In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to create a realistic Silent Hill inspired artwork. This tutorial covers techniques such as creating fog using only a few fill layers and the Cloud render tool, easy ways on how to blend images together to make them look like they are in a foggy scene, painting-in real looking ash through a few brush strokes and giving the image a soft contrast using the Blur tool and a few blending modes.
Preview of Final Results
Silent Hill Inspired Photo-Manipulation Photoshop Tutorial
Resources
- Silent Hill BG – hielorei
- Blood Brushes – KeRen-R
- Winter SnowFlake Brushes PS7 – KeepWaiting
- ballade iii – medusestock
- Silent Hill Nurses 1 – Stickfishies Stock
- Creature 01-01 – stiks 1969
Step 1: Create a Photoshop Image File
Let’s begin by creating a new image file, go to the Menu bar and click File > New, and then input the following values on their respective fields:
- Presets: International Paper
- Size: A4
- Width: 2480 pixels
- Height: 3508 pixels
- Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
- Color Mode: RGB Color; 8 bit
- Background Contents: White
Step 2: Create the Background
In this step, we will be creating the background. To start, let’s open Silent Hill BG by hielorei. Once open, activate the Move tool by pressing V on your keyboard. Now, drag that image into our canvas. It should appear like this:
Next, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and resize the image as shown below:
The result should be like this:
Next, let’s fix the angle of our background. To do that, activate the Transform tool (Ctrl/Cmd + T) and then once the grid appears, right click on the image and a contextual menu would appear. Click on Distort. See image below:
To distort the image, see the instructions shown on the image below:
The result should be similar to this:
Next, let’s clean up this background – let’s remove that unwanted bulky thing on the road. To do that, activate the Clone Stamp tool (S). Once active, input the following:
- Brush size: 300px
- Hardness: 0%
- Opacity: 100%
- Flow: 100%
Now, let’s get to it!
The result:
Let’s clean it up some more – activate the Clone Stamp tool again and set the following:
- Brush size: 100px
- Hardness: 0%
- Opacity: 100%
- Flow: 100%
Now, remove the unwanted parts shown below:
The result:
Now, let’s adjust the darkness of the foreground. To start, let’s create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N) and when the New Layer box opens, input “Darken” on the name field.
Next, activate the Brush tool by pressing B on the keyboard. Once open, make sure that the brushes are the default Photoshop brushes. See image below:
To make sure that you’re using that, simply right click the canvas while a layer is selected and while the Brush tool (B) is activated and then click on the button highlighted below:
Then click on “Reset Brushes” from the contextual menu.
Now, that that is done input the following settings for our Brush tool (B):
- Brush size: 900px
- Hardness: 0%
- Opacity: 25%
- Flow: 100%
- #: 000000
Note: #: 000000 is the Brush’s color. To set that, simply follow the instructions below:
The #: 000000 is the color of the Brush tool (B), so this means it is colored black. To set the brush color, follow the instructions below:
Now, let’s go painting!
The result:
Step 3: Create the Ashes
Now, let’s give the image a touch of Silent hill by adding some ashes falling from the sky. To start, let’s create a new layer (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + N), name – “Ash 1”.