The Creation of “Imminent Danger” Digital Art in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the steps of The Creation of “Imminent Danger” Digital Art in Photoshop, with elements such as urban building, grunge brushset and surreal lighting effect.
The aim of this tutorial to show you the methods you can use to mix grunge brushsets and stock image to create a unique environment, as well as the use of image adjustment layers to manipulate photos.
This is an intermediate level tutorial so some steps can be tricky, but why not have a try!

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in CS6 – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)


To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:
Model by ~tigersgirl
Flag
City Building
Grunge Brush
Cloud Brush

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1290px * 700px with black background. Create a new layer and use the grunge brushset you downloaded, paint some subtle grunge texture over the background:

Load the model image into Photoshop, and select the model as shown below with Quick Selection tool:

Copy and paste the selection into our document, resize it as shown below:

We want to sharpen the image a little bit, so go ahead and use Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask with the following settings:

Add the following adjustment layers as clipping masks to this model layer:
Black and White

Layer mask on this black and white adjustment layer: (achieved with the grunge brushset)

Levels

Curves

As you can see, the layer mask on the black and white adjustment layer did much work for us and created this dirty texture, and here is the effect so far:

Step 2

We can add attach a flag to the model for some extra flavour. Load this flag image into Photoshop and select the flag portion:

Copy and paste the flag over to our document, place it below the model layer, and use the grunge brush as eraser to remove parts of flag as shown below:

Add the following adjustment layers as clipping mask to this flag layer:
Black and white

Levels

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

We want to group these flag layers into a folder, then duplicate this folder twice and attached them to the position shown below. This creates an impression that the flag is flying behind the model:

Step 3

We can add the building to our image now. Load the building stock into Photoshop and select the following portion:

Copy and paste the selection over to our document, place it below the model layer but above the flag layer groups, resize and position it as shown below:

Optionally you can duplicate this building layer and flip it vertically, attach the duplicate layer to the position below:

Use the grunge brushset, erase some parts of the building as shown below:

Add the following 3 adjustment layers as clipping mask to this building layer:
Black and White

Levels

Curves

and here is the effect so far:

Step 4

We will want to add some supernatural lighting effect around the image. Grab the Rectangular Marquee Tool and set its Feather to 20px:

Draw a selection and fill it with colour as shown below:

Load the cloud brush into Photoshop, and select one of them as eraser:

Remove the edges with this cloud brush:

Duplicate this layer once, and apply the following Hue/Saturation settings to the duplicated layer:

Compress the duplicated layer with free transform tool as shown below:

Merge the two layers and set a perspective to the merged layer as shown below:

Duplicate the selected layer a few times, adjust the size of each layer and the effect is shown below:

Step 5

We’re almost done! To add some extra effects, we can use the cloud brush and paint some subtle cloud effect to the image:

I further adjusted the colour with a colour balance adjustment layer: (Settings are as below)




Hope you enjoy this tutorial and find it useful. Drop me a comment below if you have any question.
Till next time, have a great day!