Flying Land

Fantasy scene has always been difficult to create with great details. In this tutorial I will show you how to create a dreamy flying land scene by using various basic Photoshop techniques such as masking, color corrections, path layers. You will learn about creating some complexed and photorealistic things by combining various objects and effects.

Create a blank document and open the image entitled hill.jpg then isolate the hill part and import it to the document. Press [Ctrl] + [T] to transform layer and select Flip Horizontal then Flip Vertical to change the direction of hill, again transform layer and select Warp to adjust the shape of layer.

After warping image, it may lose some finer details and look a little blurred. To fix it, duplicate the hill layer and go to Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen More to sharpen the image.

Create upper surface of land by using land1.jpg and land2.jpg. Clip mask both layer to upper surface, mask the outer part of land1.jpg and center part of land2.jpg. In upper land, add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer; change its Hue to +3 and Saturation to -31 to match the upper land color with whole flying land. On lower part add another Hue/ Saturation layer with Hue + 11, Saturation -29 and Lightness: +1.

Download some crack brushes from various website like brusheezy.com and then add some cracks to the surface of upper land. Press [F5] to access brush panel and change its rotation, size to create precise cracks of the surface. Select the land surface layer, go to Layers>Create Clip Mask or press [Alt]+[Ctrl]+[G] to mask the unwanted area and add some more rocks on lower part to give it more realism. Now import clouds.jpg to add cloudy sky to the background.

Similarly add some more cracks on the lower part of land. Now to extend the lower part, press [P] and select some rocks in the lower part and then press [Ctrl]+[J] to isolate these rocks to extend lower part. Make sure to turn Shape Layers option on, this will save your selection as shapes so that you can access any selection any time.

Now we have isolated some rocks to extend the lower part. Duplicate various rock layers, transform, rotate, change size of the rocks and place them accurately to precisely extend lower part. Spread some rocks around the land in the sky to give it more natural look.

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Next, import the earth.jpg, remove its background and place it precisely on land. Select a large brush of Softness – 100% and Roundness – 20%, select foreground color black and create earth’s shadow on land.

Add Selective Color adjustment layer with these settings: cyans: Cyan -36, Magenta -53, Yellow -8, Black 0, blues: Cyan +92, Magenta -100, Yellow -78, Black 0.

Now I want to give it hollow egg type look in which I will remove top portion of earth. Press [B] to select Brush tool and add some cracks to the top of earth to create a clear lining from where we have to remove top part. Add some cracks to the bottom to give it crushed look from bottom.

Remove the top portion of earth from crack lining, [Ctrl]+Click on earth to get its selection after removing top portion, then create a new layer and fill this layer with color #746858. Name this layer Brown, shift this layer slightly up from earth, then [Ctrl] + Click on earth layer and press [Delete] key to remove unwanted area of brown layer. Add some shadows and cracks to match with earth surface.

Similarly create the back part of the earth’s opening, select crack brushes and create a lining of the back part to give it natural look. Select a soft brush of size 200px, select foreground color to black and create shadows on earth back part.

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Now I want to add an octopus arm coming through the earth’s surface. For this select crack brushes and create a hole on the earth’s surface. Fill the hole with color #685a4b and name this layer brown_ hole. Apply Inner Glow layer style of Size 20px and Opacity 50% to this layer. Duplicate this layer, fill with black color, press [Ctrl]+[T] to transform layer and make it a little smaller than the brown layer. Name this layer black_hole.

Next open the octopus.jpg, isolate its arms and place with arm hole. Add shadows to make scene more realistic, add another arm coming out from top portion of earth. Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to the arm layer with Hue +18, Saturation -18 and Lightness 0. Darken some part of arm near the hole to give it more realistic look.

 

To add some shadows to the flying rocks and flying land group all the layers except the sky layer. Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[E] to merge these layers. Press [Ctrl]+click to this layer, create a new layer and select a soft brush of color black to add shadows on the rocks and land. Select all layers except sky layer, merge them, set the blending mode to Soft Light and Opacity to 60%.

Now we are adding some more details to the scene to make it more natural. Add some rocks, enlarge them and go to Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur. Add blur of Radius 10 px to each rock. Set these rocks to corners partially visible to the scene, import some aircraft to the file and precisely arrange them into the scene so that they can merge with scene easily.

Next, select flowing land merged layer, duplicate it, and transform it to reduce its size. Press [F7] to access layer palate and click to the Add layer mask icon at the bottom of layer palate. Now select a soft brush, press [D] to set foreground and background color black and white, than mask some area to merge it with clouds.

We have almost completed the tutorial, just need to add some more details to the scene. Open woodpecker.jpg and nest.jpg. Add woodpecker and nest to the scene after removing their background. Group all layers and merge this group, then rename this layer scene. Duplicate the scene layer and apply Gaussian Blur of Radius 10 px. Add a layer mask to the layer, set brush Opacity to 60% and hide the blur effect from main elements of the scene like earth, flowing land, aircrafts, etc., hide the blur effect wherever needed then set its Opacity to 60%. Again duplicate the scene layer, go to Image>Adjustments>Desaturate to desaturate the layer. Apply Gaussian Blur of size 10 px and set its blending mode to Soft light and Opacity to 40%.

This is the last step of tutorial in which we will add some effect to the scene. Select a large soft brush and paint on a new layer with vibrant blue, green, red, yellow, orange colors. Set its blending mode to Soft light and Opacity 40% and we have finished this tutorial, this is the final result

 By. Narendra Keshkar