Happy Fathers Day! Happy Birthday! Merry Christmas! Get well soon! Wagga wagga! Send your best wishes in the style of Pacman, with this Photoshop tutorial to create a Pacman Greetings Card!
Step 1 – The inevitable ‘New Document’
Create a New Document in Photoshop, matching the size of the card you wish to print out.
(i.e: A6 result; A5 folded in half. A5 result; A4 folder in half… etc.)
For the purpose of this tutorial, I am working in a document width 630 by height 850 pixels and at a reslution of 72.
Input Your Script
Using a rounded font (e.g. Arial Rounded, Helvetica Rounded: Bold), layout your greeting on the card in white so that it is clear to see.
You will also see that I have included a Colour Swatch which I have collected for use in the creation of this Pacman Card.
Apply the two following Layer Styles (Outer Glow & Stroke) to each piece of script.
Now, remove the fill from each script layer and you should have the finishing result as shown on ‘DAY’ below.
A series of small walls!
Ignoring the Eddie Izzard joke (if you’re not familiar) create a rectangle using the ‘Rounded Rectangle Tool (U)’ again in white with a radius of 15px. Duplicate your ‘wall’ and position one with the rounded corners facing inward, towards the lower section of your card and place the other directly opposite.
Apply the exact same Layer Styles as the text and again remove the fill. You should now have something like this:
pac-dots
A Pacman greetings card would not be complete without pac-dots! To create these dots – as there was not to be many of them – I used the ‘Elliptical Marquee Tool (M)’ and manually created one complete column of 10 pixel circles, 50 pixels apart. I then duplicated this, making sure they lined up over the level I was creating with the greeting.
Yes, you could create a pattern for this but when I need to make sure things line up – and in this insance where there is not too much repetition – I prefer a manual approach.
Next, delete all the pac-dots that overlay the greeting and wall, then apply the following Layer Style to the pac-dots layer.
You should now have a card looking even more recognizable as Pacman.
Pacman
Using the ‘Elliptical Marquee Tool (M)’, create a circle and in a new layer fill it with the yellow from the Colour Swatches.
Use the ‘Polygonal Lasso Tool (L)’ to select the portion which will become Pacmans pac-dot eating mouth. With the layer selected, press delete.
Finally, apply an Outer Glow to the layer using the same yellow and position him along the pac-dot line; perhaps ready to munch down on one too.
Akabei, Pinky, Aosuke & Guzuta… The Ghosts!
In order to get the right shape, pick up a Pacman Screenshot from Google and then cropping it to one of the ghosts, enlarge it. Using the ‘Pen Tool (P)’, trace around the ghost. If you’re struggling to use the Pen Tool, I have included the path in the tutorial source file.
In a new layer and with your Ghost Path selected, fill with the Red from the Colour Swatches.
Next, use the ‘Elliptical Merquee Tool (M)’ to create the whites of the eyes, holding shift to keep a strict circle and repeat the same step to create the blue pupil / iris.
Place little Akabei in a group/folder, then duplicate the layer another three times.
On the body layer for each ghost, ‘Lock transparent pixels’ in the layer and fill each ghost body layer with the remaining Colour Swatches: Pink, Cyan & Orange.
Finally, apply the Layer Style below to each of the ghost bodies, with the colour of each ghost.
Happy Fathers Day Pacman!
Now all that is left to do, is print out your card and write your greeting inside! Alternatively, you could continue the creativeness….
Below is the source file used throughout this tutorial and while only on a small canvas and screen resolution, please feel free to download and experiment with it!
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