r/photoshopbattles • u/PhotoShopBattles • Sep 13 '15

Weekly Battle | Closed Battle #178 "Aircraft Firefighters" on behalf of previous winner, workingat7

 

Previous Winner

This week's image was chosen on behalf of /u/workingat7, the first place winner in Battle 177:

Stock image: Old Truck

Winning entry: Contrast of Time

 

 

 

The stock image for Battle #178 is... Aircraft Firefighters

 

 

 

Prizes

The winner of this weeks battle will:

 

The Rules

  • Submit your entry as a comment to this thread.

    You can post as many as you want.

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The Schedule

  • All entries will be hidden for the first 48 hours.

  • Voting will open on Tuesday, after which all entries will be visible.

    Contest mode will be enabled for another 24 hours. This will sort comments randomly, obscure vote counts, and automatically minimize child comments.

  • Contest mode will be disabled on Wednesday.

    From there on out, each comment's vote total will be visible, and entries can be sorted by karma (just like any other reddit thread).

  • The battle will end on Saturday, September 19th.

    Next week's battle will be posted early Sunday morning.

 

Best of luck, everyone, and have fun!

29 Upvotes
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94% Upvoted

79 comments sorted by

64

u/DrWankalot Sep 14 '15 edited Sep 16 '15

Modern-day dragon slayers.

Source:

  1. Krayt Dragon
  2. Creation GIF

Edit 2: Slowed down creation GIF, showing steps in the layers panel.

Edit 1: Replaced original entry with uncropped image.

6

u/rootb33r Sep 15 '15

uhhhhhhh do you have any tutorial recommendations for learning that technique you used for the dragon's head? I watched that gif like 100 times and I don't even know what's going on.

5

u/DrWankalot Sep 15 '15 edited Sep 15 '15

I followed most of the techniques from a digital arts UK tutorial. I'm on mobile now, I'll link the tutorial later. Or you may google "fire paint digital arts tutorial", it's the one with a semi naked lady I think.

In short, I used the smudge tool on a bluish grey outline of the dragon till it looked "flame-ish" and then switched this layer to colour dodge blend mode over a dark red background, that's when the flames "popped" in the gif.

I dodged and burned the rest of the details till it looked more or less like a dragon. The only original parts of the source image left in the end were the eye and tongue.

Edit: pardon the mobile link - http://mobile.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/photoshop/paint-with-fire/

2

u/rootb33r Sep 15 '15

shit that is cool. Thanks!

2

u/rplusj1 Sep 22 '15

I can't afford Photoshop. Can GIMP or something else comes close?

2

u/DrWankalot Sep 22 '15 edited Sep 22 '15

Yes, thats the beauty of the tutorial! It relies on really 3 very basic tools: smudge, dodge & burn, and blending mode.

I only started using GIMP recently, but it is surprisingly competent. I only ever face problems with it because I am used to Adobe shortcuts and terminology. I imagine that a beginner without that bias will adapt faster.

Here's some youtube tutorials for the tools I mentioned:

Edit: I must add that the tutorial is not exactly a step-by-step guide, it outlines the basic principles. If you are following the instructions closely, your result won't match what's on the screen. I experimented a bit to get my flames, which are a bit different from the author's.

2

u/rplusj1 Sep 22 '15

My god, just got to know that I can download Adobe Photoshop for Free legally. It is old ( CS2 ) but free and legal. Awesome.

2

u/ItsLoudB Oct 05 '15

Man, the tutorial sure is cool, but skips a lot of steps.. Just tried following it, mine doesn't look nearly as cool as that, furthermore the color edit step isn't clear at all (and seems that most of the magic happens there..). The dude is like "yeah, do the blue layers like that, then figure yourself out how to do the yellow layers and the adjustments i did".. Do you have any tips?

The smudging part was reallz cool though, tried to do it with my mouse at first, but with the drawing tablet is a thousand times better..

