Learn How To Create A Photoshop Style Pen Tool Icon

What We’ll Be Creating

Creating The Pen Nib

Create a new (Ctrl + N) document with the dimension 1000px x 800px on a white #ffffff background. Select the “Pen Tool” (P) with the following settings.

Now start creating the pen nib shape, only plot the points for half of the nib as we can then duplicate the shape and move it over to the other side of the shape. Doing this will give us a nice symmetrical shape to start with.

Once the one side of the nib has been created and your happy with it, go ahead and select all the anchor points. To do this quickly select the “Pen Tool” (P), hold down the control key (Ctrl) then drag a box around the shape with your mouse. Now go to “Edit > Copy” (Ctrl + C) then “Edit > Paste” (Ctrl + V). Select the free transform tool (Ctrl + T) whilst the anchor points are still selected then go to “Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal”. Now that the shape has been flipped move it across so that it looks like one shape.

For people who are unfamiliar with how the pen tool works, when we pasted the new shape it stayed on the same layer. Even though there are actually two shapes we can control them as if it were one. Now if you look at the top of the nib shape the point is a bit to pointy, so to reduce the point select the “Rectangle Tool” (U) with the following options.

If the settings above are blanked out first select the vector mask from within the layer (The Little Thumbnail Inside The Layer). With the option above selected drag a small rectangle across the top of the nib.

You should now have something like this.

Bringing The Nib To Life

Were now going to bring the nib to life using just a couple of layer styles, add the following layer styles with the following settings to your nib layer.

As you can see with very little effort we have something like this.

Adding The Nib Detail

Select the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” (M) then make a selection like the image below.

Fill the selection with the color white #ffffff on a new layer. Deselect the selection with (Ctrl + D) then blur the white shape by going to “Filter > Blur > Guassian Blur”. Blur the selection by around 3 or 5 pixels, we now need to remove the excess of the shape which exceeds outside of the nib shape. To do this load a selection around the nib layer then go to “Select > Inverse” then hit the delete key.

Were now going to create the nib detail, start off with an ellipse using the “Ellipse Tool” (U) then add a rectangle above it which extends out to the top of the nib. Both the ellipse and rectangle should be created all on one layer.

Once you’ve created the shape add the following layer styles.

You should have something like this.

Load a selection around the nib shape layer then fill (G) the selection on a new layer with the color white #ffffff. Once the selection has been filled add a layer mask and drag a reflected gradient over the top part of the nib leaving a transparent white gradient across some of the nib shape.

Creating The Bottom Part

On a new layer under all your nib layers select the “Rounded Rectangle Tool” (U) with a radius of 15px then drag out a rectangle underneath the nib shape.

With your new shape layer selected go to “Edit > Transform > Perspective”. Now select one of the bottom corner anchor points and drag it inwards until you have something like below.

Once your happy with the shape add the following layer styles.

You should now have something like this.

Now select the “Rectangular Marquee Tool” (M) and create two 1 pixel lines on top of each other, the black line first then the white line underneath. Place the two lines at the top of the shape we just created. Once your happy with the lines set the white lines blend mode to “Soft Light”.

That concludes this tutorial, if you want to add a bit more depth to the icon try adding a shadow or even a pen tool path like my result.

Conclusion

Thanks for taking part in this tutorial, if you managed to finish this tutorial I’d love to see some of your results. Feel free to post them up on our Facebook Fan Page Or Tweet them via twitter @photoshop_plus.