USE CLIPPING MASKS CREATIVELY
BRING IT ALL TOGETHER
FINALISE THE DESIGN AND FOCUSING ON COMPOSITIONAL DETAILS TO TIE EVERYTHING TOGETHEROUTSTANDING DROP SHADOWS
To get elements like the birds or hair to pop out
from the figure, consider adding a drop shadow
as the blending option. Such an effect was
applied to the second folder of birds that are
flying around the figure’s neck. Set the blend
mode to Multiply, Opacity to 60-65%, and the
Angle to 120-degrees. Set the Distance to 28 px,
the Spread to 8%, and the Size to 49 px. Finally,
if you set the Noise to 11% or so, texture will be
added to the drop shadow, which goes well with
the painterly style of this design.16
ADD RIM LIGHTING
In the Layers panel, select the bird folder, right-click, and hit
Blending Options. Choose the Inner Glow option to create a rim lighting
effect. Set the blend mode to Color Dodge, Opacity to 53%, and the Color
to pink or blue. Set the Technique to Softer, Source to Edge, Choke to
22% and the Size to 49%. The other settings are all at their default. You
may find that you adjust these settings to work better with your
composition and colour palette.17
CREATE AN OUTER GLOW
Once again, select the bird folder in the Layers panel, Cmd/right-click, and hit
Blending Options. Choose Outer Glow this time. Under Structure set the blend mode to
Color Dodge, Opacity to 56%, and the Color to indigo or purple. Under Elements set the
Technique to Softer, Spread to 7%, and Size to 250 px. Finally, in the Quality section, set the
Range to 73% and the Jitter to 0%. This and the previous step help the birds pop out from
the dark background.18
ADD ADDITIONAL BIRDS
Add additional birds as a sort of necklace or shoulder decoration in order to fill in the composition and
finalise the image. Like the other bird folder, make sure each bird silhouette is cut out from its background
and a galaxy stock image is clipped to the folder itself. Draw sparkles, highlights, and raindrops with a Small
Round brush as was done with the rain effect earlier in this tutorial. Perhaps the rain’s colours mimic those
from the galaxy images themselves.