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Let’s start by creating a new Photoshop document. Mine is 2560×1440 pixels. Fill the background with a color of your choice (it’s not important at this stage), and double click on the layer thumb to open the layer styles window.

Here add a gradient (radial) overlay going from #c0e6df to #15a48b, thus overlapping the first fill color.

At this point we need to choose the right font for the illustration. If you have more patience, you could try drawing custom letters in Illustrator. Just try to make them bold and a bit irregular. If you’re lazy, like me, do a search for the right font: Doughboy, realized by Lucas Sharp, looks perfect!.

Write a word or phrase. A suggestion: type each letter on a separate layer.

I will show you how I created the first letter, S. The process for the other letters is the same, so once you’ve learned how to create your first ice-cream letter, you’ll be able to reproduce it infinite times.

Start by rasterizing the type: right-click on the letter thumbnail > rasterize type. Then right-click again and select “Blending options”. We will play with layer styles to start giving color and depth to the illustration.

Add a light red (#fd5e74) color overlay.

Select Bevel and Emboss with the following settings and check “contour” to make the 3d effect more evident.

Finally add Satin, set on color dodge, to put in some interesting details.

To make the ice-cream/letter more realistic we can use a texture. Download this ice imageand merge it into the document (File > Open…), directly above the letter. Press ctrl+T to activate the free transform tool and resize the image.

Set the texture color mode to color burn with opacity 10%

Finally with the texture still selected, ctrl+click over the letter (layer thumbnail) to make a selection of its pixels, and add a layer mask. By doing this you will remove the texture areas that exceed the letter.

To add a layer mask simply click the “add layer mask” button which is at the bottom of the layer window.

Select both the texture and letter layers and press alt+ctrl+E to merge them into a new layer. We will use this image from now on, feel free to hide the 2 original layers.

Now let’s add a noise effect. Make sure to have white and black as foreground and background color, then create a new layer and fill it with black. Go to Filter > Noise > Add Noise…

Add a layer mask, as shown in step 4, so the noise effect will affect only the area covered by the letter:

Set the layer to screen to remove the black area, and reduce the opacity to around 30% to make the effect subtle.

Let’s create the stick. Draw the main shape with the rounded rectangle tool (radius 30px).

Add a light brown (#f4d0b0) color overlay, then rasterize the layer.

With the Rectangular Marquee tool, select the top area of the shape and hit delete. Then ctrl+D to deselect.

Duplicate the shape layer by pressing ctrl+J. Then move the shape which is below a couple of pixel to the bottom-right. Switch its color to a darker brown (#d68f61).

With the same technique used in step 4 and 5, let’s apply a wooden texture to the stick. Download our wooden textures and pick up a photo of your choice. Then merge it into the document.

Set the layer blend mode to overlay to see how it will affect the stick.

Reduce the opacity to around 60%, and add a layer mask to remove the area that exceeds the stick.

(To select both the shapes of the sticks, ctrl+click on the first shape, then hold down shift and click on the second one).

Select the texture layer and the two shapes of the stick from the layers window, then merge them into a new layer (alt+ctrl+E) and hide the original layers.

With the pen tool in path mode, create a path that covers a small top area of the stick that we will remove later. The purpose of this step is to make the stick less “rigid”.

Press ctrl+enter to activate the selection and hit delete.

Using the Burn and Dodge tools, make darker and brighter areas of the ice cream main body. From the screenshot below you can see how I darkened the area behind the stick:

Apply the burn tool again, this time over the top of the stick. Based on the direction of the light source, this area should look darker.

A light effect can help to enhance some texture details and make the frozen effect over the ice-cream look more realistic. So create a new group and set its blending mode to color dodge. Create a layer inside the group, grab a large, soft (hardness 0%), white brush and click once over the ice-cream. Reduce the opacity, if the effect is too strong.

Here is my outcome.

Here comes the fun part! We will create drops and ice pieces with the use of layer styles. My first thought was to use stock images of drops and water, and play with their blending options to add the drops to the scene. However, after several attempts I decided to proceed with brushes and layer styles, thanks to the help of our great illustrator Diego. The result is more than satisfactory!

Create a new layer and grab a small round brush with hardness 100%. Then paint a spot over the ice-cream.

Double-click on the drop layer to open the style window. Reduce the fill opacity to 0%.

Add bevel and emboss. This will give depth to the drop:

Add a drop shadow and inner shadow.

Finally add inner glow and satin as the last touches:

Now that you have the layer set up, just paint! I’ve created this screencast so you can see my process to realize the drops (with the help of my Wacom tablet).

