE NETTLETON" – Gill Sans Display MT Pro
"DEATH COOKIE" film title – Great Lakes
Movie Credits – Steeltongs (this is essential!)
Film Award Lei Text – Gill Sans Display MT Pro
Featured music artists
deadmau5 – Helvetica Neue Lt Std
Tocadisco – Birdman
Armin van Buuren – Helvetica Neue Lt Std Blk

I’m using Adobe Photoshop CS4. I’ve set my Workspace mode to Web.

Step 1

We need to create the movie poster canvas. Dimensions of our project today 18 x 24”. Create a new project with Document Size set to these dimensions. If you intend to print this poster you might want to consider colour mode as RGB OR CMYK. It depends on the printer. I printed and mounted this poster to great satisfaction using an RGB printer. So the poster is medium size and the standard size of indoor posters. To repeat, my settings were RGB, 8-bit, 18 x 24″. Set resolution to 300 dpi if you intend to print. This is what I have done.

Step 2

Create a Layer group called Background. I created a rectangular shape. Using a shape makes it easy to nudge around the gradient later if needs be to better show up the headline. Next I have applied a new blue and icy cool gradient to it. This will form the background to our cinematic suspended snowboarder. Keep the default background layer set to #FFFFFF.
Here are the gradient settings.

Blue colour hexadecimal values from left to right:
#0b3a6a, #014d9b, #3e89d6, #84bdf7 and #FFFFFF. Move around the sliders until you are satisfied your gradient is similar.

Step 3

Select the rectangle layer. CTRL+T (Transform) the rectangular image and dragging from the top downwards decrease its size so that the rectangle is just over half its original height.

It should look something like this.

Step 4

What we do next here is create the lighter blue sky bursting with light behind our suspended snowboarder. This is a pretty simple use of a radial gradient and custom shape. Go the the background layer group we created right at the start and make Layer 0 (plain white background layer) not viewable by clicking on the eye.

Create a new layer in your Top Sky layer group calling it something like ‘top sky blue.’ Create a rectangular shape over the checkered area that is now exposed.
We create a simple radial gradient by choosing #d4e9fe and #ffffff as below. My Gradient Overlay settings are
Gradient: reverse
Style: radial
Scale: 150% so we can get an enlarged white central area.
Here is what you canvas should look like so far.

Step 5

Create a new layer in your Top Sky group calling it ‘spiral.’ Select the spiral from the custom shape menu. Draw the shape in the top sky layer area so that its runs off the actual canvas. We want it to be really big! You’ll notice the spiral has borrowed the gradient we created from the top sky. This is fine for now. We can tweak things in a bit.
Here is how my spiral looked.

We are not going to need much of the spiral shape below the start of our top sky blue layer. Our mountains are coming into this scene soon. We don’t want any clutter. Select the spiral layer and the eraser tool.

You’ll notice the spiral has changed slighly after your erasing. This is what the finished result of the erase should look like. Remove the gradient effect on the spiral. Set a colour overlay to #ffffff plain white and the Blending Mode opacity to 25%.

Step 6

Moving on, I’ve added in the mountain ranges. I’ve put in a new Layer group called Mountain. Later I did add this into the Title layer group, but for now its fine where it is. If you look closely I have in fact dissected one peak from a free stock image and then duplicated it three times. I then positioned the four identical peaks behind and in front of each other so as to achieve the illusion they are one mountain. To smoothen lines I used the eraser too at a very high zoom on 55% opacity. I then used the blur tool to create snow-like haze around the peak lines.

To get the effect the cliff’s are "sinking" into our background gradient all I used was the versatile Blur tool, rubbing some blues over the harsh mountain outlines. Mess around with this. Its really not a science. Zoom in closely and apply at your own discretion.
You can get great free stock images from scx.hu. Also check out iStockphoto for higher quality paid options.

Step 7

This step is about inserting our snowboarder George. You can use any image you like. But I have also provided Tutsarena’s Yu with the original taken by my friend of my other friend, and our movie star, George.
Here is the original image.

Using the pen tool I extracted the snowboarder from the original. Using the pen tool in this beginner instance is really beyond the scope of the tutorial. If you are still not comfortable with using the pen try the Polygon Lasoo Tool. However, there really is not alternative to the smooth lines you can create with Photoshop’s pen tool. Its best to learn it sometime. The net is full of useful tuts on mastering the pen tool so go check them out guys.

So I have brought the hi-res extracted snowboarder image into my movie poster canvas. I’ve adjusted some levels and contrast to tweak the image since its quite dull. As you can see I also rotated George so he is an a more dramatic mid-air suspension. As the "movie-star" we want to give our action hero center-stage and awe-like depiction. If you are using a different picture it will be up to you to decide how much you wish to tweak levels.

Step 8

My poster is really coming along now. We are going to create a simple glassy reflective effect on the main background gradient by simply reflecting the mountain range. Its a very simple use of reflection which results in the illusion that their is a frozen lake or body of water below the mountain itself.

Select the mountain Layer. Hold down SHIFT + ALT and left-click while dragging downwards. You should duplicate the mountain range without changing its x-axis positioning. With the duplicate selected, press CTRL+T to Transform the new layer – right-click and choose Flip Vertical. You want to leave some space between the mountain and its reflection. So drop down the reflection a bit.

On the reflection set its Layer Style opacity to 21%. In my poster I also chose to decrease the size of the reflection slightly. Do this by CTRL+T to transform and then holding SHIFT down while you decrease its size proportionately. Our frozen lake effect is done! Let’s move on.

