Those little blue elves are back. And this time in full 3D glory, including this type effect which maintains a very cartoonish look by combining simple layer styles and very basic 3D type. And yeah, I always wondered why there was only one female Smurf and the rest were all boys, too. Suspicious? Oh, I’d say so.

STEP 1:
Create a 7×4”, 150-ppi document, using White as the Background Contents. Click on the Foreground color swatch. When the Color Picker dialog appears, choose a royal blue (R:0, G:50, B:156) and click OK. Choose the Type tool (T), turn on Center Text in the Options Bar, and enter your text (we’re using Grobold Medium [available from www.dafont.com] 61pt for the word “THE” and 110 pt for the word “SMiRKS”—all in uppercase except for the letter “i”). Adjust the tracking in the Character panel (Window>Character) as needed (we set ours to —30).

STEP 2:
Go to 3D>Re-poussé>Text Layer and click Yes to rasterize the text. When the Repoussé dialog appears, go to the Extrude section and enter .5 for Depth. Now, while holding down the Shift key, click-and-drag upward (directly on the type) to rotate the face of your 3D type up slightly, click OK.

STEP 3:
Go to the 3D panel (Window>3D) and click on the Eye icons next to Infinite Light 1 and 2 (near the bottom of the Scene list) to hide them from view (see example below). Now, click on the Global Ambient Color swatch (under the Render Settings in the 3D panel), choose black as the color, and click OK.

Note: You’ve hidden or removed much of the Repoussé 3D lighting effect, but that’s part of this cartoon type effect. It’s 3D type, but not.

STEP 4:
Press D then X to change the Foreground color to white. Using the Type tool with its previous settings (110 Pt Grobold Medium in our example), type the last character (“S” in our example). Switch to the Move tool and reposition the letter over the existing S on the far right. Click on the Add a Layer Style icon (fx) at the bottom of the Layers panel and choose Bevel and Emboss. Enter 4 px for Size and 5 px for Soften. Uncheck the Use Global Light checkbox and enter 34° for Angle and 53° for Altitude. Raise both the Highlight and Shadow Mode Opacities to 100%. Click on the black Shadow Mode color swatch, choose a royal blue (R:15, G:53, B:162), and click OK to close the Color Picker (but don’t click OK to close the Layer Style dialog just yet).

STEP 5:
Click on the words “Gradient Overlay” in the Styles list on the left side of the Layer Style dialog. Click directly on the Gradient preview. When the Gradient Editor dialog appears, double-click the black color stop under the gradient ramp on the left. Choose a light blue color (R:219, G:241, B:249) and click OK. Double-click on the white color stop on the right, choose a darker blue color (R:0, G:109, B:251), and click OK. Click OK to close the Gradient Editor, and enter 90° for Angle. Choose Stroke from the Styles list. Select Outside for Position. Click the Color swatch, choose a dark blue (R:28, G:67, B:136), and click OK. Now you can click OK to apply the three layer styles.

STEP 6:
Go to 3D>Repoussé>Text Layer again, but this time enter 0 for Depth. Rotate the S upward, trying to closely match the angle from Step Two. Click OK. Reposition the S over the 3D background text if needed.

Note: The rotated angles from Step Two and Step Six don’t need to be exact The fact that they aren’t adds to the loose cartoon feel of the type effect.

STEP 7:
Choose the Type tool once again and type in the next character (K in our example). Reposition as needed. Make sure the K text layer is above the S text layer in the Layers panel.

STEP 8:
Use Repoussé (as we did in Step Six) to rotate the text (it’s important to apply Repoussé first before you add the following layer styles). Reposition as needed. Apply the same layer styles we created in Steps Four and Five with one small addition. Before you apply the styles (after adding the Stroke style), choose Drop Shadow from the Styles list. Click on the black color swatch, choose a dark blue color (R:28, G:67, B:136), and click OK. Lower the Opacity to 40%, and uncheck the Use Global Light checkbox. Enter 168° for Angle, 10 px for Distance, 0 px for Size, and click OK to apply the style. This will add a slightly overlapping, hard shadow to the right side of the character.

STEP 9:
Repeat Steps Seven and Eight for the remaining characters (putting each on their own layer). Be sure to use a smaller font size (6l Pt Grobold) when creating the characters for the word “THE,” and hide the Drop Shadow (Eye icon under Effects in the Layers panel) for the letter “E.” Tip: After you add the Drop Shadow layer style for the letter “K” in Step Eight, you can now simply copy all of the layer styles to each letter after you apply Repoussé. Hold down the Option (PC: Alt) key, and drag-and-drop the fx that appears to the right of the K layer to the R layer, etc.

STEP 10:
Click on the original Background layer to make it the active layer. Click on the Background color swatch, choose a light blue color (R:143, G:187, B:232), and click OK. Go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Click on the original type layer (the dark blue 3D type layer) to make it the active layer. Click on the Add a Layer Style icon and choose Outer Glow. Change the Opacity to 100%, click on the pale yellow color swatch, choose a white as the color, and click OK. Enter 10% for Spread, 75 px for Size, and click OK to complete the effect.

Note: We added some additional text and brushed in some stars to our finished piece.

Photoshop Tutorial source from PhotoshopUser July 2011