I was making a comic and wanted to make comic bubbles without the hassle of drawing each one. I did not know anything about vectors or shapes in photoshop. I searched online and found that you can make custom shapes using pathes in adobe photoshop 7. I experimented with photoshop and devised my own simple method of making comic bubbles.

Here, I will tell you how to make a bubble like this repetitively. You can edit change the pointer at the end too.:


Start a new image and make the size like 500X500 for a bit of space to draw.

First we will make some thing like this:


To do that, you select the freeform pen tool. Then you click the paths button on the options bar. It should look like this:

If you don't see the options tab, click windows, then options.

With that tool, draw that pointing shape. If you messed up and want to delete the path, hold ctrl and select the points, then right click and delete path. There are some functions up on the options tab to help you draw. Try to make the pointer sharp at the end and big and flat on the other side.

After you draw the pointer, right click the path then select define custom shape. and you should see your black pointer with a white background. If you dont like what you see then press cancel and draw it again. Name your shape pointer-downleft or something.

Now you can make a bubble. First go find the ellipse tool, then make a white circle. That circle should have it's own layer. Select the blending options of that layer and give it a black stroke of size 1. Make a new layer and put it under the circle. Select the layer under the circle and then get the custom shape tool. Goto that place near the word "shape" and use that to find that shape you had just created.


Make sure shape layer is selected:


Make your primary color black. Click on somewhere on the bottom left side of the bubble and drag it down or left. Looks like this now:


Create a layer above the bubble and make your color white. Still using the custom tool, click near the tip of the end of the black pointer and move it up into the bubble.



You have made a bubble! You can create different pointers and rotate them around by selecting the shapes then transforming them. Now, that you have this, you don't need to draw the bubbles by yourself anymore. And you can point the pointer toward any direction. It's not so hard. I don't think that many young photoshop users know about paths though, so I put this here.

Hehe... nice tutorial. That was my idea to do this . Now I've got to find something else to get my credits up



Nice done anyway, I think it's better then my version

=jeroen=

Hey! How neat! Thank you for the easy-to-understand tutorial, rockgoody. ^_^ I'm nowhere near being experienced with using adobe photoshop 7 so I'm always open to learning something about how to use this or use that with photoshop. Sure, I'm playing around with the program myself, but it helps when there's a tutorial -- especially one that isn't hard to figure out. ^_^ So, even though creating a comic bubble may seem rather simple, thank you for taking your time and sharing these "how to" instructions with us. I really appreciate it a lot! ^__^

-- scryoko

awesome tutorial... i can use this in some of my pictures, it should fit very nicely in them. I have used photoshop for a while, but i like how ya made it super easy to understand

Heh it's nice, although I don't thin someone really needs a tutorial to be able to maks such an easy thing... imho.

On the contrary, Neverseen, there are others out there that may not be computer literate -- even if a little. Sometimes, it's the little things that may always seem soooo easy to others that they can it with their eyes closed and one hand tied to the back, while for others, it may be a bit harder. One shouldn't always assume that everyone or majority knows (how to do) something, because usually more than not, they don't, and may, perhaps, be silently ashamed because of that -- which I think they shouldn't be if that was the case.

But well, whether or not a person needs a tutorial on how to make that comic bubble... that's for that individual to know and make use of it. ^_^

-- scryoko

I wrote the tutorial, because I thought beginners would be able to do something simple and easy. It would help them get start out with paths+shapes. It's not about the comic bubble, but the concept of making a custom shape that you can use over again. A comic bubble is a great example for that. I myself, wanted to write a tutorial for fun, but I don't know much about anything specific on photoshop. I think I'm still a photoshop newb. The tutorial is good for introducing custom shapes, I think.