Branden Bailey- The Artist: May 2016

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Today, I'm gonna teach you guys how to make fire- digitally.

In Photoshop. A way that's safe for the environment. Maybe.

First, start with a sketch of the fire itself. A big area

for the center and a longer area for the trails.

Note: Lighting anything the fire may interact with is pretty important,

but I've already covered lighting many times!

Next, color in your area with a base color on a normal layer.

Easy, peezy right?

On a new Layer, draw some lines for the stream in a complementary color

to the first one you started with. I started with orange and added a

yellow to orange gradient here. Set this layer to linear dodge. Then,

copy this new layer and make it slightly larger and transparent if wanted.

As many times as you feel neccessary-you'll probably see

the fire unfolding by now!

So, go back to that base color layer, copy it, and make that an overlay

layer above all of the other layers I'll even list. Also copy the

complementary color layer you made before (the first one) and

make that an overlay as well to really push out that condensed fire feeling!

If your fire isn't condensed, you can probably skip this! :P

Now, copy to bigger complementary color layer and make that one a

dissolve layer just above that one. The same with the original as well.

Make any last minute changes to the bg as well- I added orange tints to

my character's lighting so it looks like it effects him. Though I purposefully

left out an actual outer glow, that can be done with the gradient tool if you

actually want to do so yourself. But that's it!

Also, if this character looks familiar it's because it's a redisign of a

This is fine. Really.

Branden Bailey- The Artist