Mike
Like a glove!
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Mike’s Kit Creating Guide
Also this is going to be based on Photoshop [CS4], so Smart Shirt Designers, either get Photoshop or GTFO
Part One – making a basic kit.
Every member here who has had a go at kit making would have gone this far, otherwise they wouldn’t have a kit. In this section, we’re only going to be looking at colouring already-made templates and adding logos/images to it. So, here goes nothing...
1. Open Photoshop
This is the obvious part – open your program. If you haven’t already got Photoshop, get the free 30-day trial HERE. DO NOT ask for cracks/torrents as I will not offer any help there.
2. Pick a template
Okay, the first and foremost thing you need to consider is picking a good template, or the right one. There are many, many templates to choose from HERE and at other sites (if you ask nicely!).
My favourite is the FB kit style, so I’m going to be using that one. Don’t worry too much about which template you want to use following this tutorial as it works the same with each.
I’ve opened up the Nike templates.
3. Make a decision
So we’ve opened Photoshop and we’re staring at a blank template. What we need to think about now is which team we’re going to be making a kit for. Being an Arsenal fan, I’m going to do make an Arsenal kit.
4. Get the right template
Under each brand, a lot of club templates have been pre-made for you. Luckily, one of the templates in the Nike folder is the Arsenal kit. We can see that the template we’re looking for is number 8, so head back into Photoshop and scroll down your layers window until you reach number 8, and make it visible by clicking the check box to the left until an eye displays and your kit appears.
If your layers window isn’t already visible, click Windows > Layers, or just hit F7.
5. Making the kit
Thankfully, we don’t need to re-colour the kit, but if you need to (if you’re doing a Chelsea kit, for example), a
ll you need to do is open the Base group, highlight the shape layer and follow the re-colouring instructions in the next part of the guide.
After finding the group, and realising the colours are incorrect, expand it using the little arrow to the left of the folder image.
We have three extra groups here so it’s easy to navigate and seperate:
- Collar
- Logos
- Design
Firstly, open the collar group.
Select the first layer under the group. This layer is called Layer 617 copy, and to quickly recognise which part of the kit the layer is, click the eye icon to its left to turn it off and on. We now know it is the main part of the collar.
On the already made kit, the collar is black, and by knowledge we know that Arsenal’s main colours are red and white. The collar on their home top this year is white, so we need to re-colour it.
With the layer still selected (we know it’s selected as it is highlighted in blue), click the fx button at the bottom of the window, then find Colour Overlay. Click it.
This opens up a new window which has many, many effects options (down the left panel, but we don’t need to worry about that now). As you can see by the screenshot below, there isn’t anything we can do to the colour other than change it and set an opacity.
To change the colour, click the small red box. Again, this bring up a new window to set its colour. In the big colours box on the left, click and drag until you find white (if you haven’t found it it’s right in the top left hand corner). Click OK, and OK again.
Look at the kit and the collar again, and we can see it has changed colour.
We now need to do this for all the obvious collar layers that need changing colour. On this particular collar, it’s only the back that needs changing, so find that (by clicking the eye to see which one it is) and repeat the process above.
If all has been done correctly so far, you should have an all-white collar, like this:
If so, continue down to the next step. If not, go back and start the colouring process again.
Secondly, open the logos group. If it helps you (as it certainly helps me!), keep everything tidy by closing the collars group.
Luckily, all our logos have been coloured correctly, so no work needs to be done in here. Recognise the layers again by clicking the eye logo. If your logos need some work doing, all you have to do is repeat what’s already been done in the colouring process.
Close the group and move on.
Thirdly, open the design group.
Obviously, the sleeves need re-colouring to white. Again, repeat the colouring process already mentioned.
If you’re happy with the way your kit now looks, close all the groups including the main Nike group.
This kit looks fine to me, so now we need to move on.
6. Adding images
All that’s missing is a few images – the Arsenal club logo (the badge), the kit sponsor, and, optionally, the Premier League sleeve patches. I will show you how to do all of these.
Head on over to Google images or any other trustworthy image site and find Arsenal’s club badge. Note: the bigger the logo, the better it will look on the kit, so grab a large image if you can. Copy it, head into Photoshop and click File > New...
This brings open a new window, and has a few options. It may help you if you change Background Contents to Transparent.
Click OK, and paste in the image.
There is a horrible black background to this image, so I want to get rid of it. This is where the Transparent bit comes in useful. In the left tool panel, click the Magic Wand tool.
Select the backround areas of the image (to select multiple areas, hold SHIFT), and when it’s all been selected, hit your DELETE button. We now have a clear logo without any ‘white bits’ or any sort of background.
