A. TriggerB. HandleC. Main BodyD. Atomic Power TankE. LCD F. HosesG. ElectrotipH. Caution TapeI. ventsJ. Kicker HolesK. Chrome DialL. GraffitiM. Ankh LogoN. Blood and Scuffs
You can find minitutorials for all these on the pages lower down. Right now, I am going to ramble on about how to THINK about a project like this. There won't be any images for quite a while.[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 2:35:25 AM]
Taking it to the next level===========================(This tutorial is more about process than technique, so read and enjoy, the examples will come at the end in nice sections.)After you get to know photoshop pretty well technically, you hit a plateau. You can score a 6 at will, mask and clone, warp and distort, you know the tools, but you are still an amateur. To take your work to the next level and start winning those golds or play with the big girls in the fantasy h2h and not have your jugular feasted upon by those blood thirsty "ladies" you are going to have to play dirty, and you are going to have to visit the TEXT section.Oh wait? We have a text section? Cliche I know, but strangely enough being dirty and literate, and studying is the fastest path to the gold.How is that going to help? READIN?? Ritin?? I'm a PICTURE guy! I don't need no stinkin' words!Yes grasshopper the TEXT section. People in the text section put pictures in your head and they do it without any pictures at all. The TEXTORs know that the 5 questions are the key to description, and you are going to INTERPRET those questions in your picture. Before you look for a single source picture, you are going to have to have the majority of those questions in your mind. When you can ask the questions, you can then see how EVERYONE ELSE answered those questions, and then steal...err... "SYNTHESIZE" your way to gold medal.-------So what are the questions? Any journalist knows. What.When.Who.Where.Why.How.So today our topic was build a ZOMBIE GUN.=========================================== What. When. Who. Where. . Why. How.After a trip to the text section we find that a writer talking about a zombie gun, would have to know a whole lot about the zombie gun before he could describe it. Things that the amateur chopper wouldn't concern himself and then rush off to find the bestest, crispest, shiniest source he could find (or too frequently - steal) then stare at it for a couple hours and then give up (or score his 6th place loser trophy).So as a wise "TEXTOR/PHOTOSHOPPING NINJA" you have become, you THNK first and chop later.WHAT: well a zombie gun. A hand held weapon. Say about a foot long. Fairly durable. Maybe kinda heavy. Made of metal or plastic. Not too hard right? This is where amateurs stop. Take your 6 and go home. Let's grab another point.WHEN: What is the setting for the gun? Far future? Steampunk Victorian? Current? Near future? After the apocalypse? Before or During the apocalypse world war Z? Ancient Rome? Well in this case we are in a fantasy sci fi world, say 30-40 years from now, more advanced tech than we have today...think blade runner...but before the complete robotization. Humanity is struggling with zombies after some disaster/breakthrough, and we are still corporate run but life is kinda rough at the moment. Picture Africa in 50 years. Was the gun New/OLD how long since manufacture? Was it just unwrapped, second hand, or long a trusty friend. Grab your half point. 6.5WHO: This one is going to determine a LOT of the details. Who owns the gun? male or female? How much money does the owner have? Who made the gun - some corporation? A dwarf? Was it hand crafted or smuggled? Does the owner LOVE the gun? Is the gun a part of the owner...what is it's history with the owner. How much does the owner weigh? Can he lift it? What does the owner wear? Where does he keep it? Who has he killed with it? Has it been personalized? Has it been MODIFIED? What is the education level of the owner. Is the owner HUMAN? What is used to fire it? Fingers? Tentacles? What is the owners personality? Age? Religion? Sense of Humour? Is the owner bitter/cynical/evil/good? Is the owner PAID to use the weapon? What is THAT organization like? What is the Logo of that organization. Is the owner battle-worn?(and you thought making pictures was going to be easy...) Grab another 1 point. 