LOPSY

Make a Claymorphism Poster with Layer Effects

Build a soft claymorphism poster. Fill flat shapes, then use Inner Glow, Drop Shadow, a Multiply shade and grouped rotation to make them look like clay.

  • Intermediate
  • 90 min
  • 16 steps

Published

The finished Yogurt Zeppelin poster. A glossy mint zeppelin with a pink band drifts across a cream sun above a pink-banded yogurt cup topped with a swirl and a cherry. White clay clouds float around it and a rotated yellow 100% LIVE CULTURES badge sits at the right. A chunky pink ZEPPELIN headline with a purple YOGURT above it, and the line Cultured at altitude, sit at the top and bottom

Claymorphism is the look of soft, inflated 3D objects: rounded shapes, pastel colours, a bright edge where the light hits, and a gentle shadow underneath. You don't need a 3D program for it. In this tutorial you'll make Yogurt Zeppelin, a 1200 × 1600 poster for an imaginary dairy that delivers by blimp. Every object starts as a flat fill. Layer effects and a few Multiply layers do the "clay" work. It's about 35 layers in all, so name them as you go and take it one object at a time.

The palette:

  • Sky
  • Sun
  • Sun glow
  • Hull
  • hull shade
  • Pink
    hull band, fins and cup band, headline
  • Cream
    gondola, cup, yogurt
  • Cloud
  • cloud shadow
  • cloud edge
  • Purple
    YOGURT and the propeller
  • headline shadow
  • Badge
  • badge text
  • Berries
  • cherry

  1. Start a portrait canvas

    Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog, choose Pixels and type 1200 × 1600. Click Create.

    Double-click the empty layer's name and call it Sky. Every layer name in this tutorial is a suggestion, but matching them makes the steps easier to follow.

    The Lopsy editor with a blank white 1200 by 1600 pixel portrait canvas and one empty layer above the Background

  2. Paint the pastel sky

    Pick the Gradient tool and click Advanced…. Set three stops: at the start, at 50% and at the end. Click Done, make sure nothing is selected, and drag from near the top of the canvas straight down to near the bottom.

    Keep the sky soft. Claymorphism works because everything is low-contrast and the objects are the brightest things on the page.

    The canvas filled with a vertical gradient from peach at the top through pink to lavender at the bottom

  3. Add a glowing sun

    Add a layer named Sun. Pick the Elliptical Marquee and drag out a circle about 700 px wide, a little above the middle of the canvas.

    Choose the Gradient tool again, set the type to Radial and use the stops , at 70% and . Drag from just up-and-left of the circle's centre out to its edge, so the bright spot sits off-centre like a lit ball.

    Open the layer's effects (the sparkle icon on its row), switch on Outer Glow, and set the colour to , Size to 60 and Opacity to 70.

    A cream circle with a soft glow on the sky, with a circular selection around it and the Layer Effects panel open on Outer Glow

  4. Fill the hull and give it clay edges

    Add a layer named Zep Body. Set the foreground colour to . With the Elliptical Marquee, drag a wide, flat ellipse across the sun, roughly 940 px wide and 350 px tall. Fill it with Edit → Fill.

    These two effects are the heart of the clay look:

    1. Drop Shadow in : Blur 45, Offset Y 45, Offset X 10, Opacity 45.
    2. Inner Glow in : Size 30, Opacity 80. This brightens the rim, which makes the shape look inflated.
    A mint ellipse on the sun with a soft purple shadow beneath it and a bright inner edge, with the ellipse selection still active

  5. Shade the hull with a Multiply layer

    Leave the ellipse selected. Add a layer named Zep Shade, open its effects, and pick Multiply from the Blend dropdown at the top of the panel.

    With the Gradient tool, use three stops: , at 45% and . Make sure the type is back on Linear, then drag from the top of the ellipse down to its bottom edge. Because the selection is still active, the shading stays inside the hull. Multiply only ever darkens, so the white end leaves the mint untouched.

    The mint hull now fades from light mint at the top to a deeper blue-teal at the bottom

  6. Add a highlight and a stripe

    For the highlight, add a layer named Zep Highlight, set the foreground to white, and drag a thin ellipse near the top-left of the hull. Choose Select → Feather…, enter 14 and apply it. Fill, deselect with Ctrl+D, and lower the layer's opacity to 55%.

