Create “Summon the Forest Spirits” Digital Art in Photoshop

In this tutorial, I will show you the process of making this “Summon the Forest Spirits” Digital Art in Photoshop. We will be using an easy, yet very interesting method to create the spirits. Definitely worth a read.

The PSD file of this tutorial is available via the PSD Vault VIP members area.

NOTE: THE PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL IS DONE IN PHOTOSHOP CC – SOME SCREENSHOT MAY HAVE SLIGHTING DIFFERENT LAYOUT AS IN THE EARLIER VERSION. SOME BRUSHES ARE EXCLUSIVE TO PHOTOSHOP CS6 & above.

Here is a preview of the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

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To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

• Metal Stock
• Model by ImperialStarletStock
• Witch by faestock
• Forest by Diesel-stock
• Nebula by Hameed

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px * 788px with black background. We will start with adding a ground for our composition. Load the metal stock image into Photoshop, copy and paste the entire image onto our document. Place the copy at the bottom of the canvas, use the Perspective tool to adjust its shape as shown below:

Use a soft eraser, remove parts of the metal layer as shown below:

Apply the following image adjustments to this metal layer:

Black & White

Levels

and this is the effect so far:

Use a cloud/smoke brush, paint some cloud effect in the background:

Step 2

Load the forest image into Photoshop, copy and paste the centre portion onto our document, place it above the ground layer:

Reduce the layer opacity to around 20% for this forest layer:

Use a soft eraser to remove the edges of the forest:

Apply the following Levels adjustment layer as clipping mask to the forest layer:

and here is the effect so far:

Step 3

We will be creating the spirits in this step. Load the model image into Photoshop, copy and paste it to the following top-right position on the canvas. Apply the following Black and White image adjustment to it:

Apply the following levels adjustments to the model to turn it into black:

Remove the unnecessary parts of the model layer:

Lower the layer opacity to around 20%, so the model is barely visible:

Step 4

We will paint some extra effect around the model to make it more “ghost-like”. Use a dry brush similar to the one below,:

Paint some black lines around the leg & arm area:

Repeat Step 3 and 4, add two more spirits around the canvas:

Step 5

Load the Witch stock into Photoshop, copy and paste it onto the canvas, place the witch at the centre of the ground as shown below:

Load the nebula stock image into Photoshop, select this portion with a 40px feather Lasso Tool:

Copy and paste the selection onto our document and cover our model, set its blend mode to “Screen”:

Copy some extra nebula effect from the stock image onto our canvas, use “Color Dodge” blend mode:

We ‘re pretty much done! I further apply some colour effect and this is the final result: (click to enlarge)

The colour effect was added with a number of image adjustment layers. Please feel free to experiment different colour scheme and see what results they bring you!

That’s it for this tutorial! Leave me a comment below if you have any questions and I will try my best to answer it.