Blooded Mafia Text

15-05-2006 | Last editted on 21-10-2008 91302 views

Applying blood to a surface is usually not a task we're willing to do. That's why we have Photoshop. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create blooded mafia text. You will learn more about the blending-mode Multiply and masking-options.

Difficulty: Veteran 17 comments | Posted in Designs, Text-Effects


Introduction
How macabre it may be, adding blood to text is perhaps one of the most coolest things to do. If done right of course!
For my conceptual game Malavita, which was a mafia-game set in the 50's, I designed a logo with classy white text with blood on it. Many people kept asking me how I did that and little did I know that the tutorial I later made out of it, was so popular.
Technically, it IS a very nifty technique you need to learn. It teaches you all about blending-modes and masking.


Preparing the text
For this tutorial, I used the non-commercial font "Corleone" that is, in fact, the font of the famous (and quite awesome) movie The Godfather. It can be downloaded on various fonts-websites.
In a new document, on a new layer, add some desired text. I started with the name of the game I mentioned earlier. As for a background, you're prefectly free. I chose darkgrey, because that's what overall style the game was. Just make sure the text is white.

Blooded Mafia Text
Simply add these layer-styles/blending-options to the text:

Blooded Mafia Text Blooded Mafia Text Blooded Mafia Text
Blooded Mafia Text
Getting the brushes
And now for the tricky part. I rewrote this part, because not only is this part very hard, but also because I failed to describe it detailed enough in my previous version. Luckily, now I hope I will!
Firstly, you will need to download the brushes we are going to use. If you have a good place to find nice blood-brushes, use that source. Or maybe you already have them? If not, or if you just want some awesome new ones, go to Angryblue where they got awesome blood-brushes in the downloads-section.

How to install them you might ask? If you're downloaded the file and stumbled across a zipped file containing an .abr-file, copy that file to a nice and safe location. Some say you have to copy it to the photoshop-folder, but you don't have to. If you want, it's cleaner, but it doesn't make any difference.
Once you go back to Photoshop, go to your brush-tool and open the Brush Preset Picker by clicking on the arrow pointing down in the upper taskbar containing the type of brush. Then, press the play-looking button in the top right corner and select the option Load Brushes and use the finder to locate your brushes. They will automatically be added to your list. Then simply select one and choose the desired color. In this case red.
And unlike a normal brush, just click once to apply this stencil-brush, if you will.

Adding the blood
To add the blood, create a new layer above the text-layer and use a nice red color to add some blood on that layer. Just fill it up and make sure it looks like a package of blood just got spilled.

Blooded Mafia Text
Then change the blending-mode to Multiply to make sure the blood gets darker and "falls" over the shadows which will make it look like the blood is actually on the text.

Blooded Mafia Text
And to miraculously remove all the blood that's not part of the text, press CTRL+SHIFT+G. WHat this does, is that it masks the layer selected with the layer underneath it. Meaning that everything not visible in the layer underneath, will remain invisible in the layer selected.

Blooded Mafia Text
The bloody shadow
To create the bloody mess underneath the text, simply use one (or a few) of your blood brushes on a new layer and place that layer behind the text and the overlayed blood-layer. Remember again to use the same color as before and also the same blending-mode.
Blooded Mafia Text
Using Edit>Transform>Perspective, transform the blood-layer that way, it will look like it's on the ground. To do that, you will have to perform 2 simple actions. Once you've activated the perspective-transformation, drag one of the top corner anchor-points closer to the center. When they are close enough, do not press ENTER yet, but go to Edit>Transform>Free Transform and drag the upper center anchor-point closer to the center.
That should make the blood-layer look like a "rug" laying underneath the text.

Blooded Mafia Text
Finish it off with a nice shadow made using a VERY stretched circle on a new layer.
Create a new layer above the blood-carpet and grab the Circular Marquee-Tool and drag the tool from the left of the text to the right and a little bit down so you will get a very long egg (or pancake).
Fill that selection with black and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and add a nice soft blur of 2-3 pixels. Then lower the opacity and admire your work!

Blooded Mafia Text Blooded Mafia Text
Conclusion
As you've noticed by my last image, you can go all the way with this by applying this to many different materials. The beauty of this is that because you're using the blending-mode Multiply, you're making sure that the blood will ALWAYS overlay the surface realistic.
Try to experiment with other materials and not only text but also objects maybe. Or drops like me. If you got a very original outcome or an even better idea, email me or post your image in the comments and if it's original or just simply awesome, I will include it in the tutorial!
Thanks for reading and good luck with practicing!

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Ovais_Khan

December 1th, 2008

very..... very goood... I like all the tutorial here.......

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MickM

November 11th, 2008

Nice results Sameh Ahmed, Anthony and Gt Airbagman!

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thug

November 9th, 2008

suck balls

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Gt Airbagman

November 8th, 2008

Awesome Tutorial!

I made a picture with a MacBook, cause I wanted something other than just a simple text :D

http://i276.photobucket.com/albums/kk34/Gt_Airbagman/MacBloodyPowerSmall.png

(Though, the blood looks strange on a usually clean MacBook xD )

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Zaman

October 25th, 2008

Anothony, right click on the Blood Layer at click on Create Clipping Mask.

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trenton

October 25th, 2008

This is the beat place ton go to learn ho to draw

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Anthony "Kitten" Berg

October 22th, 2008

Well, I saw your picture, and got really inspired, so I created my own, about the CTRL+SHIFT+G thing... It doesn't work, atleast not in PS CS3, but I managed without it ;)

Well, here is a link to my picture, my inspiration. (Yeah, it's a cat's paw at the corner, you'll just have to figure that one out for yourself) :)

http://ecleptomania.deviantart.com/art/The-Family-Wont-Save-You-101384224

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Laurie-J

October 21th, 2008

That nightmare text looks amazing, very nice work Mick!

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Monegarn

October 5th, 2008

VERY VERY VERY NICE TUTORIAL !!!!!!

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MiSKEENKiNG

September 29th, 2008

Nice, I like the concept of it. It's awesome! 10/10

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ricardo

September 25th, 2008

How do i do Step 8!!! the blood around the text doest dissapear

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kay

September 19th, 2008

step 8 and 9 are different, in step 9 it looks like a 3d effekt - like there are the letters and you splattered it with blood from front, how can i do that ?

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Weed

September 17th, 2008

Interesting tutorial man. good job.

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Sameh Ahmed

September 15th, 2008

Thank for shareing and this my attempt:



http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/273/mafiathefinalfi7.jpg

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ddz

September 11th, 2008

use clippin mask

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Jonny

September 10th, 2008

I guess the easiest way would be selecting the textlayer (ctrl+click on the layer)
then invert the selection (shift+ctrl+i) then hit "delete" but make sure you have the bloodlayer selected.

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Jon

September 10th, 2008

How do you get from step 7 to step 8?
How the blood around the text disapeared?

Care to commment this?