Draw a Victorian Kraken Plate T-Shirt Design

Choose File → New, set the units to Pixels, make the document 1800 × 2200 and click Create. Double-click Layer 1 and rename it Garment. Click the foreground colour box, type 14213D in the hex field, and choose Edit → Fill. This is the shirt. Anything you leave unpainted shows it through, so the colour is part of the design.

Add a layer called Medallion. Pick the Elliptical Marquee, hold Shift and drag a big circle in the middle of the canvas, leaving a good margin on every side and room below it for the title. Fill it with parchment #ECDCB5. Now stack the rings with Select → Shrink: shrink by 24 and fill with sepia #3B2A1E, shrink by 6 and fill with parchment again, then shrink by 150 and fill with the darker #E3CF9F. You end up with a thin ink ring and a soft inner disc for the animal to sit on.

Add a layer called Arms, set the foreground to #4A8C82, and pick the Lasso. Draw each arm as a curved, tapering finger: click a point at the base, then click short steps along one side out to the tip, come back along the other side and click the first point to close it. Many small steps give a smooth curve. Start with the two long ones that sweep out sideways, then fill in the five hanging below. After each shape choose Edit → Fill. Let the lowest arms reach a little past the bottom of the ring, so the animal breaks out of its frame.

Open the layer's effects drawer, switch on Stroke, set the colour to sepia #3B2A1E and the width to 7. All the arms get one tidy outline.

Add a layer called Mantle above Arms and set the foreground to #5F9F92. With the Lasso, draw a tall teardrop that overlaps the top of the arms. Fill it, then switch to #4A8C82 and fill two pointed fins at its top corners. Give the layer the same Stroke: sepia, width 7.

Add a layer called Eyes. If it lands beneath the Mantle, drag its row up in the Layers panel until it sits on top. Use the Elliptical Marquee to build each eye in four fills: sepia for the outer ring, ochre #E0A63A, a tall thin ellipse of sepia for the slit pupil, and a tiny cream-white #FFF3D6 dot for the highlight. Each eye is about 100 px wide. Build the first, then make the second the same way a short distance to the right.

Add a layer called Suckers above the Arms. Pick the Brush and the colour #F1E3BD. Set the Size to roughly 40% of the arm's width at that point, then click once for each sucker. Work from the body outwards, making the Size a little smaller every click or two. About eight dots per arm is plenty. Add a Stroke effect (sepia, width 3) so each dot gets a ring.

Select the Arms layer and pick the Magic Wand. Click once on the empty area outside the drawing, then choose Select → Inverse to select the arms. Add a layer called Shade, pick the Gradient tool, and set a linear gradient from white through grey-green to dark teal #1B3A3F. Keep the selection active and drag from the middle of the animal down to the tips. To add the middle colour, double-click the gradient bar in the options bar. In the effects drawer set the layer's Blend to Multiply.

Choose Select → Deselect, then Filter → Halftone. Set Dot Size to 6, Density 1, Angle 45 and Softness 1. The smooth gradient turns into the dots of an engraving. Repeat on a second layer called Shade Mantle, wand-selecting the Mantle and using a white to #2D5B57 gradient over the head.

Add a layer called Ticks above the Medallion and below the Arms. Set the foreground to sepia and choose Filter → Sunburst. Set Rays to 120, Width 12, and move Center X to 50 and Center Y to about 41 so the burst starts at the middle of the medallion. Click Apply.

The rays fill the whole canvas, so trim them. Draw an Elliptical Marquee just inside the sepia ring, choose Select → Inverse, press Delete, then deselect. Finally drop the layer's opacity to 40%.

Drag the Eyes layer to the top of the stack so the shading never covers the pupils. Then select the Arms row, Shift-click the Shade Mantle row to select the range, and choose Layer → Group Layers. Rename the new group Kraken. Now you can move or scale the whole animal in one go. We'll try that at the end.

Add a layer called Insets. Draw a circle in each corner with the Elliptical Marquee, fill it with parchment, Shrink by 5 and fill with sepia, Shrink by 4 and fill parchment again for a thin ring. Keep every circle the same size and the same distance from the edges. The Marquee options show the size if you want to check.

Inside them, use the Lasso and the Marquee to draw: a hooked beak from two sepia shapes shrunk by 6 and filled with ochre and brown, a lens from an eye-sized circle filled sepia, then ochre after Shrink 10, teal after another Shrink 24, and sepia after another Shrink 16, with one tiny white Brush click for the glint, a sucker from concentric rings, and an ink sac as a dark teardrop with a small teal gleam.

Select any layer that is not text, then pick the Text tool, choose EB Garamond, size 42, cream #ECDCB5, and click under each circle to type Fig. 1 · Beak, Fig. 2 · Lens, Fig. 3 · Sucker and Fig. 4 · Ink sac. Centre each label under its circle.

Add a Leaders layer on top. Choose the Pencil, set the colour to vermilion #D1492E and the size to 6. Click on the edge of an inset, then Shift-click the part of the animal it describes. The lines will cross the animal. That is the point, they are pointing into it. With the Brush at size 26, click once at the end of each line for the dot.

Pick the Text tool, choose Cinzel, set the size to about 285 and the colour to cream #ECDCB5, then click below the medallion and type KRAKEN. Leave a clear gap between the lowest arm tip and the top of the letters. With the Move tool and the text layer selected, press Align center horizontally in the options bar.

Cinzel's thin strokes can break up when printed on a shirt, so add a Stroke effect in the same cream colour at width 4 to thicken them.

Make a new text layer in Playfair Display at size 66 in ochre #E0A63A, typed as Architeuthis krakenus, Plate XIV. Open the Text panel and set Font style to Italic. Then add the caption in EB Garamond at size 35, cream, with Letter spacing set to 4: CEPHALOPODS OF THE DEEP ATLANTIC · FIELD EDITION. Centre both lines and check that the descenders in the Latin name stay clear of the caption and that the caption keeps a generous margin from the bottom edge.

Make a text layer in Space Mono at size 56 in vermilion, typed as SPECIMEN Nº 8, and set Font weight to Bold. Pick the Move tool and hover just outside a corner of the text box until the cursor changes to a rotation crosshair. Drag around the centre to tilt it anticlockwise; a modest angle is enough. The text stays live, so it can still be edited. Drag it into the clear space at the top, clear of the medallion ring and the figures.

Select the Garment layer and add a layer above it called Plankton. Pick the Spray tool, set the colour to #9FC6C0, Size 90, Density 20, Opacity 60 and Softness 70, and drag short wiggly strokes in the empty corners and margins. Keep the spray away from the labels so the type stays readable.

Add a layer called Grain above everything. Set the foreground to mid grey #808080 and fill the whole layer with Edit → Fill. Choose Filter → Add Noise, switch to Mono, set Amount to 45 and apply. Then set the layer's Blend to Overlay and drop its opacity to 35%.

This is optional, and you can undo it. Select the Kraken group row and pick the Move tool. Hold Cmd and drag a corner handle inward to scale the whole group uniformly, then press Cmd+D to commit. Every layer in the group scales together. The eyes stay put because they sit outside the group, so drag the Eyes layer into it first if you ever want to resize the whole animal.

Press Cmd+Z and the group returns exactly to where it was. Cmd+Shift+Z redoes the scale. Undo once more, then export with File → Quick Export PNG, or save the project to keep the layers.