Creating a Space Explosion - By DeeZeL
Introduction: One of the most powerful eye candy elements Adobe Photoshop can offer is explosions. I remember when I first started designing and looked at those awesome 2d designs that are about planetsary explosions, I just couldn't believe that those stuff can be made with photoshop *ehm, oviously now I do*. Anyways, in this tutorial you are to learn how to make a basic space explosion scene, by basic I mean that it will give you the instructions to make some key stuff like depth and fire for example. I assume that you have at least some basic knowledge in brushing, and a very good knowledge in using photoshop in general. Now let's begin:
Creating the space scene:
1. Just for the sake of practice, create a 640x480 document and fill it with black.
2. Now go to "Filter > Noise > Add Noise...", use the settings below and press OK:
3. Press CTRL+L to open up the 'Levels' window, use the settings below and press OK:
4. Press CTRL + J to duplicate the stars layer. Go to "Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur" and set the pixels to 0.5 and finally set the overlay mode of the duplicated layer to Linear burn. If you exactly applied what I did, you should have something like this:
*Note: If you feel unsatisfied by the appearance of your space scene, repeat steps 3 and 4 and play with the Levels and overlay modes. I did that myself and came up with this, you can use it if you want:
*
Creating the space explosion:
Now here comes the interesting part:
5. Create a new layer and call it 'Explosion core'. Use the eliptical Marquee tool to create a cirle, don't forget to hold SHIFT in order to make sure that you are going to have a perfect circle. Fill the circle you just did with a white color.
6. Now apply a gaussian blur filter on it, play with the pixel value until you have something like this:
7. Press CTRL on the 'Explosion core' and create a new layer, fill it with orange and set the overlay mode to 'Vivid Light'. You should have something like this now:
8. This step is a total kido play. Create a new layer and call it 'Basic explosion', then using the brush tool, select a soft brush and draw just anything that comes into your mind lol! here's what I did:
Alright, not the 'Picasso' kinda work, so lets apply a gaussian blue filter on it, I made a 29.6 pixel gaussian blur and ended up with this:
Now drag your ' Basic Explosion layer' and make it the first layer after the stars layer, so you can have a good look at what you've done so far:
*Note: All of the upcoming layers MUST be below both of the 'Explosion core' layers, in order not to screw things up*
9. This step is amusing too. Select the Smudge tool (Hotkey: R) and select a 'grungy' brush, in my case I used this brush and I changed the diameter to 85 pixels:
Then I smudged the 'Explosion basic' layer. After you feel done smudging the 'Basic Explosion', go to "Filter > Distort > Wave" and keep on clicking the 'Randomise' button until you get a cool wavey shape for the explosion, then press CTRL + SHIFT + F to open the 'Fade wave' window, set the fade opacity to 50%. No some smudging again do to "Filter > Blur > Radial Blur" and apply these settings and press ok:
You should have done something like this by now:
10. Load the selection of the 'Basic Explosion layer' and create another layer and call it 'Explosion depth 1'. press CTRL + Backspace and fill this layer with black. Before you move on, make sure that:
A. The foreground color is black and background color is whie, just press D to make that happen .
B. The load selection is STILL ON, DO NOT SELECT ANY OTHER ITEM OR 'DESECT' THE SELECTION.
Now go to "Filter > Render > Cloud". You can apply this filter as much as you like, once you are done. Set this layer to 'Vivid light'. You should have something like this now:
11. Duplicate the 'Explosion depth 1' layer, rename it to 'Explosion depth 2' and apply a radial blur with the same previous settings, here's what you will see:
12. Duplicate the 'Explosion depth 2' layer, rename it to 'Explosion depth 3', load it's selection and use the following setting, I used a default texture from photoshop so you shouldn't have a hard time finding it, it's called "Clouds":
Almost done ^_^, this is what you've made so far:
13. well this is just a minor touch actually, but anyways, using the 'Rectangular Marquee' tool, create a thin horizontal line and fill it with white. Apply a 'Motion Blur' filter and use these settings:
14. Just move the line to the 'center' of the explosion and you are done.
Hope you enjoyed applying this tutorial as much as [lie] I enjoyed writing it [/lie].
- End of Tutorial