Case Study //: Afterburner Commence

Afterburner Commence was a long production. But I guess its because I took a bit of a break due to frustration of the artwork not coming out right. The file also ended up being really really big due to the fact that I was designing it in 300ppi.

Size //: 751MB .PSD file.
Dimension //: 20 in (w) by 50 in (h)
Layers //: 209 layers
Software //: Adobe Photoshop (75%), Illustrator (25%)
Production Time //: 35 Hours (approx.)

Please note: Case Study is NOT a step by step tutorial on how I did my project. It is just a case study of how the project was completed. In all honesty, only a designer who has excellent knowledge of the software I use would know how I achieved many of the steps. Thank you.

1. The first step is to actually import the picture and do my quickmasking / pentool extract process. I cut out the background of the model and just erase out the background.

2. All done. Now we are ready to apply special effects and some Photoshop magic.

3. Now I start to apply some digital make up effects and re-touch the photograph. I start off with a bit of eye shadow.

4. Here is me doing some lipstick digital painting. I make her lips glossy using the plastic wrap filter. You should check out my video tutorial on photo re-touching.

5. Done with the digital make up for now. I might go back and change the tone or add more if it’s needed.

6. I start to dye her hair and put some red highlights in it to follow up with my concept of flaming girl.

7. I start to put some fire images overlapping on the model. This is the beginning of the flaming effect done for Afterburner Commence. I use the multiply or screen blending mode to apply it so I don’t have to mask it out.

8. More fire effects over laying on top of the model and behind the model. I am starting to erase part flames I don’t need.

9. The above screenshot is of me creating flames that wrap around her legs. I use the TRANSFORM > WARP effect to achieve this. Although in the end it really didn’t work out too well.

9. This is what I have so far. It’s starting to look good overall but of course I am not 100% happy with it.

10. So I wasn’t all happy with the bottom part and I start to erase majority of the flames. I get the burn and dodge tool as well as the smudge tool to construct the flame to be more organic. I also used some brushes with the same color tone as the flame I got from a photograph.

11. What I have so far. I started to add flames around her arms. Again, I used brushes and the smudge tool.

12. This is a screenshot of me using brushes and trying to apply smoke. In the end I did not use most of the smoke effects I applied on here.

13. Adding more flames around the model. I probably spent about 75% of my production time with the flame effects.

14. My first attempt with typography effects on the art. Of course I ended up rejecting the above concept completely. It just didn’t look cool enough.