7.5WHERE: What is the environment of the scene. Air? Space? Underwater? What is gravity like? What is the air itself like? Corrosive? Dry? Sunny? Dark? Desert? Snow? The environment the gun is in, or has been in, will change what it looks like, how it has aged, the design to protect it, the weight, the attachments, the colours, etc. If the environment is one that requires stealth the gun will be a different colour than if it is supposed to be intimidating, or part of an empire. Was the gun ISSUED en masse to grunts, or smuggled into a mercenary unit. Where did the gun come from? What culture made it? What language do the owner and manufacturer speak. Based on what you know of items made today, you can extrapolate a style or look, to give a culture to the gun. An elven weapon would be all froofroo and light, but a russian mercenary piece would be dark and brooding and pragmatic. The visual clues in the gun should tell not only the story of the gun but the world it comes from. Half point: 8.WHY: What is the gun for? Killing smurfs? Killing elephants? Killing Bizorks from planet Zebulon? What is the ramifications of that? Does it need a spread of fire, or a sniper precision hit? Will you be constantly reloading, or is it good for a lot of shots? When you kill them are they at close range? Does that have ramifications? Do you need to be silent? What parts provide those features? Half point: 8.5HOW: This is all about the accessories, and form follows function. How is the item held? Where is it stored? Where will storage/use/holding affect the appearance colour paint scuffing. If it is heavy, does it have the proper handles. Is the layout logical. Are the finger holes in the right spot? Are there holes in the right spot to hold it? Does it get hot/cold? Does everything have clearance to move, turn on. Does it have indicators for the functions shown? How is it powered/loaded/disassembled? How was it assembled...does it have bolts in the right places to be manufactured? Is it broken anywhere? Are the scuff marks right? If you were to use it...what features would be important? 8.5+--note:we can get even more adventurous and take it to the 9 level, by adding something that I think of as a "SIDEKICK". You may have your object, but is there another story to tell? Does the Antagonist have help? or are there Accessories that can surround the image that add to the story without confusing the main point? A faithful companion (who has to have all the same TEXT questions answered to design HIM too) but that is for after.[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:55:29 AM]
So now you are a page and a half into your photoshopping and you haven't left your brain yet. Fun huh?================================================================================So let's make up a list of ideas for our Zombie Gun answering those questions================================================================================WHAT: Zombie GunDurableHeavyPlastic/metal/Composite-ishWHEN:Futuristic Nearish FutureTechy During the zombie Apocalypse, probably near the start, but well underway.Old enough for manufacturers to be making gun for this purposeThe gun will be obviously used, but not yet Rehab-ed or scavenged, or upgraded.WHO:The user will be someone forced into the situationThe gun will be a tool, not a loverHumanMaleEnglishEducatedDesperate, but not a scavengerThe maker will be international, and corporate filling a niche marketNon-military, but been at this a whileKept nearby for quick useYoung enough to carry a heavy weaponNot crazy enough to attach trophies (severed fingers, etc) but personalized for his mission and struggle against the undeadNot fanatic about cleanliness (not OCD, or on the run with no time)WHERE:foreign made (component labels) implying world tradeEnglish writing suggesting AmericanNormal land atmosphereNormal wear and tear rough handlingProbably typical urban/suburban world war z environmentCall it AmericanWHY:Undead killing, probably zombiesClose range (they sneak up on you)Electro zapping (close range with spatter from kills) nice 'splosionsPersonal Weapon but heavy duty for a side-arm, two handedLooks like long term use with atomic batteryLCD Screen indicates heavy kill count (with zombies as well as a few vampires)HOW:Simple two handed point and shoot Kick handle indicates recoil or steadying needed and heavySmall atomic power unit that must generate heat as well as zapping+++++++I then did a long search on futuristic guns on the internet and noted all the features of other people's designs that indicate all of those features. I synthesized all the best ideas into my own original design.So what does that all translate to?Well, we get a pragmatic weapon, in basic grey with some colour to indicate important suggestions.The futuristic parts will be the shooting tip, the power supply with atomic logo, LCD screen with memory card, and some sort of odd orange liquid with interchangeable options. The graffiti will show the attitude of the user as sort of a vindictive yet amateur user. There will be no military insignia, but there will be a logo (the ankh) that indicates the manufacturer makes this item purposely(meaning some parts of the world are okay AND that this has been going on a while), and some markings will be asian indicating trade still exists. The side handle indicates the weapon has some kick to it and isn't light. The vents and tape indicate the shooting end is hot and dangerous. The gore through out the item indicates use, as well as lack of time for proper care, while the shiny chrome indicates it is fairly new. Our guy is nervous and on the run. It is fully fueled and hasn't been modified so it is probably something purposely bought for defense.