Step 9

In this next step we add the movie title. In many ways this is the focal point of the poster. Its the poster’s centre-weight and should stand out and be eye-grabbing as movie posters are. When I was looking around for an icy text effect to use here I found a superb tut on PSDTuts, "Icey Styles in Photoshop." [http://psd.tutsplus.com/tutorials/text-effects-tutorials/icey-styles-in-photoshop/]. You should go check it out. I have modified, very slighly, the text effect on that tut so you can follow along here without having to leave the page.

Using the Great Lakes NF font type your title in at 250pt. I’ve placed it in a new Layer group called Title. This group gets filled quickly so make sure you are keeping up with organising your layers well.

Select Layer Style for your title text. Apply the following Drop Shadow values.

I’ve also applied Inner Shadow styles as seen below. The light blue value in this style is #43a7ff.

Select the Inner Glow section. Apply the following. The blue in this style is #006cff.

Now don’t worry yet. You won’t see much difference to the Title text just yet. Wait until the Color Overlay changes. Select Bevel and Emboss and apply the following values. Note that the colour under highlight mode is #16d0ff.

Next select Color Overlay. Set Blend Mode to Normal and #FFFFFF. Opacity stays at 100%. You should see your Title text looking better now.
Now for Satin. The blue in the Blend Mode which is set to multiply is #b3daff.

The last thing we are going to do to our Title text is apply a stroke. #000000.

Our Title is done and its looking pretty slick. (Note:I’ve deselected Top Sky here so its not viewable. Don’t freak out!)

Step 10

Create a new Layer group called Starring and a layer called Name ( in my case its George Nettleton). Here we going to chuck in the movie star’s name right at the very top. The goal here is to display the name as prominently as possible without detracting from the Title in the centre which is where we want eyeballs guys.

Select the Horizontal Type Tool and type your movie star’s name. I’m using Gills Sans Display MT Pro 100pt. Set the Layer Style’s Blend Mode to Lighten Color. Opacity 100%.
We are going to apply two styles. We are going to keep it nice and simple though!

Outer Glow

Color Overlay
This is simple #FFFFFF and Normal mode. We’re done here.
Now let’s add the tagline, "WATCH OUT," or whatever you wish in your case. I created a new text layer. I’m using Gills Sans Display MT Pro again, this time Bold, and 39pt text. I’ve also set the character tracking to 1285pt. You can access Tracking by using the toggle control.

Now we are going to add the Director’s main credit below the title as is custom in many movie poster designs. You should’ve installed Steeltongs by now! I did mention it was essential.
*OLIVER STONE in Steeltongs produces "A FILM BY Oliver Stone," because Steeltongs very cleverly uses shorthand hooks, in this case the *.
I’m using 54pt text.
Are you keeping up? This is where you should be.

Step 11

The next step is really optional. Here I’ve created some logo’s for featured music and some fictitious film festival award lei’s. You can skip this step if you like. You poster won’t look as densely detailed though.
In terms of the artists its simple a case of trying to recreate their actual logos. You can go wild here. There really is not much of a learning element here. Its a good exercise in using your eye and trying to match fonts. As always Helvetica dominates. Again I am using Steeltongs as the font for "FEATURING ORIGINAL MUSIC BY."
Open a new project for this next step. We are going to create our very own film festival award lei’s or wreaths – in fact I’m not even sure what you call them! Set your document size to 1000px by 1000px. It doesn’t really matter much.
Select the Ellipse tool and draw a perfect circle (hold down SHIFT). Set its color overlay to black #000000. Duplicate the circle (ALT+left-click+drag). You must select the Move Tool (V). Set the colour over lay on the second circle to white #ffffff. Drag the white circle over the black one. The intention here is to create a smooth rounded stem for our lei. There are other ways of doing this – I just prefer this way. Merge the two layers.

We need to remove the whitespace. So render the Background layer (#FFFFFF) unviewable.
Select the eraser tool. You can see below the desire effect really. Remove all the white. Zoom in to erase the area close to the black. Its not as tedious as you think – select a big brush and its 4 or 5 strokes.

Now create a new layer and create a leaf custom shape using Leaf 3.

Now draw in 5 or six leaves and rotate them so they fit along the stem as you can see below.

Now select all your leaves and duplicate them and flip them horizontal. Then you need to make some adjustments so that the leaves on the left hand side fit the stem nicely. Once you are happy. Save the image as PNG-24 (Save for Web Devices). Insert it into your movie poster canvas. The easiest way is to open your newly saved lei PNG and CTRL+A the whole document and then CTRL+V into your movie poster project. Place it into a Layer group called Awards.
I’ve applied a very basic golden gradient to the lei. The colours used here are #ffb606 and #f4faae.

Duplicate your awards lei and horizontally flip it. I’ve used Gill Sans Display MT Pro #ffffff for consistency again for the fictitious awards.

What I’ve noticed at this point is that the featured artists logos are too boldly seated in the canvas so I want to push them back into a deeper blend. How do do this? I selected all the layers in the Music Layer group except for the Steeltongs-written "FEATURING ORIGINAL MUSIC BY." I Rasterized Type (right-click). Then I right-clicked again and chose Merge Layers. I selected Soft Light in the newly conglomerated layer’s Layer Style menu. Now the artists’ logo have a blue-er hue and blend in nicely so as not to detract from the title or the awards.

Step 12

We’re almost done! Now simply add the credits you wish using the Steeltongs font. I used 22pt font. I would highly recommend visiting Steeltong‘s page on Dafont, which gives a chart of the shorthand symbols for displaying the various film credits eg. ‘Animator, or ‘Assistant Director.’ Or you could be around for hours figuring out how to insert "Director of Photography!’ I’ve also inserted a Warner Bros. logo to add to the authenticity. Look around for free big brand logos (.eps form) on the net if you want to add a similar logo.

Final result

This is final result. We’re done! Hope you enjoyed the tutorial and you’ve learnt something.