2

u/DrWankalot Oct 16 '15

Hey sorry I took so long to reply, your message got lost in my inbox!

Did you mean this step?

I did not get the results on my first try too and had to wing it by adjusting the curves and contrast till it looked right. I don't recall any blue layers - did you remember to set the blending mode for the smudged layer to "colour dodge"? I used the dodge tool generously on the dark red background too, to make the flames pop.

I screen captured some of my steps here. You can see that I made several different layers for the flames, each with different amount of highlight. The flames look grey until the blending mode changes to "colour dodge". It's also important that the background needs to be dodged to the light orange colour in the areas where the flames are showing - those areas highlight the yellow flames.

2

u/ItsLoudB Oct 16 '15

Yeah, it suddenly become like THAT and i was like "ooookaaayyy..."

The gif helps a little understanding how the flames are made, but that touch in the picture i linked it's just.. The guy make it sound like "yeah do like that" but i guess there was some pretty hard work behind it, to make them glow like that..

In step 14 he starts to mention those other layers, but it's kind of pointless, since it's not really explained all he did with them. I can see some masks and stuff in the next steps, but without knowing exactly what he did, it does make it just slightly better..

Anyway don't worry, better late than never right? :)

1

u/DrWankalot Oct 16 '15

Yeah he made it seem like it was just one step, but I had to repeat it a few times to get the same result. It helps to know where to dodge and burn to get the highlights you want. I actually use the same dodge and burn techniques when making prints of photographs IRL, so I sort of know the tool before using photoshop haha.

1

u/ItsLoudB Oct 16 '15

In moments like theese, i feel so far from the skills-goal i have set in my mind ahaha..

3

u/Adaptapple Sep 15 '15

ding ding ding

1

u/rplusj1 Sep 22 '15

hector salamanca?

3

u/graphleek Sep 15 '15

Wow. Very creative. I recommend downloading the GIF and looking at the individual layers.

2

u/DrWankalot Sep 15 '15

Thank you! I'll put up a slowed down gif later when I'm free. I sped it up thinking that there's so many layers, nobody would be interested. 😅

Another small detail I toned down is the yin yang pattern with the opposing sides/colours, with the eye of the dragon and the flashing light of the fire truck.

3

u/Daxxinator Sep 17 '15

I am speechless. All those details... the reflections... the stars. This is a work of art. Thank you for sharing your creative process and the DigitalArts link. And this fantastic piece! Mad props.

4

u/DrWankalot Sep 17 '15

Thank you. I'm flattered. The truth is, I spent more time and effort on this week's battle because the very first stick figures I ever drew were firemen fighting Godzilla. My mom still keeps my childhood doodles ❤️

3

u/Daxxinator Sep 17 '15

Aww man, that's awesome - please scan those and share! :D Mad props to your mom, too!

2

u/RoyalPrinceSoldier Sep 16 '15

It looks great! I really like that you put up a creation gif on your battles and operations :)

2

u/DrWankalot Sep 16 '15

Thank you. Got the idea from u/feith. It's nice to retrace my steps but also I'm subconsciously more organised with the photoshop file when I'm doing a source gif later.

2

u/staffell Sep 16 '15

I really wish I could do that with mine, but I work so incredibly chaotically, it would be just as much effort to show cleanly how I was working than is worth it :/

I think it comes from having not learned Photoshop from anywhere in particular and just stumbling through it myself through trial and error.

1

u/RoyalPrinceSoldier Sep 16 '15

I'm basically self-taught too but I do watch some tutorials sometimes, particularly Phlearn; They're great on teaching :)

Here's what I do (I use GifCam)

But I just usually hide all the layers (and layer masks) and make it visible frame by frame without all opacity/blending mode changes; I just did it on that particular 'shop.

2

u/staffell Sep 16 '15

I think one of my main issues is I don't use layer masks...

