Christmas Ornaments (Tutorial #2)

The purpose of this tutorial is to talk a little bit about a technique called "chroming." The goal of this technique is to take a simple object, such as these round christmas ornaments, and give them the illusion of a shiny, three-dimensional surface by layering multiple colors together.

Here we see a blown-up view of the red christmas ornament. It would have been simple enough to make a red ball with a black outline, using only two layers, but by sacrificing two additional layers we turn the ball from a bland circle into a rich object which our eyes actually interpret as having some depth to it.

Here's how we do it:

1. Choose the object that you want to "chrome." It should be a simple and round shape; the more complex or sharp the object, the harder it is for our eyes to intepret what we see properly.
2. Give the object a black border with your first layer. This makes it easier for our eyes to distinguish the object against the background.
3. Fill the object's color in using the second layer. Make the color one or two shades darker than your target color. In this case, I wanted a bright red ornament, so I used a dark red circle for the next layer. The brain will interpret this as a shadow from an external light source once the next two layers are added.
4. Make a smaller version of your object using your target color. Move it slightly up and to the left of center; your goal is to align it almost right up against the north-west edge of your shape. Technically you can go from any direction, but our eyes are used to moving from the top-left to the bottom-right when viewing images and text; it's easier to trick the brain if it starts processing on the upper-left side of the image.
5. Finally, create a small oval with a very, very light shade of your target color. Rotate it to a 45-degree angle and place it near the upper-left corner of your object to create a glare which finishes the effect.

The effect is tremendous. With a little bit of care and some extra layers, you can take very simple shapes and bring them to life. You can see the effect repeated with the Semtex emblem from a couple of days ago.

For this specific emblem, I repeated the effect twice, used squares and outlines to create the tops of the ornaments, and used the "Closed" sign as the 12th layer to get the hanging threads.