Create an Amazing Surreal-Style Treehouse in Photoshop

Create this beautiful treehouse artwork using a combination of photo manipulation and painting techniques. Find out how to easily draw a surreal-looking tree easily using the Brush tool, clouds from scratch, and more! You’ll learn all these techniques in this Photoshop tutorial.

Preview of Final Results

Surreal Treehouse Photoshop Tutorial

Tutorial Resources

• Tree Houses – Thanks archetype, Deviantart
• Bonsai Tree – Thanks fabemiko, Deviantart
• Model – Thanks mizzd, Deviantart (Alternative)
• Nebula – Nasa

Step 1

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) of 1024 pixel wide and 1280 pixel high.

Step 2

From this step on we will create a tree going to be used in this work. First of all, select the Brush tool in the tool panel. Hit F5 to open the brush panel. Choose a hard round brush and then do some setting on Shape Dynamics, Scattering, and Color Dynamics as the following:

Step 3

Set the color of the foreground to #fabc22 and the background to #352703 in the color pickers panel. With the brush size set to 150px and the brush tip set to the ones in step 2, stroke it to give it a try. I have made a shape like the one in the illustration picture:

Step 4

Keep on trying to stroke the brush to create the stems and some branches. Do this on different layers. One thing to remember is to try to vary the brush sizes and the amount of Fade Control in the Shape Dynamics accordingly. After doing some trials and errors, finally, I sorted some shapes suitable to the tree we are going to create:

Step 5

What we are going to do next is arrange the shapes into a single tree. This is what I did: first I arrange the stem for the tree. Place the stem 1 in the bottom and then the other stem (stem 2) is right above it. Then put another stem (stem 3) above the others. Finally, add the last stem (stem 4). See the illustration picture.

Step 6

Continue to add some branches to the tree until we find the complete shape.

Step 7

Next, merge all of the tree layers to make them a single layer. With the single tree layer selected, go to Filter > Render > Lightning. Follow the setting as shown in the illustration picture:

Step 8

In this step, we will give more details to the tree by defining the shading and shadow. To achieve this, we will use the Burn tool. Activate the Burn tool in the tool panel. Set its range to highlight at 10% exposure. With a very soft brush, stroke some areas on the tree to give it shadow and shading. Please see the illustration picture to see what we are doing:

Step 9

Finally, we will give the tree Gradient Map. Go to Layer > New adjustment layer > Gradient map. This will change the color of the tree. Remember to create a clipping mask to this gradient layer. Set this gradient map layer to normal blending at 60% opacity. Select all layers and then hit Ctrl+E to merge them. I named this layer tree. We have finished the tree.

Step 10

Create a new white document of 1024 pixel wide and 1686 pixel high. Create a new layer. Set the foreground color to #9db1fc and the background to #6ca5f8. Take the Gradient Tool and set it to linear gradient. Fill the new layer with gradient by dragging the gradient tool on it. Now we have the background.

Step 11

The background created in step 11 is so plain that we need to give it some cloud texture. To achieve this, we will create a cloud. Make another new white document of 1024 pixel wide and 731 pixels high. Set the foreground color to #92a8fb and the background to white. Give this new document cloud by going to Filter > Render > Cloud. Next, take the Lasso Tool in the tool panel. Click and drag the lasso tool on the document to make a selection. Hit Shift+F6 to show Feather Selection’s options command box. Set the radius of the feather to 100 pixels. Hit Ctrl+J to duplicate the selection into a new single layer. Hide the main background by clicking the eye icon to see the result.