Thanks for the link tho, I'll check that out

1

u/i_am_a_bot_ama Sep 17 '15

Wow, that just blew my mind. I don't know how you make the art you do without layer masks. Even more impressive. I learned on gimp myself and switched to photoshop just recently. I feel a bot chaotic too.

1

u/staffell Sep 17 '15

Well from what I do understand about layer masks, you can turn them on and off to revert to the original settings. The way I work means that edits are permanent and I absolutely can't undo or edit at a later point. I often do things multiple times as a result, so it's very risky business! :S

Also:

bot chaotic

Was that on purpose? Cos it was funny.

1

u/Cmatthewman Sep 17 '15

I've never used a layer mask either and probably would'nt know how to. Like you, edits I make are permanent but I always make layer copies before editing.

Most of the times my save files/layers are a complete mess, this is the first time I've tried making a creation gif, which to be fair, really helped keep things organised better.

2

u/staffell Sep 17 '15

Blimey, maybe it isn't as hard as I'm making out! Nice to know others work with risk as well. I do love that about photoshop; there are so many different ways to do things! <3

1

u/i_am_a_bot_ama Sep 18 '15

Bot, bit, byte you know what I mean.

1

u/DrWankalot Sep 17 '15 edited Sep 17 '15

I picked up photoshop on my own too, and don't know how to use layer mask or smart layers... I'd just cut and paste, then merge layers to prevent my old computer from slowing down.

When I know that I'm making a creation gif, I simply don't discard anything and create a backup layer and hide it before editing. The gif is basically a screen capture for every layer. The opacity settings are an approximation, since gifs will compress the colours and quality anyway.

That's my secret. I work chaotically too, but everything looks cooler when played as a gif haha.

2

u/TasteQlimax Sep 18 '15

This is bloody amazing. Well done!

44

u/DrWankalot Sep 15 '15

Planting the flag.

Creation GIF

2

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '15

Nicely done mate!

2

u/DrWankalot Sep 15 '15

Thank you! Off topic, but I really liked your other entry in the last contest. The one which shows the shiny rear of the truck.

2

u/Cmatthewman Sep 15 '15

Very nice job on this mate. Love it :)

1

u/DrWankalot Sep 15 '15

Thank you!

9

u/davidlen Sep 14 '15 edited Sep 14 '15

Out of control fire raging at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm

11

u/Cmatthewman Sep 15 '15

You're gonna need a bigger hose

Creation gif

Sources: Wings here, and arms here and here

3

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '15

Welcome back dude! Missed seeing your work over the past few weeks for sure!

3

u/Cmatthewman Sep 15 '15

Thanks man. Works been a killer these past few weeks. Glad to be back ;)

2

u/TotesMessenger Sep 17 '15

I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:

If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / Contact)

1

u/Cmatthewman Sep 16 '15

Source for the dragon

7

u/graphleek Sep 15 '15

Incident at Initech

sources

2

u/psplayer55 Sep 17 '15

Anytime an office space reference can be thrown in to a shoop, that's my kind of photo. New here. You guys are great at this.

8

u/davidlen Sep 15 '15

One small step for men, one giant leap for firemen. Claiming earths new moon - Iwo Jima 2

5

u/EverythingIsOkayNow Sep 14 '15

http://i.imgur.com/JBBCUYJ.png Just fooling around

1

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '15

That's actually really cool, I like it!

1

u/arthosblue Sep 16 '15

Teach me Senpai

2

u/EverythingIsOkayNow Sep 16 '15

I used Select > Color Range... to select just the darkest shadows, then inverted them. That looked pretty good already: http://i.imgur.com/or6CpIG.png But I wanted to do a little more to it, so I used the cutout filter (There were so few colors, I just wanted to accentuate that I guess) and played with sliders until I got to this result.

1

u/arthosblue Sep 16 '15

Thanks :3

1

u/Chewaii Sep 17 '15

http://imgur.com/Sqj55XT Hey Kid Wanna Buy a Mixtape?