I shot all the photos myself that were not in my extensive archive. Always make sure when you build your archive that you make sure to take at least one "head on" shot of any object you photograph, it makes inserting things much easier if there is no distortion.
A. TriggerB. HandleC. Main BodyD. LcDE. ElectrotipF. Chrome DialG. HoseH. TankI. ventsJ. Kicker HolesK. Caution TapeL. GrafittiM. Ankh LogoN. Blood and ScuffsThis is an advanced tutorial that assumes you know how to use photoshop in the general sense.See other tutorials for selection, masking, layers, blending modes, opacity, warping and distortion, filters, changing colouring, colourmatching, etc.I worked big. I always recommend working full size. My little $80, 12 megapixel camera spits out images 4000px wide. I shoot macros, so I started with a 9000x6000px canvas and increased it when I ran out of room. I set up my layers panel in the standard way. A locked layer of white, black, and neon green fills, for checking masking. A folder labelled "sources" stays at the bottom below that and set to visually off. Every time I bring in a picture, it gets labelled so I can find it on my hard drive, and stays in this folder, copied, and then brought onto the main stage in a folder labelled similar to these minitutorials. We will have about 500 layers when we are done. Save after every tutorial section in a numbered sequence gun1, gun2, etc. When it wont save at 2gigabytes we will start saving as .PSB (not standard .psD). This image will easily go over 2 Gig. Having dual montiors will make this much easier to do as well. Panels on one side, image on the other.
Layers and folders get colours and proper names. RAW for clean source, R for right, L for left. Link things that are stacked (for colouring and lighting) as you go, leave all construction debris for later...just set it to visually off incase you need to come back. If you merge anything, the label will say "Merged" merged layers are placed ABOVE the construction found below starting with the raw source[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 12:50:13 AM]
A. Trigger-----------I wanted the gun to be simple. So I left the trigger simple. A spray bottle of cleaner was my base. I use plastic most of the time to build matte coloured metal. The bottle was head on shot, so I could use it without fussing with the shape. Unfortunately it was white, so I inverted it, which made it a nice grey colour and brought out some scuffs in it. I saved this layer and used it every time I needed to make anything the base grey colour (which was almost everything). I use "match colour" constantly. image/adjustments/matchcolour/(find the appropriate layer)Mask the source, invert the colour, double it a fill up some space.
1. source 2. masked 3. duplicate white layer, invert it, set to "multiply" 4. Duplicate dark layer on top and set to "vivid light" to bring out texture.5. cleanup and masking 6. duplicate and merge top set of trigger layers (use this for "match colour")
B. Handle---------I had a white flashlight with ribs on it. I used the warp transform and then the liquify filter to get it to a shape that looked like it would fit a hand well. I used all the same steps as the trigger to get it to be grey. At the end I used "match colour" to get it the RIGHT grey.
1. source2. masked3. warp a4. warp b 5. fill in hole and use "liquify" to shape it (I copied it to another canvas for this to save RAM)6. more liquify (I straightened the ribs too)7. change colour with same steps as the trigger ending with "match colour"
C. Main Body-------------
1. Duplicate and flip the trigger for a longer platform and mask as needed2. body source (porta potty)3. masked4. stretch the potty, and cover clone out the door area5. put stretched potty on handle with another copy (squashed vertically) behind.6. use match colour (trigger as source) to get it grey, and adjust brightness contrast.I also masked out and recoloured the white at the end.
