Dark Fantasy Art Photoshop tutorial – Fairy and Sunset Landscap
Dark Fantasy Art tutorial called “Sleeping Sun” by Lorelei (me!) was originally posted on www.loreleiweb.com The tutorial remains a copyright property of Lorelei © 2009, however, now it has moved to PSwish.com due to technical / server reasons. We invite all our LoreleiWeb community to subsribe to our feed and make sure you don’t miss any tutorial written by your favorite authors.
Despite been classed as fantasy art, this is a mere photo manipulation – make a fairy and your own mystic scenery; creating a landscape from scrap is now possible! I was inspired by the huge success of my previous fantasy art tut, which I posted in this forum last week… I got quite a few emails thanking me for it and many PS blogs featured it, so I decided to give in to repeated requests from millions of loving fans and do one more fantasy / scenery tut…
This is basically a mix of whats we call “fantasy art” and “dark/ gothic art”

I want to mention in advance that this tutorial is mostly for more experienced users, here we will need to use a lot of “hand work” and common sense; you will be working with your own images, and would need to adjust to the “needs” of your landscape.
So, lets get started… make a new canvas – 600* 400.
Fill your background layer with any dark colour, we chose to do it with blue, but you can use black as well.

Take a picture of a girl… we used this one, from Liam Stock, free photo resource.. ( http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/39058232/ <– Full resolution image)
This would depend on the image you use, but try to crop the figure accurately and remove the background.
Select the cropped girl from your canvas, and paste it unto the blue fantasy canvas we will create.
Place her in the middle, not to close to the edge, as she will be our leitmotif.

Next step, you will need different photos in order to combine a landscape.
First off, a photo of a shore. We took a pic offered free by ~gladly.

Press ctrl + a to select the entire water scape, Ctrl + c to copy it, and then , when you go to the fantasy canvas – press Ctrl + V to paste it.
Be sure to place the water scape layer UNDER the layer with the girl. This is important, we placed the girl first in order to be able to see what proportion are we creating with the landscape, however, remember, that she shall always be the top later.

Using the Eraser tool, with soft edge, 40 or 50 px size, draw a line (horizon), which will he around the level of the main figure’s eyes. This is ideally, but if you use a taller person, or not a sitting figure, of course you can draw the horizon wherever you wish.
In order to make sure that your line is straight, press the Shift button while pressing the mouth, this way, even if your hand will hove, the line will remain straight.

Now we need sky. Don’t look for any spy picture, because we mostly need a horizon line (with mountains, or just a stroke of land) rather than mere clouds.
The hue of the picture is not important, all you need is a cloudy interface with a bit of land to symbolize the horizon.

Paste your clouds photo unto the fantasy canvas, UNDER the water scape layer.
The horizon line of the water has to be a little darker, so u can go back to the background later (blue canvas) and brush it with black or a darker blue hue.

Create a new layer.
Select a Round Brush with a sharp edge (do not use a soft edge here!) and Make a stamp near the figure, as shown on the picture below.

Set the opacity of the layer to “soft”, to make it semi transparent. Using the eraser tool with a sharp edge, remove all the remains, so that it will look as if this sun (or moon, if u wish) will create the illusion or setting behind the hills / land line of the horizon.
See the illustration for understand it better, and once you have finished erasing, don’t forget to set the blending options back to normal

Go to Layer >>Layer Styles >> Blending options, and apply these settings for the outer glow effect. Don’t skip this step, this is necessary to make an effect of shine and glow.

Select the water scape layer.
Go to Filter >> Renders >> Lightening Effect.
Make a light spot, exactly on the place where the sun is… this will lit the water in front of the setting sun.

This is what we got so far, beautiful water with a local lightening.

Select the layer with the cropped girl (main figure) and apply same spot lightening effect.
Its important to use same location for the spot, as we only have one sun here!

Set the blending options of the layer with the girl to “Luminosity”, in order to give her same hue as the layers underneath her.

After the recent few steps, you canvas should look like this… If anything looks different – don’t worry, in the end you might get even a better result than the example in this tut.

