fireworks

This time in Fireworks tutorial, I will teach you how to create a colourful glowing light trail. This is rather a simple tutorial that can be performed in only 6 basic steps. So get ready to create something like this:

final

First, create a dark blank canvas in any size of your choice. It is not necessarily black. For a better result, you can use a dark background image as well. But in this tutorial, I will use a blank black canvas.

Second, draw above shape using the Pen Tool and play around with the points using Subselection Tool(A) to get a smooth curve on the outline.
draw the curves with pen tool
Draw a few of them with various orientation and curves. While in this process, you may want to put a bright color for the outline and transparent [#FFFFFF] for the fill color to make easier for you to work on a dark background.

remove the outline and fill the shape with color

When you are done with your shape, remove the outline color and fill the shape with any bright color. I am using #FFFF00 for this first shape of mine.

Now, we want to work with the glow. From the Properties pane at the bottom, click the + button next to Filters > choose Shadow and Glow > choose Glow. From the Glow setting, set the value as shown in the following screenshot.

glowing

The values are not fixed - you can play around with it until you like what you see :) And yeah, it is better to choose the same color of the glow with the color of the shape itself.

distortion

Optionally, you can alter the coordination of the shape using the Distort tool. This will make your shape are coming from the very back towards the screen - yeah right :) . But hey, you can try out.

multiplication

As you create more and more shapes, combine them all - play around with the layers position. If you look at the green shape, I used the distortion method - making it thicker at one end and thinner on the other. Yes, you can manually do that, but thats another alternative. :)

Finally as you can see in the final outcome, I added few small circles around the shapes to enhanced the area.

final

Good luck!

Update: Here is the source file of the final result.

download

Fireworks layered PNG.

This post has 10 comments.

  1. Gravatar
    inflame254

    nice tutorial~

    01 Dec 07 | 2:14 pm
  2. Gravatar
    Corey Dutson

    Simple tutorial and cute result. Good job!

    03 Dec 07 | 10:19 am
  3. Gravatar
    flisterz

    thanks guys :)

    03 Dec 07 | 12:09 pm
  4. Gravatar
    syuxx

    umm, klau guna photoshop dpt jugak kan??
    just a bit messy on the colour lah.
    hurrm, btw what is the function of fireworks??
    hope u can answ me.

    05 Dec 07 | 12:56 am
  5. Gravatar
    draxter

    Love the image presentation. The result are nice. Tapi aku rasa photoshop lagi best glowing effectnya, aku tak pernah cuba Fireworks

    10 Dec 07 | 11:38 pm
  6. Gravatar
    adib.

    kalau org bt gmbar yg kete gerak laju gune skill yg camnih jugak ke??

    11 Dec 07 | 1:50 am
  7. Gravatar
    shadowX_19

    nice tutorial… tapi kalo ditambah lagi glow kat keliling tu aku rase lagi bertambah menarik n tambahkan sedikit blur effect. blur effect tu maskingkan dalam layer tail tu. dalam fireworks leh wat camtu ke.? raseye dlm photoshop jekan..? tu pendapat aku je…

    11 Dec 07 | 2:37 am
  8. Gravatar
    flisterz

    @draxter: yeah maybe PS nye effect lg best

    @adib : eh rasenye x. tu gune cara yg lg advanced kot.

    @shadowX_19 : oh boleh je dlm firework tp aku x buat kat situ. ehe

    11 Dec 07 | 11:54 am
  9. Gravatar
    Rich

    Awsome awsome awsome! Given me an idea and a very useful tutorial for wavy lines, thanks!

    05 May 08 | 8:44 am
  10. Gravatar
    tamt

    this is really cool!

    14 May 08 | 3:05 pm

..and 8 pingbacks