1. dvd remote source2. masked and stretched3. put on body of gun (top portapotty image) and set to "multiply" (lines adjusted later)4. metal lid source masked5. lid hit with "match colour" and brightness contrast adjusted, resized, duplicated and stacked6. BBQ hinge source isolated 7. rings stacked with hinge to form Kickback handle put on gun8. spraybottle nozzle source isolated, "match colour" and used as decorations above triggerThe gun was a little "boxy" so I added a 50's style shape
1. source plastic box masked2. warp one end3. warp both ends4. match colour5. insert layer behind the trigger sourceAt this point you can play with the patterns and lines of the dvd remote to fit them to the new pieces you added. I also adjusted some highlights in the pattern so the light was from the top right. Some general touchups to fill holes and blemishes on the masking.
D. Atomic Power Source----------------------To be futuristic, things that are big can become small, and use labels that are familiar to the current audience. I used a small image of a propane tank for the atomic battery after building up more of the metal of the gun to its left.
1. I wanted a hexagonal tube, so the source was the back of a traffic light2. isolated, but it was not "head on" so I had to use the warp tool to carefully and painstakingly straighten the roundness (which failed). Then in 2 seconds I just used the rectangle marquis to cut the centre out and deleted the rest...much faster3. two copies of the centre cut out with a bit of shadow added to the smaller one.4. the shaft was just partially selected and dragged to the right5. match colour to get it grey6. a couple of existing parts of the gun were set in behind the tank along with the shaft7. I had a picture of a propane tank on a crane8. duplicated the weld lines then cloned out the entire inside. welds overlayed after warping a bit9. seatbelt strap seemed flimsy so I isolated it10. matched colour to grey 11. straightened with warp, made and upper and lower piece up and added bolts, burn to shadeAt this point your gun could be considered DONE. An amateur would probably be quite happy and you might get your 6th place loser trophy if you entered it in a contest. At this point I do a shout out to my friends and family and get their reactions. I went back to researching my trove of other people's work. My gun looked new, and impersonal and boring. Time to spice it up with electronics, colour, and most importantly character and patina.In my research the radiation symbol featured prominently and it is easy to draw. To North Americans, Asia means miniaturization and the future of industrial output so I went with Japanese on the tank. Foreign text is always a great place to put inside jokes or the like. Make sure you get it translated properly if you are doing it online. Translate it to Japanese, and then untranslate it incase it is humourous. Here I had already dated the piece on the LCD scanner unobtrusively in the death count ( 2001 05 for may 2011) so I went with a real warning. Online I hoped it said "warning: radiation Do not open" which is what is typical on canisters.
1. Luckily online translation services can just let you cut and paste the actual kanji writing and paste it into your text tool box directly. I made a black layer and a second layer on top that I put into round perspective with the warp tool by squashing a selection of the top half, then burning and dodging like the radiation symbol like the steps 3 & 4 below.2. source radiation symbol (stroked triangle, a couple masked circles)3. dodged the top for the highlight4. burned the bottom for more roundness5. I needed a strap that would hold the tank on so I found one on a backhoe and used it and the bolts and made a nice strap 6. darkened and adjusted the colour with some orange paint on the sides to seat it7. duplicate the white tank, use variations to make it orange, and burn it a bit for depth8. the tank was obviously removeable, so I found a nice thumbscrew to make it look realistic on a bicycle shock which worked the same way. I figured this would be a moving part so it would remain new looking9. orange paint to reflect from the tank and Chrome it up with some burn tool10. The finished area got a few dodged highlights and painted low opacity shadows set to multiply, a spattering of grunge went over the whole thing when I did the rest of the patina throughout the gun[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:14:11 AM]
E. LCD screen and memory Card------------------------------The gun was supposed to be electronic, so we needed a computer screen to give read-outs. I was going to use the blue colour that digital watches glow at first, but when I changed the colour scheme of the gun from blue to orange, I changed the screen colour to beige, and upgraded it to something fancier.
