A Chronicle of Art
I've composed quite a few images in Photoshop for Ion over the years. Here's some of the details about the work that went into them.
Akaruimirai Wet and Messy 2nd Time by Flying Shine
The main challenge here was incorporating all these other large images into a single one. I decided to go with a pretty geometric approach so that the sharp boundries between the different images wouldn't look awkward. The guy in the shadowy background is supposed be like the classic scheming bastard trying to get into these girls' pants.
Nanairo Koi no Tenkiyohou by Film Soft
I tried to make this picture look like it was framed with some light glinting off the glass. The effect was made with nothing more than a gradient and lower opacity. The scowling girl in the foreground was a late addition.
Ane & Boin by Good Job?
This was probably the most complicated image I've done so far because of all the lighting I added. The background for this picture is Club 195 in London. Getting the lighting down was really a challenge. I assumed the funky dotted spotlight came from in front of the girls, but in reality it's probably just on the stage. Anyway, I did my best to copy the pattern of the light on to the girls and made sure that the light was smaller on them since they were closer. Since the girl in the front is blocking the light, I projected a large blurred shadow of her onto the back wall. There's also a faint shadow of her on the dance floor which I guess would come from the lights above.
Most of the lighting effects were done with Color Dodge. The shadows were warped using the Distort transform and the girls were also transformed to make them seem farther away.
Seven Warriors Online Gamers ~Offline~ by Good Job?
This was an image I put together while I was building the Feature page for Seven Warriors. It is now the new logo for the site. Most of the effects were accomplished with Color Dodge and Hue/Saturation adjustment layers. The orb (or proton) in the back was made using Clouds and Levels to get the lightning effect.
The index for Seven Warriors is pretty action-packed. There are three main layers: the dragon in the back, the warrior's silhouette, and the warrior herself in it. I drew the hamon for the sword in by hand to add some more detail for the eye to catch. The whole thing was pretty much put together with just layer masks.
Discipline -The Record of a Crusade- by Active
The most interesting part of this one is that all the index information is incorporated into the picture. Unfortunately there's a major flaw: the text on the projection screen is darker than the screen itself. Other than that, I tried my best to pay attention to lighting like with the Ane & Boin index. I added the speaker in and her shadow, as well as the shadow of the microphone on to her. I chose the "Class of 2006" because the game was released in 2002 and I assume St. Arcadia is a standard 4-year school, though who wouldn't want to stay longer to enjoy the uh...college life.