Tadlos is 21 and from Italy, and he never set out to make thumbnails. He wanted to be an editor, but his PC couldn't handle it, so a friend pointed him toward thumbnails instead. That was 2024.
These days he works mainly on IRL and entertainment content. Tadlos is available for hire.
YTJobs → ytjobs.co/@TadlosDesigns
Twitter (X) → x.com/TadlosDesigns
Featured design
The brief
This was the image brief I was given, alongside the title: "Unluckiest Timing Ever Caught On Camera".
The brief the client sent
From there I was told what to change: less cheese, no scoreboard in the background, and different shirt and cup colors. So I made a very simple layout sketch for my own sake, which I never sent to the client.
My own layout sketch, never sent to the client
References
First I looked at some inspirations for the design and colors.
The thumbnails I pulled design and color cues from
Building the background
I started with the background using AI and Camera Raw Filter.
The generated stadium background
Used Freepik and Flow to generate a bunch of references.
The batch of generations I pulled from
Cleaned it up, added the baseball field and the faces of Gabe and James.
Field in place, with Gabe and James dropped in
The poses
Then, in Flow, I added a rough sketch of the pose I needed as a reference and generated some realistic poses to match.
Pose sketches and the generations they produced
Cheese and lighting
Added cheese stains with assets from Freepik.
Cheese assets
Retouched the faces and fixed the lighting using curves and adjustment layers plus AI.
Faces retouched and lighting fixed
Why the stadium went green
I then noticed that the stadium had too much blue and red, which was making James and Gabe kinda blend in, so I made it green to make it complement.
The stadium turned green
Why green? Looking at the color wheel, green, red and blue form a triadic color relationship.
Red, green and blue on the color wheel
Finishing it
Added the nacho bowl.
The nacho bowl added
I upscaled the image with Freepik's upscaler and made the jalapeños a more realistic green with a Hue/Saturation layer. Then I added a Camera Raw filter and blurred the background.
Upscaled, graded and with the background blurred
Then we made one with a slightly higher angle, closer to the field. I got the angle by making the field larger so the stadium isn't visible, then worked on the subjects with the new Rotate Object feature in Photoshop, photo-manipulation and some AI to fix imperfections.
Final thumbnail - version 2
Unlayered
Workstation
AMD Ryzen 5 5600 6-Core. 16 GB RAM, more on the way. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050
Tools
Communication: Discord / Slack
Sending files: Google Drive / Discord / Slack
Editing: Photoshop
AI: Claude / Freepik / Flow
Image assets: Freepik / Google
How did you get into thumbnail design?
Long story short, I wanted to start editing but my PC couldn't handle the tiniest transition without crashing or extreme lag, so my friend suggested me to start thumbnails and that's how it started. I started 2024 with no prior experience. That same year I had high school diploma exams and university entry exams after that, so I didn't put much focus on thumbnails at all. Start of 2025 I decided to go all in on thumbnails and here we are :))
What do you enjoy most about making thumbnails?
The part I enjoy most is seeing the final result. After all the ideation, research, and design, there's nothing better than watching the packaging go live and seeing how it performs. It's where the whole thought process finally pays off, and whether your reasoning was good enough or not.
One tip for someone just starting out?
The main piece of advice to someone just starting out is start posting consistently on Twitter and BE INVOLVED with who you work with. What I mean is don't just be the thumbnail guy whom I just give the concept to, he designs it and that's all (especially cuz with AI designing is getting easier than ever). When you can, help out with the ideation, give tips, and be communicative. NEVER ever ghost or reply/deliver late. If you fear you will deliver late, let them know beforehand at all times. All this sounds cliche but so many clients come to me and have that fear from freelancers ghosting, delivering late, overpromising and underdelivering.
Best thumbnail you've ever made?
The top thumbnail shows the version I made recently (late March/early April) and the bottom one is the one I made last year. The reason I really like this is cuz it particularly shows the progress made in the past year.
Top: this year's version. Bottom: last year's
Best thumbnail you've ever seen?
Not sure of the exact title since it's been a while since I have this saved. Tho the designing and lighting is stunning on this!
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