1. DVD remote source provided the screen and the memory card.2. masked (battery cover area)3. stretched a bit and match colour again4. layer put in between main body and rounded part, highlight added on top 5. later inner rectangle was toned red with a simple overlay set to low opacity6. DVD remote had a nice rectangle I used for the screen7. enlarged8. coloured with image/adjustments/variations8b. For a blue-ish glowing screen I stacked image 8:7:7: turquoise (screen 81%), grey (vivid 100%), grey (screen 100%) 9. later I changed the screen to greenish beige by duplicating image 8 on top with screen and changing the turquoise version using image/adjustment/hue-sat to the green colour (see 13)10. I found a font called "scoreboard" which was dots and looked right. Black with lowered opacity11. To set the LCD into the gun, I copied the highlight edge from main body at the top of the dvd remote design flipped it upside down and set it to screen (then smudged a bit)12. The screen needed a highlight on the glass so I used the image from 11, changed it to all white, squashed it and added some smudge in bottom right. Set on LCD (layer set to screen)13. Eventually I lowered the opacity of the grunge that covered it in the LCD area14. Final screen seemed flat, so I put some orange reflection on the top of the LCD[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:21:16 AM]
F. Hoses--------Technically external hoses would be bad design, but they LOOK good on a science fiction image. I tried to justify their existence by making some interfaces where they could be changed around, perhaps to give a different effect on the weapon power or use. By now I had decided to make the gun grey and orange, so as much as I wanted them fluorescent green, I went with orange.I didn't have any actually hoses with liquid in them sitting around or in my photo archive so I had to fake them. I referred to a picture of the liquid in a carpenter's level.
1. source computer connector for both the connectors and the hose itself2. connector masked and match colour applied to go grey3. If you ever want to bend something that is rounded it is much easier to do the bending ONCE rather than do and undo. It is also easier to bend a straight object slightly, so make the object straight first. After selecting a chunk of the chord, I could have tried to warp it straight and failed miserably. 4. INSTEAD use a small section and stretch it 5. perfect straight hose stretched6. duplicated and squashed for inner cavity7. use variations to make it orange8. use a scattering bubble brush in light grey set to screen9. crop the bubbles to finish the liquid in the inner hose cavity10. use the original chord underneath the liquid as a backer and lower the opacity of the liquid and the backer to show the transparency on the gun11. Due to the low opacity, instead of merging, I warped both the pieces separately12. transparent hose13. just put the connectors on top14. dodge and burn the hose, and add a shadow, and for that mad scientist feature, the liquid should glow, so add a low opacity orange layer underneath the hoses and then smudge it to show up on the gun appropriately15. finished look adjust shadows and highlights as needed.
G. Electrotip-------------So instead of a bullet muzzle, we are going more for stun-gun tazer look which means electrodes.Electricity needs two electrodes so i used the same computer connector as used for the hoses.
1. connector source2. isolated screw from connector3. match colour4. perspective warp to make the end pointed and then make smaller5. duplicate and keep the shadows facing the same way6. isolate and brighten the back of the connector metal collar7. isolate main body8. match colour and add the small parts9. assembled10. finished construction add light and shadows as needed.
H. Caution Tape---------------To make the gun dangerous and add some spacey sci fi it cried out for some caution tape. I carry my camera around all the time and have a large collection of sources of this kind of tape. It is difficult to draw and make it look "used" so I just get real sources. This one is from the steps at my library.
1. source2. quick marquis selection3. to rough up the edges I chewed at it with a standard spatter brush that comes with photoshop just after the soft brushes. I used the small size shown but the larger one is the actual pattern. You can make your own brushes like this as well. The key is to balance clicking in little bites to preserve the pattern, and small strokes to get tears.5. final view with a couple shadows over it.So let's look at what we have so far. We have a nice design, it has some bells and whistles. We have the "Futuristic electro stun gun" part of the brief covered. You might get a 7 if the voters were generous, but it is still too clean, it has no personality, and it doesn't really scream "Zombie" or "heavy" or "desperate" or "corporate niche marketing". This could still be anybody's gun, in a number of genres from space cowboy to bladerunner. It needs to be more "used" and personalized so that it is the gun of a particular Character. It could use a bit more decoration too. Maybe some more details about how the gun "feels" and some more practical bells and whistles.
