Alright, guys, so today I wanted to mess around with creating the “Like a Dragon Gaiden” logo. I’ve been hyped for this game, and the logo is pretty slick, so I thought, “Why not try to recreate it?”
First, I fired up my trusty image editor. I’m no pro, by the way, just a dude who likes to tinker. I started by grabbing a screenshot of the official logo. I just needed it as a reference, you know, something to eyeball while I worked.
Getting the Basic Shape
- I started with a plain black background. Seems like a good, neutral starting point.
- The main part of the logo is that stylized text, right? So, I picked a font that looked kind of similar. It wasn’t perfect, but it had that same kind of chunky, slightly angular feel.
- I typed out “Like a Dragon” and “Gaiden” separately. It let me keep the control when it came to placement.
- I played around with the sizing and spacing of the words for a while. You know, nudging things around, squinting at the screen, the usual. I wanted that “Gaiden” part to sit nicely underneath, just like in the original.
Adding the Flair
Now, the plain text was okay, but it was missing that special something. The real logo has this cool, almost metallic sheen, and some subtle details.
- I messed around A LOT with layer effects. Emboss, inner shadow, outer glow, all of it, many times, it’s just a process of testing.
- I added a gradient overlay to give it that slight shift in color from top to bottom. I think this really helped sell the effect.
- The little details, the notches are kinda cool, so I used line tool with small size tried to draw them.
Final Touches
After more tweaking than I’d like to admit, I got something that I was pretty happy with. It’s not a perfect replica, for sure, but it captures the vibe of the original. I added little bit red light behind the text “Gaiden”.
It was a fun little project! It’s always cool to try and recreate something you admire, even if it’s just for practice. And hey, now I have my own custom “Like a Dragon Gaiden” logo thing. Maybe I’ll use it as my desktop background or something.
