A Work in Progress: High Wire Act



This guide was made for entry:
High Wire Act
In Contest:
pick me


Original image


step 1 of 23

After masking the figure, front wheel of the bike and the pedal pieces, place in general positions on canvas.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 1

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Used puppet warp to align leg, foot and pedal

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 2

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Chose segment of joint for rope.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 3

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Warp the piece into shape. Duplicate a thousand times (ok, it only felt like a thousand times) to create the full rope.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 4

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Apply a little warp to create the bend in the rope.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 5

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Created the bike seat using the same segment of joint, warped to shape. Levels changed to create natural shadow and light. Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to change the color, with blending mode set to Color.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 6

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Umbrella created from section of head. Warped and stretched to create the right shape.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 7

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To simulate closed hand around the handle, selected a half-shape piece of top of hand and moved it into place.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 8

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Creation of High Wire Act: Step 9

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Creation of High Wire Act: Step 10

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Select leg section to create handle. Narrowed and stretched tall.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 11

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To create the crowd, isolated arm sections and torso, then mixed and matched to create various expressions.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 12

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Crowd "template." These segments were duplicated to make three tiers, spacing adjustments made between figures. Center tier was flipped horizontally to vary the crowd. Second tier and top tier were each made smaller than the previous layer. Gaussian blue applied at 1.5 on fist layer, 2.5 on second layer, and 3.5 for top or back layer.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 13

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Foreground crowd was made from the crowd "template" with a second torso applied to cover the arm fronts (to simulate the figures' backs). Levels adjusted to darken.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 14

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"Spotlights" added by using soft brush at low opacity. With starting point off the canvas, held Shift key to draw straight lines.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 15

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Floor was created with two ellipses of varying shades. Dark red Stroke applied to top oval to create upper edge of circus "ring." Inner shadow applied to lower oval

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 16

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Creation of High Wire Act: Step 17

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Creation of High Wire Act: Step 18

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Duplicate and reduce the rope to create strings of lights.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 19

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Using the ellipse tool with shift key pressed, created round lights

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 20

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On a separate layer, painted white glow on each bulb with a soft brush with low opacity. Because I feared not enough glow, or too much, I repeated the process on another layer with brush set to different opacity. One layer was set to screen, the other normal, but opacity lowered.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 21

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Gaussian blue was applied to the background strands. For the foreground lights, layers were duplicated and stretched.

Smallest layer of crowd was highlighted (Control, click on layer) and dark Levels adjustment layer created. Levels layer only was moved to the very back to create the illusion of a fourth row.

To finish, several more layers were inserted in front of and behind the main figure, and painted with splashes of soft colors to create lights and shadows. The same technique used in creating the last row (dark Level adjustment layer) was used to create the shadows on the "ring" wall and floor: crowd template was flipped vertically (upside down), selected, and then shadows painted from the silhouette. Crowd layer was then discarded and Levels layer duplicated, rearranged and overlapped, and opacity turned down.

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 22

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Slight bevel and emboss added to the foreground light bulbs (Thanks, Alan 2641!)

Creation of High Wire Act: Step 23

Final result

Creation of High Wire Act: Final Result

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Comments

avatar arca
arca says:

Great work on the SBS!

(5 years and 3055 days ago)
avatar ramesan
ramesan says:

GREAT SBS!!

(5 years and 3053 days ago)