The Seventh Horseman - New Weapon Revealed! (Destiny)

by INSANEdrive, ಥ_ಥ | f(ಠ‿↼)z | ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ| ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, Monday, September 23, 2013, 16:40 (3867 days ago) @ INSANEdrive
edited by INSANEdrive, Monday, September 23, 2013, 17:03

I feel like letting you all know the steps I took in making it – perhaps it’s because I would like to see what else the community can come up with, or just so you can understand what I had to do to make this because its interesting. My sweat is my sustenance. MMmmmm . . . Sweet sweet mostly salty sustenance. I don’t think this as technical, though I know I would have way back, so I’ll do what I can to clarify for those of you who just want to read on who are sans the knowhow. Before I begin I would like to note that this isn't 1 to 1 – it is an overall jest of the process I took to make this. Still long though.

First I had to make the background – This composed of all the (so far) published weapon renders. With multiple layers I cut out each, arranged as needed, then merged. This gave me a master image with a smaller area needed to reconstruct. The precision in these renders both made things easier in this case (though I suppose that’s mostly to the same background being used over and over) and harder in others. One of the things I had to reconstruct was the area where most of the weapons barrels lined up. This area had a pattern that technically (among a number of other options) I could reconstruct by hand -*shudder*- but as the saying goes work smart not hard. Since I am ever the avid HBO/DBO poster (even if I hardly ever post anymore -_-) I recalled a bit of news or a post mentioning the map that Bungie has used as their background texture for – well mostly everything. I found it – perfect fit. I altered the map to take out the names –just as Bungie has done, cut the map to size and used various blending modes & non-destructive (cut the cake without cutting it) editors to get it to look right with the original background. I also layered on some gradients with the center sampled color and transformed (dynamic squishing and pulling of the image) it into the shape you see – technically the area is bigger slightly – but it couldn’t be helped. I had to encompass the entire area or else the existing gradient would make things look subtlety lopsided.

So now I have my background (altered the lower corners at the last second – same basic process + clone tool [stamps a selected portion of the image to the area of the brush]) I should probably note at this point that I’m keeping organized with folders for each “object group”.

For the Slingshot I used this image and the highly underused “Blend If” with a split slider ( Alt + Click ) which gives me greater control of the blend by giving minimum and maximum values instead of just a bulk value. With this I was able to get rid of the white background but keep the fine edges of the shadows. Technically there is more than one way to do such a thing – but that’s because it’s Photoshop. There is five ways to do basically everything.

Once I had it the way I liked, I duplicated the slingshot onto a new layer, on this new layer I selected the areas of shadow with the pen tool (the most precise way to select) and masked (non-destructive erase in this case) out the shadows. Now all you can see on the top layer is the slingshot, the bottom layers the shadows. For the shadow layer I changed so that it blended into the background color. For the Slingshot Image I selected the band with the pen tool, made a mask so that only the band showed, and changed the hue of it.

Finally, we get to the Font – in this case called “Neue Haas Grotesk”. It’s a $54 font; might I add. If this surprises you then stay away from typography snobs. These letters you see on your screen are more an art then you many care to realize – but I digress.

Did I pay $54 so that I could get this just right? FOR THE CAUSE! Or did I just do something really clever (?) in Photoshop? To that end I shall not say much.

To those questions my fellow Doobers let us say the answer is Yes regardless of what the answer is for and be done with it. The legality of fan art is not something I think we want to discuss.

To that end, here is Levi’s IMPROVED drawing with lens flare!

I so win.