Now, we are going to need wings to add to our girl and turn her into a fallen fairy.
I’d recommend to use Photoshop brushes in a shape of wings, and not to crop wings from other photos, as we need high quality transparent wings.
For this very tutorial, i used wings brushes downloaded free from Deviant art – http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/11925788/
Once you have installed the brushes, make a new layer (don’t for get) which will be placed BELOW the girl, and ABOVE water scape layer and the sky.
Use a size that will suit the size of your figure and canvas.We used wing brushes 185px, but this is individual.
Make one stamp for a right wing, and one for the left.
Since our figure is not sitting straight, we made separate layers for each wing and after applying the second one, we pressed Ctrl + T to transform the layer freely, and rotated it a bit, as shown on the pic below

This is our result so far…
Now, Flatten the Image. (Don’t skip it!)

Go to Image >> Adjustments >> Levels
and set these parameters for the BLUE channel

And these parameters for RED channels. We are looking to create a mysterious atmosphere with dark yet not dull colours, therefore colorizing the entire canvas will not look good.

Now your canvas has a nice, blue-green hue…

Apply omni spot light once again, same position as before (center spot in the center of the sun), using light blue colour.

that is it, your canvas is ready…

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140 Responses
2.23.2010
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2.19.2010
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2.15.2010
Im going to have a good attempt at this tonight once I have wined down. Thanks.
2.7.2010
Nice tutorial! Thanks for that, tried to do it, bit harder then it looks though.
1.14.2010
This is another excellent tutorial and makes use of a range of effects that are powerful but take time to master. The lighting effects tool can be used very effectively if done correctly, as in this case.
The layer tools seem to have an infinite number of uses, and the outer glow methods as illustrated here certainly show their power. Using these and combining them with other effects such as levels and shadows can create stunning results.
I would like to see more tutorials like this, may be some that concentrate on using certain tools of Photoshop. Thanks for another useful tutorial!
10.7.2009
Very good tutorial, thanks.
9.15.2009
Very nice site!
6.18.2009
Nice but not easy and might have a good idea. I am collecting likewise lessons. Have a nice day!
5.4.2009
Another great fantasy art work thanks
3.29.2009
nice tutorial…and easy to follow..thanks!really liked it…tried some for my pictures and it really is great!
3.22.2009
Great tutorial there but i wonder is that Sunset Landscape or a Sunset Landscap.?!
3.16.2009
Thank you for publishing this, I am very new to this type of art, and I enjoyed the challange. I am pleased with my result I used all my own pictures, now I will try again in my own style. I will look out for more of your tutorials
Thank you again
Susan
3.3.2009
hollla muy chevere estos tutos para crear fantasia de la nada
gracias
1.22.2009
Hi all….well I signed up about 10 hours ago and then took my whirl at this fabulous tutorial. I had bookmarked it about a week ago but needed some practice before diving into this one. I played around for awhile and below is my final version. Thanks so much for the instructions; the tut has inspired my mind with further visions…great, I’m already a black belt in insomnia. :big: Hahaha! Wishing you all the best,
Rob del Arsante’
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j5…gedwtrmark.jpg
Credit to: Tut by Lorelei
*Clouds from* FreeFoto.com
*Stock model* Liam….liam-stock.deviantart.com
*Grunge frame* Tackybrush……tackybrush.deviantart.com
1.22.2009
thanx…. can i ask you on question where are you from… i mean where were you borne????….
becouse on a picture you have there are russian words why is that…. are you from Russia or somthing….
1.22.2009
So cool..but why I can’t make things work like this? the color doesn’t balance at all
1.22.2009
Just joined and came across this. Nice write up.
Here is my attempt. In retrospect there are a few things I would change but o well, I’ll take it for my first shot.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v71/VW2.0GTi/evilbeach-fullcustom-red-3.jpg
PS: What host do most people use? I have webshots and photobucket and they both pretty much kill quality and color.
1.22.2009
is it possible to add halos or change the coloration of the clothes?
1.22.2009
all of you are the best!!!
I think I in the right place to learn photoshop
1.22.2009
Plasticheedcase – please don’t discuss illegal operations like that on an open forum.
1.22.2009
thanks…it is people like you who have so much talent that you are not afraid to give away the world…
I have an old adobe set about 5 years old…the whole kit. I am looking at paintshop pro, but I only have a trial…what do you suggest…should I buy a new photoshop, or would I be able to get downloads off of cnet and so forth?
thanks for this great tutorial. I will have to attempt it. I do faerie spells and I like as much faerie grafix as I can get….thanks again, and if I get into this, I will be sure to pay you first. Love your giving nature.
blessings
1.22.2009
yeah, the second one is good, but the figure wasnt cut properly, and i feel it let me down, but thanks anywhay
1.22.2009
i dont like so much those gothic pics, but it’s nice to learn