Stained Glass

[Ella]

We will look how to make stained glass panels like this:



You can use any existing stained glass pattern but it isn´t hard to make own too, I usually like to use different fonts for that.

On these 3 I used Rosegarden, Knots and Line Dings fonts.

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You will need following plugins:

- Mirror

- Drop Shadow, Object Align

- AA´s Assistant

- MultiColor Gradient

- Bevel Selection

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First step is to make the grid.

For this tutorial I used Line Dings font and Mirrored it different ways.






As a finishing touch add a frame and some extra lines with rectangle and line tools.

You should end up with something like this:



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Now the second part is to fill the gaps with different gradients.

You can do it manually by picking colors and drawing gradients by hand.

(Don´t worry if you get some single pixels near the grid not filling with color, we will fix this later. )

But you can also select several pieces same time and use Multicolor Gradient like I did here:

- add a new layer for gradients
- select areas you want to fill on grid layer with magic wand
- move to the gradients layer
- run Multicolor Gradient, alternating colors, random colors
- deactivate selection
- select new areas you wish to fill on grid layer
- move to gradients layer and repeat, click random colors button until you are happy with colors it offers

Repeat this until all the areas are filled with gradients.





Move the grid to the top layer.

This is what you should end up with, one layer with the grid and the second where gaps are filled with different gradients:



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Now to add glassy effect.

Duplicate layers till you have 3 gradient layers, make 2 invisible.

Work on the middle gradient layer.




Make the bottom layer visible again.



Now make the 3rd layer visible and run Frosted Glass, when done play around with layer blending modes and opacity.




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Add some sunlight and light effects by adding 2 layers, one with yellow tones and other with white, blur and adjust the layer blending modes and opacity to your liking.









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Now add some finishing touches to the grid, you can add a metallic look or overlay to it or whatever you wish, here I used simple Bevel and Drop Shadow.

Good tip before starting to work with the grid is to outline it a bit, then it covers single pixels which were not filled before with gradient.



Select the grid with Magic Wand.





This is the outcome of the tutorial:



With some color adjustments and using of Tile Image and Kaleidoscope you can easily turn it into something like this:

[Goonfella]

Nice tut Ella. I still have a stained glass pattern that I used ages ago. I might give this a go.

[lancemcknight]

Magnificent! We need more tutorials like this. Never would have thought about using fonts to create stain glass pattern.

[delpart]

That is great work. I just tried and got lost trying to find a plugin that went missing.

I especially appreciate having all the layers and such represented in a single shot like that. It might make it rather large but for people still lost on trying to tell the difference between a lighten vs multiply blending effect, this is extremely helpful.

Oddly enough fonts seem to make for a great source of line art. dafont and others have those oddballs that usually only make sense in the context of using them as stocks. Of course now I have a whole new idea of using them as masks. That is, once I figure out how to use masks correctly ...

Examples of fonts that only make sense for things like this: LINK dafont alien dingbats

[barbieq25]

Great tute Ella! Lovely outcome on the last one.

[PeterPawn]

I agree with Lance. This is a great tutorial.

[venicet]

awesome tut. As soon as I have some free time I'm going to tackle this one. I've actually been designing mandalas and this would work awesome with them.

Edit..... my attempt

venicet.deviantart.com/#/d4gs58w

[Ella]

Looks really good venicet !

I planned to write how I made stained glass way back when I first tried but never got to it so you all asking to write a tutorial gave me the necessary push .

[blackpenny]

First attempt:


While looking for inspiration I came across this site www.lightmandalas.co.uk/Gallery.html
There's info on stained glass, mosaics, and mandalas. Also how-to on making stained glass mosaics, if any of us need another hobby.

[venicet]

Love the colors BP! Thanks for the web addy.. I bookmarked it since I'm not on my puter all that much right now. Too busy decorating for Christmas.

[Pixey]

Just a quick comment to thank you for the tutorial ..... can't wait to give it a try. You are very talented and write superb tutorials

[blackpenny]

I thought you'd like that, Venice!

[Pixey]

Thanks SO much Ella for the fabulous tutorial

Herewith my attempt; with a bit of poetic license:

[Sargon III]

Great tutorial Ella, with excellent result, I like the way you're doing the glass effect. And everybody's attempt is very nice, I must try this, thinking of doing something for Christmas, I hope I can finish it before Christmas . Thanks for sharing

[mindshift]

I very much like this tutorial which does a nice job of showing how to use various plugins, and gives a realistic look to the glass. I would like to point out that actual stained glass never has a point projecting into another piece of glass, because it is impossible to make a sharp angled internal cut. While one can clip off pieces to create a concave curve, all points end at another line, or have a line that extends to an edge. I have illustrated this by circling areas in the pattern below. Even the crane’s neck is bisected by an extended line for workability, and the leg joint is really a curve (both highlighted yellow).

[mindshift]

After playing around with this tutorial it came to me that I could create a beveled glass window using your Glass Text With Filling tutorial. After finishing the glass I beveled the black around the glass and got a realistic leading, then I slipped a photo beneath the glass.
Double thanks to you Ella.

[barbieq25]

Nice outcome Mindshift!

[Sargon III]

mindshift, neat indeed, I like the idea, if you can just get rid of the jaggies in the diagonal lines, use AlphaMask for best result.

[aislin]

nice tut

[delpart]

It is a neat result. That's what I like to see happen from a tutorial. Helps to open up new ideas.

Since beveled glass can have all sorts of different edges, its not a hardcore critique to see if you want to work on those jaggies. They only distracted a wee bit. A small amount of smudge could almost do the trick to make it look like solder smear ...

Perhaps its just smudge on my brain. I got distracted by this tool recently and I've seen a lot of "selective" use for it. Or potential use. Just hard to learn how to control the darn thing.

Really like the distortion in the bevels as well. That's what really makes this tick overall regardless of our obsessions with clean lines. And the nice borders. I keep wanting to do this tutorial but every single time I wind up adrift ...

[mindshift]

Sargon, the apparent jaggedness of the bevel is an interaction between the photo and the bevel. Notice the jaggedness is worst where the tree tops intersect the bevel. Below is the original on a gray gradient, followed by an overlay of a different photo. Notice how the jagged edges are in a different location from my first picture above.

P.S. to Ella Please forgive my temporary highjacking of your tutorial post. I only added my beveled glass picture with the intent to give credit to you for the inspiration. Thank you again.

[delpart]

Actually he's referring to the stair-step jaggies that are showing up along the very edge of the glass where it meets the solder.

These remain in varying degrees when blended and are rather pronounced and very uniform. As I mentioned, it could just be toned down a smidge to allow for a further distortion.

Close up of an area in question:



Not really a hijack. This is technically what the tutorials are supposed to illicit. The approach to smoothing that out applies to any form of application for this tutorial in blending the effects to solidify the illusions presented.