Here is the first letter complete:

Now create a new layer and paint the shadow effect with a soft black brush. Reduce the opacity so the result will look softer. Finally, use the same brush to create the drops on the floor.

The last touch: to increase the contrasts, just add a new gradient map layer (Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Gradient map). Add a gradient going from red (#ee202e) to blue (#002874) to yellow (#f9e600). Set the layer to overlay with opacity 30%.

Now that you know how to create a letter, you can apply it to the entire word or phrase. Exercise your creativity and play with different forms and colors.

The ice-cream is now complete! Are you hungry???

Create a new document in Photoshop. The size I’m using is 1920×1200 pixels. Fill the background with a color of your choice.

I want to create a grunge background for the text. There are several ways to create a grunge background. I generally use a texture set on overlay, with the layer immediately below filled with a dark color, as you can see in this tutorial.

Today, I will use a pattern. In my last tutorial I explained how to create a custom grunge pattern from scratch. For the background of this tutorial I’m going to use use a dark pattern from the Tileable subtle grunge patterns set.
Just double click on the background layer to open the layer styles window, click on “pattern overlay” and select the pattern you prefer. If you don’t like the patterns visible in your library, click on the arrow near the pattern thumbnail and select another set from one available in the library. If you want to install a the new set, click on “load…” and select the new set just downloadeded (.pat file).

Create a new layer, set black as the foreground color, grab a large soft brush with hardness 0% and gently paint over the edges of the canvas. This way we focus the attention to the center, by eliminating the grunge effect from the edges.

We need a bold font with keen forms/edges. Download the free font Ash, and write something. In my case size is 140pt. Remember that layer styles vary in according with text size, so if you want to obtain my same results, use the same text size.

From the layers window, right-click on the text layer and select Blending options. We can now start playing with layer styles.

The first thing to do is add a gradient overlay going from a dark purple (#700760) to a lighter one (#b827a2), just to give it some color.

Now select Satin, set its blending mode to overlay to add a glowing effect to the text:

Finally, select inner glow to lighten the edges:

I want to create a large stroke effect and apply new styles to the stroke too. If I simply select “stroke” from the layer styles window of the text, I only have a few options to edit. The best solution is to create the stroke shape in a new layer, then play with it.

Duplicate the text layer (ctrl+J), then remove all the styles and reduce fill opacity to 0%.

Add a 7px inner stroke.

Now here is the trick to create a layer with only the stroke. Create a new blank layer, select both the layer with the stroke effect and the blank one, then press ctrl+E to merge them. Title this layer “Stroke”. It contains only the stroke shape.

We can play with layer styles again. Double click on the stroke layer and start by adding a gradient overlay. I chose a default metal gradient from the Photoshop library.

Add a 1px stroke going from black to white and black again. You can see how the stroke starts to look like metal.

To add depth, add a crisp drop shadow:

Finally, add a thin inner glow to enhance the metal effect:

The text effect already looks nice at this stage. In the screenshot below you can see that we used only few layers to achieve this result:

However, we can add even more details using patterns with layer styles. There’s one small problem, though. If we open the styles window of the text, for example, and select a pattern, nothing will happen. This because the gradient overlay is above the pattern so the pattern is not visible.

We need to create a duplicate of the text layer (Press ctrl+J). Open the blending options of the new layer and remove all the styles. Make sure fill opacity is 0%. Now you can apply the pattern you prefer. By switching the color mode from normal to another value, you will combine the pattern with the text colors. You already know where to find patterns! Just surfour resources. We release a free item with each pattern set.

In this case, for example, I used one of our Book cover patterns with the blend mode set to Color burn.

Using the same method, you can add even more patterns. In the screenshot below, for example, you can see how the text looks after applied one of our Tileable grunge patterns.

The same grunge pattern can be added to the stroke layer too. The details will match the metal gradients:

The last touch to give depth to the text: duplicate the stroke layer and move it below the original text layer. Move it 3-4 px down.

Remove all the styles and add a black color overlay:

Add a white drop shadow too:

The text is now complete! Create a new layer, grab a large soft white brush and add more light to the center. Reduce the opacity and change the blending mode to soft light if the effect is too strong.

If you want to modify the color combination a bit, add a gradient map layer by going to Layer>New Adjustment layer>Gradient map. I added a default Photoshop gradient going from purple to green to orange. The layer is set to overlay with the opacity around 40%.

Finito! Here is the result: