Create Dynamic Distortion Effects (by Doucin Pierre)

Jan 23, 2010 Freebees, Graphics, Photoshop, Vector, tutorial

This awesome piece of work is by Doucin Pierre computerArts. In this tutorial he will explain how to Brings velocity and meltdown to your subjects with a little Photoshop magic. In the following steps, he’ll let you in on one of the most effective and easily mastered techniques that I use to make striking, dynamic distortions of subjects…

Step: 1

My objective when approaching this visual was to create a graphic and dynamic montage,
with a photo turning into/being made out of paint. The first step is to find the right photo,
and here I used a little bit of a cliché – a basketball player. The whole visual effect rests
on the photo used, so make sure you choose wisely.

Step:2

Open the photo (photo-original.jpg) from the disc. There are numerous ways
to select and isolate the person. I chose the Pen tool (making sure Paths is selected in
the Tool Options bar) as it enables you to isolate the curves of the body. Draw around
the person, then create a selection from the path and choose Select>Modify>Feather
and enter a value of 1. Remove the background using Delete.

Step:3

Once the body of the basketball player has been isolated, create a new file
in A4 format – 300dpi and RGB. I’ve called it BasketKing (if this piece is to be printed,
use CMYK colour mode). Once the file has been created, apply a neutral grey
background colour and import the selected image of the basketball player. Resize the
player and place him where you want.

Step:4

It’s really important to have contrast and colours that are a little more raw in
the fi nal piece than they were in the original photo, and we can bump these up using
Curves. After this, desaturate the colours slightly using Hue/Saturation. I’ve chosen a
Saturation value of -32. Now we can move onto the background.

Step:5

A neutral background will bring out the basketball player. Create a new Layer Group called
‘Background’ to organise the layers. Create two new layers within this, and use
the Gradient tool to apply a gradient with an Opacity of 25 per cent to each.
In one, use a black-to-transparent gradient going from the top-right to the
bottom-left corners, and in the other use a white-to-transparent gradient going from the bottom-left
to top-right corners.

Step:6

Now create a ‘fl oor’. To do this, create a selection at the bottom of a new
layer and fi ll it with a very dark grey. Then apply a Gaussian blur of around 30%. With
the Brush tool on a low Opacity, blend the fl oor into the background (as demonstrated
in the screenshots above).

Step:7

To fi nish the work on the background, we’ll create the
shadow of the basketball player. Using the Brush tool at 20%
Opacity and 15% Flow, select Black and then, on a new layer,
paint the shadow. Blur off the shadow on the edges with the
Eraser tool at 15% Opacity.

Step:8

This kind of project always ends up with a lot of layers – and it’s important
to anticipate this by creating and naming them so they’re easy to find and edit. To
prepare yourself for the next stages, create Layer Groups to manage all the files. I’ve
created the following Layer Groups: Arms, Legs, Body, Ball, Form, Foot and
Background. Apply a colour label to each of them if you wish.

Step:9

To create this liquid ‘decomposition’ effect, I use
brushes that create a paint-stain effect – these can be found
on sites such as Brusheezy.com, or you can create them
yourself. You’ll find my brushes on the disc. You can load these
by going to the Brushes palette, clicking the arrow and
choosing Load Brushes.

Step:10

Once you’ve imported the brushes and created the
Layer Groups, select the Brush tool and apply separate paint
strokes so that the splatters are on separate layers – and make
sure you name each layer to find them easily. For this exercise, I
used around 20 different paint stains on about 20 layers, but
you can use more or less depending on your image and the
effect you’re after.

Step:11

Now we’re ready to distort the body. We’ll start with the left arm because it’s
central to the movement of the piece. First, turn off the visibility of all the paint stains
layers except for the first one you want to use. Place it over the arm, where you feel it
works best, and select the layer (Ctrl/Cmd+click on the paint splat layer you’re working
on in the Layers palette).

Step:12

Next, turn off the Splat layer’s visibility, select the Basketball Player layer,
and Cut and Paste. Do this several times with different splats to build up the arm.
Decrease the Opacity of the basketball player to see the areas that have already been
done. Place all the new layers created through Cutting and Pasting into the Arm Layer
Group that you created earlier.

Step:13

After building up the arm paint effect, you want to
make parts of the underlying arm disappear. Do this by
selecting part of the arm, blurring it slightly and then, with a
Standard brush (without the wet edge – 100% Opacity and
100% Flow) delete the arm of the basketball player. Now the
effect is pretty much complete on the arm.

Step:14

Now that you understand the technique, do the same
to distort the ball, head, legs and feet, always placing the layers
in the designated Layer Groups so that you can find them
quickly if you decide to make changes. These steps can take
some time, especially at the beginning, but it’s the most
important part of this visual, so take all the time you need.

Step:15

Once you’ve finished ‘decomposing’ all the parts you want, all that remains
is to create the wispy traces of paint that detach from the body. These were made by
painting with custom brushes, sampling colours from the basketball player and trying
to create a sense of dynamism and movement.

Tags: illustration, Photoshop, posters, tutorial