This tutorial will teach you to make VERY advanced orbs / spheres with ONLY Using brushwork. If you feel you do not have enough practice to do this tutorial, i still encourage you to take it on as a challenge and try and learn something from it. With that being said, lets jump into the tutorial:

Step 1: Setup

okay, to start of create a new document at least 100 x 100px. Fill the background in black (#000000).

Now, grab the brush tool and change these settings

• Forground color (your choice, i used (#010675) )
• Brush size: 80px HARD
• Mode: normal
• Opacity: 100%
• Flow: 100%
• Airbrush: Off

it should look like this:


Step 2: Orb base

ON A NEW LAYER, Using your brush you just grabbed, make a circle on the canvas so it looks like this:

Now, grab your eraser and set it to these settings:

• Brush size: 65px soft
• Mode: brush
• Opacity: 13%
• Flow: 15%
• Airbrush: On

Start in the center of the blue circle and make star tapping the mouse button and slowly erasing the center until you pretty much are left with just the sides of the circle. I suggest going in a circular pattern like this:



Once you get this down, your image should look something like this:



Step 3: 3d appearance (lighting)

Now that you have erased the center of the orb, we need to build it back up again. First thing you do is grab the brush tool again and center it in the orb.
Change your brush settings to this:

• Same as before(i used (#010675) )
• Brush size: 75px SOFT
• Mode: normal
• Opacity: 40%
• Flow: 50%
• Airbrush: Off

So center your brush on the orb and click about 3-4 times in the center so it doesnt totally take away the erasing effect, but gives it more color. It shoudl look like this:



Now we have built up the color, it is time to give this orb depth. Grab the DODGE Tool and set it to these settings:

• Brush size: 63px SOFT
• Mode: HIGHLIGHTS
• Exposure: 23%
• Airbrush: On

[center][center]

Using the dodge tool, add a highlight on the upper left corner. This should look similar to this:

Now you also want to add a highlight opposite the first one becuase it is an orb. so in the Bottom right corner add a small highlight (change the brush size as needed).

Now grab the BURN tool (right under the dodge tool) with THESE settings and go around the outside of the the orb to add more depth to it.

Step 3: Touch ups

Now, you probably saying this doesnt quick look right, and that is probably becuase of the color chosen. Make a new layer underneither the orb layer and taking the VERY FIRST brush we used, and make a circle right under the orb. Lower the opacity of this layer to like 70%.

If the center of the orb doesnt look right, grab your eraser tool again and take out some of the middle.

If your edges dont stand out, take the dodge tool and go around the edges and brighten things up.

EXPERIMENT!!!!!!