A Work in Progress: Morning Glow



This guide was made for entry:
Morning Glow
In Contest:
swing


Original image


step 1 of 12

Reference photo for heron by SeeMidTN at flckr.com

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 1
sources used for this step:

step 2 of 12

Water for background is started with many duplicates of the wood posts cut out of source photo.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 2

step 3 of 12

Liquify-warp tool has been used to blend the duplicated shapes into water (Canvas has been rotated to horizontal)

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 3

step 4 of 12

Here are the 2 steps used to create piece of driftwood using liquify-warp again.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 4

step 5 of 12

Filter/texture/grain/speckle (at 40 and 50%) are added to get interesting textures into driftwood. Burn tool will add needed shadows for more dimensional look.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 5

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Here a blue/gray solid color layer is added behind the water, then water is reduced in opacity to 45% to allow the cool gray to show through. A gray/wh gradient layer is also added with lighter color toward the top of the background where the light will be brighter.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 6

step 7 of 12

Here are the steps to creating the cattails from a piece of the source wood.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 7

step 8 of 12

Cattails have been duplicated, some scaled a little higher and they are placed at various heights to make a more interesting foreground. Some of the leaves w/out the catkin on top are used to fill in, some brought to front layer to overlap the driftwood.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 8

step 9 of 12

Here are the first steps to creating the heron, starting with liquify-warp to generally shape the bird's head, neck and body.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 9

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Steps 4 and 5 of creating the heron, with color being brushed on. The reference photo bird was lassoed and used as reference material only. It could have been used without reproducing it, but I wanted to do it from the source and do the artwork myself.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 10

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Here the heron is being completed. After all the colors are brushed in, dodge and burn tools help to add details on head and on feather at back of body and on long legs.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 11

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Here the heron is completed and placed on layer behind the driftwood and more light has been added at top of the water layer using render/lighting effects/omni light/(at about 75% intensity)A med blue filter is placed over the heron at 45% just to give it a little more color.

Creation of Morning Glow: Step 12

Final result

Creation of Morning Glow: Final Result

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Comments

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Simply beautiful!

(5 years and 3098 days ago)