I. Vents--------I want the gun to be more dangerous so I think we should indicate that it gets hot at the dangerous end.
1. source image from suburban power transformer with heat fins2. mask a small section3. perspective warp on right side to make the fins go INTO the cavity on the gun, matching the existing hole from the porta potty (serendipity leads to ideas in this case)4. black backer layer to darken the hole this goes behind the next image5. insert distorted fins and add the floor and some shadow on the right6. four and six stacked7. once inserted into the gun, I rounded the corners with an eraser, and touched up the highlights on the cavity environment with dodge and burn
J. Kicker Holes----------------The attachment for the kick handle was a little boring so I thought to add some holes in it too.
1. the stub already on the gun2. source from a security curtain on a store window (I make it a habit of snapping pictures of anything industrial looking when I am out around town - never know when these will come in handy)3. small section of holes4. magic wanded out the grey area5. duplicated and inverted the colour from black to white6. five gets stacked under four with the white area slightly offset to show the light on the "edge" of the holes. A simple trick for low relief 7. the hole stack was stretched a bit wider, and carefully distorted for perspective (you will notice the top holes are much smaller than the bottom one) a bit of shadow added afterward on the connection and the brass screw duplicated to the top
K. Chrome dials----------------I thought the gun needed more "moving bits" and I really liked the wheel we used on the atomic battery, so I thought I would make it a theme and use it a couple more times.
1. I used the same piece of bicycle shock image that was used to make the atomic battery tank connector. Just mask out the threads.2. for the safety switch above the left hose, I just inverted the chrome from white to black3. the now black wheel in place with some dodge and burn for highlights and shadows4. simple strokes of orange on a duplicate of the original chrome wheel5. the stoplight again from the atomic battery section6. the original shaft construction isolated and tweaked straight7. duplicates of the chrome wheels were set to touch at a 45 degree angle on top of the stoplight bit. Some more orange and shading seats them in the picture. (I fixed the slot of the bottom wheel as well as added some edges with dodge and burn).8. after duplicating the blue endcap and using "hue_saturation" to turn it orange, I added a stroke of orange to the chrome band at the end of the grey to chrome it up. (Later, more orange with bubbles were added along the top of the gun with the same method as the hoses as well)[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:34:17 AM]
L. Graffiti-----------The gun needed to "belong" to someone, and show his character. The character would personalize his life sustaining tool with his fear/angst of his undead enemies. The roughness and amateur draftsmanship shows his lack of training and desperate circumstances...but yet indicate he has some down time to brood.The key to patina is GRUNGE. Take your camera out one day and take 300 pictures of rusty, streaked, aged, dripped-on, peeling, cracking items (the backs of buildings are great places, similarly dumpsters are useful)The difference between sterile virtual reality and realism is these surfaces. When you go look you will be amazed at how rugged the world really is and you don't notice until you are faking reality and something just isn't "right".
1. My grunge source is an old oil tank at a garage2. I picked a grungy font to start with, I thought it had a bit of a danger/psycho feel to it, the ankh can be drawn easily. The font is pasted in white and with the layer set to screen on the existing gun and about 85% opacity3. the grunge source goes on as an overall layer on the gun covering the whole thing and set to "overlay" this not only unifies the colours of the gun, it puts in all the scuff marks and fills any holes. I duplicated the grunge layer and masked the new layers with the text outline.4. A couple stacks of grunge masked with the text outline and with colours modified a few different hues stacks to make a nice aged painted graffiti look. A few erasings here and there on each layer exposes different colours you can use to shade around edges. (different blending modes like screen, colour dodge, etc can help you tweak this effect)[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:37:01 AM]
M. Ankh Logo-------------The gun was supposed to show that this apocalypse had been going on long enough for the corporate vultures to profit from it (zombie gun (tm)!), so since this was not military issue I thought the corporate vultures would latch onto some hipster symbol from the phrase "Only life can live" and since designers will be even MORE redundant in the future, they would just abscond with the Egyptian Ankh (life) symbol for the surviving humanity. I put the logo on the end of the Kick Handle.