    For the stripe, click the Zep Body row and add a layer called Zep Stripe, so it sits just above the hull. Redraw the same hull ellipse and fill it with . Now draw a tall, narrow rectangle with the Rectangular Marquee across the part you want to keep. Use Select → Inverse, press Delete, and deselect. Only the band remains, with its ends neatly following the hull.

    The hull with a soft white highlight along the upper left and a pink vertical band near the right end

  7. Draw the tail fins

    Click the Sun row, then add a layer named Fins. It lands above the sun but below the hull, which is where fins belong.

    Set the foreground to . With the Lasso, drag a rough triangle for each fin: an upper one pointing up and to the left, and a lower one pointing down and to the left. Both should start well inside the hull, since the hull will cover their roots. Fill each. Give the layer a Drop Shadow (, Blur 30, Offset Y 30, Opacity 40) and an Inner Glow (, Size 22, Opacity 75).

    Two coral-pink triangular tail fins behind the left end of the hull, each with a soft shadow

  8. Build the gondola, windows and propeller

    Click Zep Body and add three layers, one at a time:

    • Gondola — a small flat ellipse under the hull in , with the same Drop Shadow and an Inner Glow.
    • Windows — four small ellipses in , spaced evenly along the gondola and filled one at a time, with a pale Inner Glow.
    • Propeller — two thin crossed ellipses (one tall, one wide) in , with a small Drop Shadow.
    A cream pill-shaped gondola under the hull with four blue round windows and a small purple propeller at its left end

  9. Group the airship and tilt it

    Click the Fins row, then Shift-click Zep Highlight to select the whole run of airship layers. Choose Layer → Group Layers (Ctrl+G) and rename the group Zeppelin.

    Pick the Move tool with the group selected and leave the transform mode on Free. Dragging inside the canvas moves the whole airship at once, so slide it until it sits across the sun. To tilt it, move the pointer just outside a corner handle until the cursor changes, then drag in a slow arc so the nose (the right end, away from the fins) rises about 9°. Press Ctrl+D to commit the transform. In the Move tool, that commits rather than deselects.

    The whole airship selected as one group with a bounding box, tilted so the nose points up and to the right

  10. Make the yogurt cup

    Click Sun before you add layers, so the cup doesn't land inside the airship group. Work from the bottom up:

    1. Cup Body — with the Lasso, drag around a wide-top, narrow-bottom cup shape with a curved base. Fill with , then add a lilac Drop Shadow (, Blur 40, Offset Y 40, Opacity 50) and a white Inner Glow.
    2. Cup Shade — set to Multiply. Re-select the cup and drag a horizontal gradient from through to , so the right side turns slightly lilac.
    3. Cup Band — a trapezoid across the middle in , with a soft pink Inner Glow.
    4. Cup Rim — a flat white ellipse across the top, with a small Drop Shadow.
    5. Yogurt Top — build the swirl on one layer in : a flat ellipse sitting inside the rim, a smaller taller ellipse on that, a smaller one again on top, then a little Lasso triangle for the curled tip. Add a Drop Shadow and a pink Inner Glow.
    A white paper cup with a pink band, a pink-white soft-serve swirl and a rim, standing on the lavender sky

  11. Add a cherry and puffy clay clouds

    Make a Cherry layer above Yogurt Top: a circle with a tiny white dot for the shine, a small Drop Shadow, and a pink Inner Glow.

    For the clouds, add one layer per cloud and place them around the page: one behind the left of the headline, one behind its right, one lower-left beside the cup and one lower-right. In each, fill five overlapping ellipses of different sizes in , with the biggest in the middle. Put a Drop Shadow (, Blur 34, Offset Y 22, Opacity 40) and an Inner Glow (, Size 26, Opacity 70) on every layer. The Inner Glow gives each cloud its pillowy edge.

    For the cloud bank across the bottom (Cloud Bank), fill two staggered rows of big ellipses that overflow the page on both sides, and flip the Drop Shadow's Offset Y to -24 so the shadow falls up onto the cup. Then add a Bank Shade layer set to Multiply at about 55% opacity. Use a soft lavender , feather your ellipse selections by 35 px, and fill a few shapes in the dips of the bank. That gives it the lavender fade at the bottom.

