Football Shirt Culture.com

Sometimes when I scroll through fantasy kit designs galleries and forums, I see kits with great potential, but with a lack of presentation.

Therefore, I’d like to introduce you to the world of making fantasy football kits (the easy way).

First, we’ll need a couple of things before we can started:

- Adobe Photoshop (free version is available here: Adobe Trial Link

- A FMG Live template pack here.

- Or this one

The second point can differ based on taste, as there are various options (i.e. SS’08, SS’09, LS’09, FMG’09 and so on).

I’ll be using the SS’09 templates pack for my tutorial, which is my favourite because SS’09 gets updated with new templates quite often.

So once you have downloaded the above, where to begin?

What you’ll see

Load your template in Photoshop. I’ll be using Adidas templates.

When opened, it will look something like this:

As you can see, every layer has a little eyebox on the left side. The box reflects the visibility of the layer. Also, every group of layers has an arrow symbol. When you click on this symbol the contents of the group will be revealed.

NB: It’s may not look exactly like this, the way your interface appears depends on the version of Photoshop you use and the preferred language.

As you can see I opened the Adidas group and now its contents are revealed. The list of templates are parts of the Adidas group and form little subgroups of their own.

Now click on the eyebox next to the template you desire and click on the little arrow symbol of this same template.

Now you’re able to see both what the template looks like and what’s contained inside.

Most of the time templates include a logo, collar and design group. You can toggle groups on and off if you like; for example: if you don’t like the collar that comes with a template you just have to hit the eyebox, then it’s not visible anymore and you can pick a collar from another template (whichever you like best). I’ll just use a completely standardised template this time.

Changing Colours

Changing the colours is easy and here’s how:

There are different ways to change colours in Adobe Photoshop, but I’ll introduce you to only tone, because that’s about all you’ll need while creating fantasy kits.

First: select a layer (this can be achieved easily just by clicking on it). I will change the shirt colour, the layer you’ll have to use for changing the shirt colour is called ‘Shape’ and it can be found in the bottom group called ‘Base’.

Then: look at the bottom of your layerbox and click on the symbol which is circled in the following image.

When you click on this symbol some options appear.

Click on ‘Colour Overlay’. When you’ve done this you’ll be sent to the general menu of styles, in the colour overlay section. In this section you’ll see a little coloured rectangle, hit it.

This menu should come up (if it doesn’t, you’re doing it wrong).

As you can see there are lots of variables here, but I’ll be explaining only the R,G,B and # places.

R means Red, G means Green and B means Blue.

After each character you can fill in a number from 0 to 255. When you fill in 0, this colour (Red, Green or Blue) will not be used. (for example: when you enter 0-0-0 the ‘colour’ will be black). When you fill in 255, the maximum amount of colour will be used (so 255-255-255 gives us white). Everything between 0 and 255 speaks for itself.

In the # space, you can fill in preset colour codes (in the image above, #ffffff is white).

On this site

You can use colour overlay on each layer in the template.

NB: In some templates, such as SS’08, it’s better not to use 0-0-0 for black, because when you do that, the texture will not be visible anymore.

Adding logos

First: look for the needed club crest on the internet.

For European teams, this can be a handy site

It’s most convenient to search for crest in PNG format, because most of the time, PNG pictures don’t have the annoying white backgrounds.

When you’ve found your image, use Ctr+C to copy it.

Then go back to Photoshop and use Ctrl+V to paste.

You’ll now have something like this:

NB: It doesn’t really matter where you paste the crest layer, but at least make sure it’s underneath the ‘Texture’ layer so it blends in better.

Of course, this crest is way too big, so we’ll have to resize it.

Go to ‘Edit’ (one of the buttons on the top left) and hit ‘Free Transform’.

Now your crest should have a thin grey square surrounding it, with several smaller squares on it.

We want our crest to keep the same proportions so follow the instructions below:

- Hold your cursor on one of the smaller squares in the corner

- Hold Shift

- Drag

When this is done correctly your crest will become smaller, without becoming flat. Use the mouse or the arrow keys to drag the image to the right place et voilà:

Adding sponsor logos is the same drill, but sponsor logos are hard to find without white backgrounds.

How to remove backgrounds:

First: select the so called ‘Magic Wand Tool’ from the Photoshop toolbar, the symbol should look like this:

You can also hit the ‘W’ key.

Second: click on the part of the image you want to remove. Hit the ‘Delete’-key. If carried out correctly, the background should be removed.

Now you can resize the sponsor logo (if necessary) and give it the colour you want it to have (see: Changing Colours). Sponsor logos should generally be around the same height as the sleeves.

When you also want to add sleeve patches, the procedure is slightly different, because sleeve patches or logos are not fully visible on the shirt.

This is what you’ll have to do:

- Again: Paste the image in Photoshop and resize it.

- Then drag it to the right position (In this case the sleeves).

(When you need the same logo twice: right click on the patch/logo-layer in the layerbox and hit ‘Duplicate Layer’, drag the new layer to the other sleeve)

- Now you’ll have to rotate it, so it fits better. Go to Edit->Transform->Rotate.

- At the top, you’ll see some new symbols, you can play around with them to see what they do, but today we’re only using one:

In this little box, you can fill in the rotation in degrees, as you can see from the image 27 degrees is the best amount for sleeve patches (NB: this only counts for SS’09, other styles require other numbers and when you place a patch on the other sleeve, fill in minus 27 degrees (-27°).

- Now you’ll have something like this:

This, however, doesn’t look realistic as the patches are now fully displayed, and only a part of them should be visible.

Taking care of that is easy, you just have to know how…

- Go to the ‘Shape’ layer, which you used to change the shirts colour.

- Select the ‘Magic Wand Tool’ again (by pressing ‘W’) and select everything on the outside of the shirt.

- Go back to the patch/logo-layer with the selection still activated and hit the ‘Delete Key’.

- Congratulations, you just added a sleeve patch/logo.

Finally: save the kit and upload it at DesignFootball.com or Fantasy Kit Design FootballShirtCulture.com!

Check the comment section and the ratings to find out what other people think about your creations. For those who want to know what the final result of my example is, see below.

Tips:

- Search some information on the Internet about the club you’re making a shirt for. When you know something about the club, you can add details that can set off the shirt.

- Check some older kits, they reflect the traditions of the club.

These sites can come in handy:

kitclassics

historicalkits

- Less is more. In my humble opinion, it’s best to keep the shirt simple.

- Don’t just use fully preset templates, you can try to make your own ones or play around.

For example: by using a different style of collar.

Now you know the basics of making your own fantasy kit. If you have any questions, feel free to use the comment sections below or contact me, Feyeno0rd, on FSC or DF.

Have fun and good luck everyone!

By Mike a.k.a. ‘Feyeno0rd’