Discover how this incredible image was created today!
The artwork started with a photo so the first step was retouching. I cut out the subject from the background with a selection using Pen and Lasso tools. Then I created a bitmap mask and removed part of the image.
This step is most important because I include all my various handmade elements and textures such as scratches, ink marks, acrylic and watercolour stains.
I digitally imported the handmade elements and used various bitmap, vector masks and selection tools to erase some parts. I merged all these elements with the subject, using multiply, Overlay and Soft Light blending modes to obtain peculiar effects in the combination of different layers and textures.
Now with the use of some particular brushes I refined the shape of the handmade elements and with various adjustment layers tools like Hue/Saturation, Selective Colour and Curves, I did the first colour correction pass.
In this phase I selected from other photos different natural elements and textures – trees, plants, leaves, sky, water – and imported them on separate layers, trying to meld them to the subject with blending modes to obtain the double exposure effect.
Using some custom brushes and some parts of photos I added various type of clouds (all sorts of shapes and dimensions) over the subject.
Using some custom brushes and some parts of photos I added various type of clouds (all sorts of shapes and dimensions) over the subject.
After numerous retouchings to finish the work, I added a background texture and proceeded with the final colour grading of the image using a Hue/Saturation layer, Curves and Color Balance adjustments and blending mode tweaks.