I hate the collage for my first collaging tutorial, so I decided to a new one. Here I will take you step by step as I make a piece of fanart, or more specifically, a 1024×768 wallpaper.

The finished product of this tutorial is this:

I gather my images to begin. A lot of fanartists don’t like working on a black canvas, but I quite perfer it. So after I open up my new document in Photoshop, I fill the layer in with black. Then I set up my pictures. For this one, I want Spike and Faith to be proportionate and I want to appear as though Spike is squatting in front her:

Then I am going to get rid of the background behind Spike. There’s lots of ways of erasing a background, but for this purpose, I used the lasso tool feathered at 1%.

Now I need to do some color correction make the skin tones more matchy. I use a little Image >> Adjust >> Color Balance. As you can see, Spike is darker, redder, and rougher in texture than the Faith pic. Using both the midtones and shadows options on the Color Balance palette, I give Spike some more yellow and Faith some more red. Now I need to soften Spike up. There’s a few ways to do this, but I am going to use the “Serious Fog” filter from Xero.

Next, I am just going to remove the background from the Faith pic in the same I did with the Spike pic. It’s a slightly messy cut, but that’s okay. Sometimes messy cuts can totally work. In this case, the pic will blend well into the new background I am going to put in. Now I want to merge the Faith and Spike layer together.

For the background, I want to place them in some exotic locale. After looking around a bit, I settled on this picture of the Eiffel Tower I found on my hard drive, which is cool because I have some cool lyrics I thought of to use. It’s important to have a clear idea of what you want to with a piece of fanart. I make some stuff up as I go along, but it’s good to have an underlying concept before venturing into actually composing the piece.

Anyway, this Eiffel Tower pic is going to work great because in the bottom front there is a platform over the water, so that is where I can place my characters. Obviously, I don’t want them standing on water, or that would have a much different meaning. Now I adjust the size and position the Faith/Spike. There are two layers: the Faith/Spike and the Paris backdrop:

All right, I am getting somewhere now. Still got some work to do though. Looking at this (in full 1024×768 it is more clear than in the example pics provided), that Faith and Spike look quite static and unnatural in the scene. A quick fix for this: I had a little drop shadow to that layer and spread a dark tone in the back of them. This just helps to make them blend into the scene a little more.

Now, my favorite part of making fanart is color. There are so many options and techniques. Gradient maps are also of the good. So I am going to use one now. For the end result of this wallpaper, I want it to have a sort of painted look. You’ll see how the gradient map will help with this. There are two ways to start a map. One is to apply the effect right to the layer (Image >> Adjust >> Gradient Map), the other is is to open an adjustment layer. The latter is a better method because you can easily remove the effect later is you are so inclined to do so OR you can can choose a completely new gradient. Basically, you have more options with the adjustment layer.I want the map to effect the Paris backdrop, but not the couple, so I am going to put a gradient map between the two layers (Layers >> New Adjustment Layer >> Gradient Map):

As you can see, I chose a gradient that isn’t flat. This is one creates like of cool lines and stuff. I believe the one am using is under the Presets in Photoshop, “Color Spectrums 2″.And then I set that adjustment layer to Soft Light and cheeck it out:

See what I mean about getting a sort of painted look to it? Now I am going to duplicate the couples layer (only so I have an original of that layer should I want it for insurance later). I am going to put a separate gradient map on the characters. The reason I am not using an adjustment layer is because if I do it will also effect the Paris layer and I dont want to do that. The goal is just to make the characters a little more focally prominent. I also add some Image >> Adjust >> Selective Color and play around with the settings. Eventually I get:

Now, for a little pizazz! I’m gonna start adding some texture. I use a background of mine and set it soft light over the Paris layer. Then I adjust the color to be more complimenting with the already established tones I got going on. This is easily done with gradient maps or hue/saturation. Also, I Image >> Adjust >> Auto Levels and/or Auto Levels every so often. I don’t always keep the effect, but it’s good to check. Sometimes when things aren’t contrasted properly, when you Auto-Contrast, you get an added burst of vibrancy. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. But that’s just a little tip from me.

Anyway. I am going to erase portions of the background ima that I feel arent or working and whatnot. I use this brush set of mine as my eraser. These brushes are exceelnt for erasing textures because they are texturized themselves. If you use a big circular brush to ersae, it is obvious that you used such a brush. Good brushwork is subtle. I don’t use brushes for much else except to erase. Anyway I am going to duplicate the Paris layer and add Flaming Pear’s Glitterato filter to it, set it to screen. Obviously, the idea is to get a little bit of a starry atmospehere. I also erase parts of this layers as well. Other than that, I notice that there is a little glimmer of light at the top of the Eiffel Tower. I want to accentuate that some more. After all that stuff, here is where I am at (may not be obvious in small thumbnail, sorry):

Now for the text. I used lyrics–The Pixies’ “Alec Eiffel”–and four different fonts. I have over 1000 fonts on my computer, so I tried out several before deciding on the ones I used. As with many things in my fanart, I just play around with colors and blend modes to get a good text effect. On some lines I used some drop shadow and/or color overlay and/or outer glow, etc. It’s just a matter of making the text visible and readable. So here’s the finished product:

Not too shabby, eh? I hope this gave you more of an idea how I make my fanart. Now it’s time for you to try out some new things. Thanks for reading this tutorial!