DVD Label - Creating the Basic Background Image

My initial idea as mentioned in my earlier blog post was to try and create a basic DVD label similar to the one that was used on Duke Nukem Forever.

This is basically an atomic symbol with a black background and gold metal forming the symbol.

An example of this is as below.

The first thing I would do is try to use this image as a template to get the general look and sizing of the image correct.

To import this into Illustrator you go to the File menu and select Place. You can then navigate to the image you want to import and drag it onto your artboard. The image can then be resized as appropriate.

In order to make it slightly easier to use as a guide I then changed the transparency of image to 30% in the transparency panel. You can bring up this panel by going to the Window menu at the top of Illustrator and selecting Transparency.

You then have this in Illustrator.

Using this I could start to draw out the black parts of the image.

Firstly I drew the thin black line for the circle which is inside the main gold part and touches each of the black inserts. It is very thin and is visible far more towards the top than the bottom of the image since the image has a 3D effect to it.

I used the ellipse tool and by holding down shift it constrained the proportions so that a perfect circle was drawn. I made sure that no fill was selected and that the outline was black. Once I had the size about right I dragged it into place on the template and made small adjustments using the move tool as necessary.

Next I had to draw the black inserts (trapezoid shapes) that with the circle in the middle help to form the atomic symbol.

I used the pen tool to create the trapezoid shapes and anchored these with each tip touching my black circle. Lastly I added a black circle to the centre - again following the underlying template image as a guide so I had something looking like this.

I have to admit I wasn't that impressed a this point but decided to persevere with it for a bit longer!

I moved on to the gold circle which I would use as the backing for the black inlays.

First off I drew a circle and selected the yellow orange gradient that comes as standard with Illustrator. I was then able to go into the gradient panel and adjust the strongest colour to the gold that I have been using for my Photoshop DVD inlay and amend it to a radial gradient. The radial gradient changes it so that the gradient goes from the outside of the circle to the inside rather than from right to left.

I then deleted the other colours that I didn't want but kept the last colour as a yellow / white and the middle as a yellow. I amended the gradient so it went gradually from the gold into yellow and then into a white colour at the end. I adjusted the little diamonds above them to get the gradient to remain as quite gradual changes. The settings for this looked like this:

I could then position my black inlays onto the circle to leave me with this.

That looked a bit better now but I still had several gaps that needed to be filled in.

I used the paintbrush tool to do this for the bits between the outer black circle and the trapezoid shapes.

I used the pen tool to extend the trapezoids so they went to the middle where appropriate.

So I was left with this image.

 

As a base for the DVD label I think this will work quite nicely. I will just need to add it onto the DVD template and make sure it fits within the guidelines nicely, re-sizing where necessary.

In my next blog I will talk about what else I think I will need to add to the DVD label. The next and probably most time consuming thing will be adding a logo. The other thins I will mostly import and place onto the label so they should be easier.