Our goal for this tutorial is to draw a realistic leather briefcase entirely from scratch. We’ll use Photoshop’s amazing layer styles and incredible brush engine to create textured leather, convincing stitches and gold-plated locks. Let’s get started!

Take a look at the image we’ll be creating. Want access to the full PSD files and downloadable copies of every tutorial, including this one? Join Psd Plus for just $9/month. You can view the final image preview below.

• Program: Adobe Photoshop CS4


• Difficulty: Advanced


• Estimated Completion Time: 2 hours

Our video editor Gavin Steele has created this video tutorial to compliment this text + image tutorial.

Let’s start by creating a new RGB blank document, choosing a 512 px square canvas. Activate Snap from the View Menu (Shift + Command + Semicolon key). Set up two guides to mark the center of the canvas.

Select the Rounded Rectangle Tool (U), choose Shape Layer and set the Radius to 10 px in the Options bar (1a). Draw a brown rectangle by Alt-clicking and draggi