Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Photoshop CS5

July 13, 2010 | 0 comments

In this tutorial, we will learn how to blend fashion photography with custom brushes into dramatic and surreal illustration using Photoshop CS5 techniques. Layered PSD file included. Let’s get started!

Final Image Preview

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5

Create a new document (Ctrl+N) in Adobe Photoshop CS5 with the size 1024px by 1280px (RGB color mode) at a resolution of 72 pixels/inch. Download the next texture from Texturezine.com and place it on our canvas.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Create new fill or adjustment layer from bottom part of the Layers panel

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
and click to Curves to adjust the curve shape as shown to make a little color corrections.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Select once again Create new fill or adjustment layer from bottom part of the Layers panel and click to Hue/Saturation this time. Drag the slider to the left to decrease the Saturation of the color range. These operations will give contrast and brutality to our texture.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Next step we’ll download a set of brushes for in Adobe Photoshop, named: Old_paper_brushes_by_Annette29, Seu_Davi and c130_splatter .
Select the next brush from Old_paper_brushes_by_Annette29 set:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Create a new layer (Ctrl+Shift+N) and use this brush to add the next texture:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click on Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel and select Drop Shadow.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
As a result we got a voluminous texture:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Create a new layer and select Soft Round brush of black color (set Opacity to 30% in the Options bar).

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Use this brush to paint the layer edges.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Find a stock photo with a model represented on it, I used this photo from deviantart. I would like to thank the author of this photo.

Remove the background using your favorite tools like Pen Tool (P), Magic Wand Tool (W), Magnetic Lasso (L) or even a simple Filter>Extract and insert it on a new layer in our main document.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Go to Eraser Tool (E) and select Spatter brush:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Use this brush to erase the lowest part of the girl’s figure, the same way demonstrated below:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Click Add a layer style icon from bottom part of the Layers panel to select Drop Shadow.

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Add Inner Shadow

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
We got a volume and the shadow for the girl:

Create a Dramatic and Surreal illustration in Adobe Photoshop CS5
Create new layer and choose the Flat Blunt Short Stiff brush of black color from Brush Tool (B) (set Opacity to 30% in Options bar).