Now, it’s best if you ‘pop out’ your logo window so we can see what we’re dealing with. Above the image, you should see two tabs: one containing your kit, and one containing your logo. Click and drag out the current one (highlighted in a lighter colour than the other tab).
Now that we can see both images we’re working with, let’s get the kit finished.
Obviously, the logo needs re-sizing. There are a couple of ways to do this – click and drag your logo as it is onto the kit, hit CTRL+T to transform it, hold SHIFT and re-size using the corner boxes until you find a decent size. The way I shall implement and show you is re-sizing the whole image.
Hit CTRL+ALT+I (i, not to be mistaken for L) or Image > Image Size... As we’ve seen often in the guide already, it brings up another window.
We need a good size for our badge, nothing too big or too small. Type any number into the first box and you’ll see that the box directly beneath it will change accordingly to keep its ratio the same. Try to get it so that the biggest number in either box is 40 – this is a nice number for a logo size. Click OK.
Our logo has shrunk into a small size, and if it’s worked – great!
Click and drag the logo from its window and onto the kit; anywhere’s fine for now. Make sure that the new layer has been placed underneath the Texture group and above Nike. If it hasn’t and you can’t find it, click Undo until your logo disappears, select the Nike group (just highlight it, don’t expand it) and drag it onto the kit again.
Now we need to align the badge so it looks neat on the kit. If you want to be very precise, click View > Show > Smart Guides – this will bring up alignment lines when you move an object so you can easily place it wherever you’re happy with it. Move the logo so that its vertical line is in line with the edge of the collar, and its horizontal line runs through the centre of the Nike logo.
Back into Google Images, search up ‘Fly Emirates logo’ or anything similar and find the biggest one so that it’s clearer on the kit. Repeat the process of copying, pasting into a new window and deleting the background.
My image is far too big, so it needs to be resized. A really good width for the sponsor to be without looking to big is around 130 pixels, so hit CTRL+ALT+I and enter 130 into the width box.
Click and drag the sponsor onto the kit and align it so its vertical line runs through the centre of the collar. Also don’t place it too low – make sure it’s somewhere in line with the armpit area. Re-colour to white.
Your kit is pretty much finished. If you don’t want to put Premier League patches onto the kit, there’s no bother. If you do, it’ll look that extra bit better and realistic.
Go back to Google Images and type in ‘Premier League patches’ – I chose the first image. Copy and paste in a new window and delete the background. Also, with this logo, it has a shadow that needs to be deleted. Magic Wand it out, and this time it’s handy if you select all of the image with CTRL+A, copy it and paste it into a new window again so that it fills the window. Pop it out and re-size its width to 50 pixels.
Click and drag it onto the kit. This next part gets a little bit tricky but it simple to overcome. Move the patch so that it is over the edge of the sleeve. Hit CTRL+T to bring up a box around your image. At the top of the window, around 7 boxes will appear that you can type numbers into. In the box pointed at in the screenshot, type in 27, and hit ENTER twice. Your logo should have rotated, and if it has, give it a reasonable placement – the bottom of the logo should be directly on the edge of the sleeve.
If all done correctly, it should look like this. If not, go back and repeat the process.
Now what we want to do is make one for the opposite sleeve. Don’t sigh – we can copy the one we just did! Make sure the Premier League patch layer is highlighter, and click Layer > Duplicate Layer... or CTRL+J and click OK. In your layers panel you should have two layers the same, but what we want is an exact opposite of the current one, so we go into hit CTRL+T, and in the same box as before across the top, type in –54 (it is minus 54 because it needs to rotate the opposite way, and it’s already been rotated 27 degrees from the norm, so trust me on this one). Move it across to the opposite sleeve
using your guides.
When you’ve done that and you’re happy with the alignment, merge the two layers: highlight both layers (using SHIFT), right click either and select Merge Layers.
Almost there! It looks pretty good now, but we still need to get rid of the bits that aren’t physically on the kit. Open the Base group (bottom of the layers panel), and highlight the shape layer. Get your Magic Wand and click anywhere outside of the kit. Highlight your patches layer once more and simply hit your DELETE button, et voila!
If I say so myself, that’s a pretty good kit. Congratulations – you’ve made a good kit!
Keep popping back for Part Two - making your own kit which will hopefully be up within the next week or so! In the second part you can expect:
Using the dreaded Pen Tool
Re-colouring badges
Creating a whole kit from scratch
and a whole lot more!
[note: part two will be more for the advanced user, but if you're new to kit making and cracked the first part with ease, please continue.. hopefully I won't let you down!]
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will i upload the picture for you too see ?