1. I went outside and positioned my bicycle at the right angle for this in a few minutes. This is the advantage of using your own images. Perfect angles the first time.2. masked handle3. same ankh from the graffiti text4. duplicate and made a light grey copy to use the same effect used in the kicker handle holes previously but for a raised surface instead of an outer surface. You could also use layer modes for emboss but I like having the control and no resizing errors5. The black and grey ankh stacked and slightly offset toward the light this time 6. rubber is soft, so I blurred the ankh stack a few pixels to get that rubber look in the final. You must get the perspective correct for something that sticks out of the canvas this much, so make sure the handle is just at the right angle and rotate it if not.
So we have done a lot of work, we did the research, we constructed the atmosphere around the story we are telling, the image will impress the kiddies and you will probably pick up a trophy and if you are lucky score your first 8. But it isn't "memorable" a gifted amateur would know how to MacGuyver a shape and the colours. What do you do AFTER you get an 8? You go for the WOW. You make something trivially EASY (yes Easy!) look like you spent a lifetime. Your next half point or so on the way to that magical 9 is a WOW factors. The judges want blood, yours or someone else's. Let's make it the blood of the 2011 zombies this gun has claimed to kill. SPLAT the excitement is now.[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:40:14 AM]
N. Grunge and Gore and Scuffs-----------------------------This will be two steps, an overall toner, and then the blood.
1. The gun needed some roughing up and slight colour toning.2. Using the same oil tank grunge source from the graffiti section3. desaturation of the source, then set the layer to "overlay" it on the gun itself so everything is covered (in a few sections if need be). If you merged the entire gun previously you can just magic wand the outline and create a mask for the grunge. Be careful, overlay disappears on white, so if you add a background later it will show up. Make sure you mask the entire gun well.4. erase the sections of white highlights, dark shadows, tone the body and handle as needed to make it look like all one material.Okay, it's dirty, but what do you use now for blood? Well with a close range weapon, we will get splatter. Blood isn't really red, it has kind of a dark brown hue to it and it dries dark so we will do this in a colour and a toner layer (most things I colour will have those two layers, one for colour, one for shade.)
1. the source was from a series I took walking past a construction site. They were tarring the roof and the big cart that heats the tar was on the sidewalk. Yes you may have to explain to the workers why "some crazy guy is drooling over taking pictures of NOTHING" but it helps to have a business card at hand with you to show them why. I took about 50 images of the cart from various angles. I used this one.2. This is the easy part. Magic Wand 25px on the black. Done. Crazy eh?3. Colouring black and white is difficult unless you know the "colourize" checkbox in the hue-saturation pop-up dialogue box. When checked it defaults to red, and with a little more saturation you are done colouring.4. A nice muddy red brown. I rotated the image a bit so the splatters spray back from the electrode direction. We want it to look like our character is zapping the zombies right up close!5. duplicate the blood spatter and link them. put them over the gun (in sections if need be). Mask the perimeter. Set both layers to "overlay". Erase the top layer of spatter where it is supposed to be a highlight and burn it a bit with the shadows. A few smudges and tweaks and the blood is done.I would then go over all the highlights and shadows (using a rough spatter brush and being bold helps) and fill any holes or add small elements you need and you can take a bow.Congratulations, you just got a new personal high score! Now go get your first 9 by repeating all these techniques on a complete scene.Remember anyone can make a picture, but if you can tell a STORY, you are a real artist.[Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:44:36 AM][Edited by User on 6/8/2011 1:45:23 AM][Edited by User on 6/8/2011 2:34:14 AM]
Link to the original ContestLarger Versionplay with my archive