    Puffy white clouds on both sides of the cup and a large cloud bank across the bottom, with a red cherry on top of the swirl

  12. Set the headline

    Click a layer that isn't text first, otherwise changing the font and size will restyle that text layer. Pick the Text tool, choose Fredoka, set the weight to Bold, size 200 and a pink fill of , and click near the top to type ZEPPELIN. Press Tab to commit.

    Add a white Stroke (Width 12) and a purple Drop Shadow (, Blur 24, Offset Y 22, Opacity 55). Use the Move tool's Align center horizontally button to centre it.

    Click a non-text layer again, then make YOGURT the same way at size 128 in with a Width 10 stroke. Centre it and nudge it up with the arrow keys until its white outline clears the big word, leaving a comfortable margin above it.

    The words YOGURT and ZEPPELIN at the top in purple and pink with thick white outlines and soft shadows

  13. Add the tagline, berries and sparkles

    On the cloud bank, add Cultured at altitude in Fredoka SemiBold at 78 in , and the line SKY-FRESH DAIRY DELIVERY · EST. 1937 at 34. Centre both and keep them well inside the bottom margin.

    Add a Berries layer and fill a few small circles in and , scattered around the airship and the left cloud. One tucked partly behind the hull is fine. Use the same Drop Shadow and white Inner Glow so they match the other clay objects.

    For the sparkles, make a Sparkles layer. Use the Lasso to drag a thin four-pointed star, like a long diamond pulled out in four directions, fill it with white, and repeat at a few sizes. Add an Outer Glow in .

    Cultured at altitude and a smaller pink tagline sit on the cloud bank. Blue and pink clay berries and white four-point sparkles float around the airship

  14. Rotate a price-style badge

    Make a Badge layer with a circle about 200 px wide. Add a white Stroke (Width 8), a purple Drop Shadow and a Inner Glow.

    Type 100% (Fredoka Bold, 58, ) and LIVE CULTURES (SemiBold, 19). Move them onto the badge. Keep the small line well inside the circle: it must clear the edge on both sides.

    Group the three layers as Badge Group. With the Move tool, rotate the group about 14° counter-clockwise, the same way you tilted the airship, and commit with Ctrl+D. Rotating the group means the numbers and the circle turn together, so you don't have to rotate three layers by hand.

    A yellow circular badge reading 100% LIVE CULTURES, tilted counter-clockwise, to the right of the airship

  15. Add film grain

    Click the top layer and add a layer named Grain. Set the foreground to and fill the whole layer with Edit → Fill. Choose Filter → Add Noise…, turn on Mono, set Amount to 60 and apply it.

    Set the layer's blend mode to Overlay and its opacity to about 22%. Grain stops the gradients from looking plastic, and it hides any banding.

    The poster with a fine monochrome grain over all of the soft gradients

  16. Final checks

    Step back and look at the whole poster. A few things are worth fixing before you export:

    • The two headline lines need a clear gap between their white outlines. If they merge, nudge YOGURT up.
    • Keep the text away from the edges. Only the cloud bank and the side clouds should run off the page.
    • If the small tagline is hard to read in light pink, give it a Color Overlay in and raise its size to about 40.
    • Make sure the airship has some breathing room under the headline. Nudge the Zeppelin group and the Sun down together if it feels cramped, and drop the cherry so it sits on the tip of the swirl.
    • Fix a blotchy spot by re-filling the shape and adding a gentle Multiply gradient over it, instead of stacking more strokes.

    Finish with File → Quick Export PNG, and save the project with File → Save Project so you can reopen it later.

    The final poster in the editor with the headline, the airship, the cup, the clouds and the tagline all clear of the page edges
Lopsy rotating the pink Flamingo script headline over a striped retro sun, with the transform handles and a neon flamingo sign in view

Make a Vaporwave Sunset Billboard

Design a synthwave roadside billboard in your browser with a striped retro sun, neon grid, palm silhouettes, a neon sign and glowing script type in Lopsy.

  • Intermediate
  • 45 min
Lopsy showing the finished CRYSTAL SODA billboard, with a holographic foil soda can inside an iridescent ring, floating pastel crystals, and a navy headline with rainbow offset echoes on a pale lilac background

Design a Holographic Soda Can Billboard

Build a CRYSTAL SODA billboard in Lopsy with Clouds, Liquify and a Gradient Map for foil, faceted lasso crystals and a holographic echo headline.

  • Intermediate
  • 70 min