3D abstract art has remained a very popular design subject over the last several years, and interest in it shows no sign of abating! There are, of course, hundreds of different ways to make 3D abstracts, with no particular method better than another. The method detailed in this tutorial takes a middle road, delivering an intermediate skill-level tutorial using a combination of a 3D package and Adobe Photoshop. The results speak for themselves!

Step 1: Find or create a very simple render in a 3D package of your choice. If you use Cinema 4D, you may find this tutorial very useful. Using the layer's palette, place your render in its own layer, with a single solid white background layer underneath it.

Step 2: Remove the areas of black in your render layer using a cut-out method of your choice (beginners may want to view a tutorial on color isolation - it is very easy to use this technique to select and remove unwanted areas of black). Once you have your render just how you want it, create a diagonal gradient from black to white in the background layer using the linear gradient tool.

Step 3: You will probably find this gradient a little too stark against the render, so go to Image > Adjustments > Brightness/Contrast, and enter a Brightness of -36, and a Contrast of -9. Your image should now look something like this:

Step 4: Create a new layer, placing it on top of the background layer, but still underneath the render layer. Reset your colors back to B&W by pressing 'D' on the keyboard, and run Filter > Render > Clouds promptly afterwards. Bulk up your cloud effect by running Filter > Render > Difference Clouds TWICE, and then fade it in a little with Image > Adjustments > Auto Contrast. Click on your cloud layer in the layer palette and set its blending mode to Overlay.

Step 5: Now to break out those abstract brushes! Create a new layer on top of the clouds layer but still underneath the abstract, and make it the currently active layer. Ensure at this stage that your foreground color is white, and opacity/flow are at 100%. Then, using your abstract brushes, add in a little funk, brushing under the render even if your additions are not visible. Don't go too overboard though - you'll see why this is undesirable very soon!

PS. If you need a source of Abstract brushes, there are tons of them all over the web, but the Biorust Downloads Section is a good place to start.

Step 6: It gets a little tougher now. Switch to your render layer and Layer > Duplicate it once. Click back to the first render layer and change its blending mode to Linear Burn. Now go back to the top render layer and set its blending mode to Linear Dodge. Then press CTRL+SHIFT+E on the keyboard - this will merge all the visible layers together.

Step 7: Create a new layer on top of the others and do a little more abstract brushing if it is needed. Try not to brush the render, but around it to bring out the background. This is an optional, but often very necessary step! After you are done brushing, set the layer's blending mode to Overlay. As you can see in my example below, the change is not too revolutionary:

Step 8: Choose Image > Adjustments > Color Balance from the main menu and play around with the options to add a little color to your image. The final color choice is entirely up to you! Here is what I made earlier:

Step 9: Create a new layer on top of the rest, and change your foreground/background colors to colours that match ones already present in your image. In this case I've gone for a dark red and an orangish color - your choices will undoubtedly be very different. Once you have done this, run Filter > Render > Clouds, and change the layer blending mode to Hue, Saturation, or Color - whichever one looks best to you. You can do this more than once and with different colors, but I wouldn't go crazy with it! :) And here is my final result... Not bad!