I've tried to do one of these half-submerged water edits many, many times, and I could never figure it out. I want to share what I learned with this edit because it seems a common sentiment that this concept is a little complicated. Hopefully, this info will help if you want to do an edit like this!
I painted the water with a color mask. I filled the whole canvas with medium green, lowered the opacity to about 60%, and erased where Amelia's body would peak through the water. I made the edges irregular to mimic how water pools. I used a hard brush, you want a lined edge, not a soft one. I recommend using a layer mask but you could do it with a regular layer.
The biggest concept I had to work with for this edit was depth. The highest points of Amelia's body would be about the water, but what about the deepest? I filled my canvas again with a darker green and shaded in parts where the water would be deeper; like the bend of her elbow and between her thighs. I recommend erasing with a soft brush.
Next, I outlined the edges of her whole body with a soft brush in the background color to blend Amelia's body into the pool of water. This helped her look more submerged.
This really helps it look like water: Where the body pools on top of her skin like around her armpits and on top of her belly ... I erased along the edges of my first green layer with a brush on ~35% opacity. I didn't want to erase it all but give the impression the water was thinner and more transparent.
I outlined the water on Amelia's body with a dark brown color, about 2px, on multiply, to help make the water look like it's rolling onto her body. If you go over onto the water later, don't worry it actually helps the effect.
After these steps, I continued to tweak things until I liked them. I added more shadows and some highlights.
I placed the lily pads next and added a small drop shadow under them so they looked like they were sitting on top of the water.
This step was my favorite part; I used a 1px white hard brush on 100% and drew different-sized lines along the edges of the water to create small reflections. I did it around some of the lilypads as well. This helps the water look more like water.
That is about all, I drew hair and added petals and bugs, then color grade the picture. The colorgrading really brought this picture to life!
I hope this helps anyone trying to create this kind of edit! I am always available if you have questions or if there is something I can help you with!
A lot is going on with my most recent (and first post back!) of Brutally Soft. It really is meant to be up to interruption, but I wanted to share what I was thinking symbolically with Wednesday's dream (for anyone interested in that kind of thing).
To start, I redid this post four times, trying to figure out the best way to tell the story. Although pretty cliche, I think this dream sequence was a good look into Wednesday's psyche.
If you're an anime fan, you'll see the obvious nod to Neon Genesis Evangelion. NGE is an allegory for loneliness and depression. Alongside the other religious imagery in this post, it was a fitting reference that encompasses Wednesday well.
Neither I nor Wednesday believe in a God. Rather I choose the ocean to represent a sort of godly entity. You could interrupt this as Wednesday praying to Mother Nature as a kind of God as well. Here is where you'll see the NGE inspiration. The crosses floating in the ocean are meant to, in this scene, imply that the ocean itself is representative of a God. I wanted it to look someone what ... punishing? Almost angry? Like her prayer will not be answered, or she feels like it isn't going to be. It's a hostile interaction.
In the picture of Wednesday crying, she's facing away from the sun and the reflection of the crosses is still behind her but now they are upside down. Almost like she is turning her back on God or has lost faith. You could also interpret this as Wednesday being somewhat "sinful" and that sinfulness even follows hers ie. it looming behind her. Although this post has nothing to do with faith (and Wednesday had none, to begin with), this really is just to show a loss of hope. I love how this came out and I hope people see this detail but if you didn't hopefully now you do!
Despite the sin references, I use the daylit scenes to represent good intentions. Here Wednesday is hanging her head before she breaks down, but I placed the sun here to represent a halo. She, although struggling with motherhood, is trying. She is a victim of hardship. The dark ocean scenes came to be more of how Wednesday views herself and her situation and the daylight scene represents more of how others see her. I didn't add Amelia to this post because it is about a mother and daughter, but you could imagine, in a way, she is the sun looking down on her brightly.
Oh, Drew. I always edit Drew with angel wings because I think she embodies pure good. She's a child, pure of heart. In Wednesday's life, she acts as an angel as well. But I won't get too much into that here. In a not-so-subtle way, I chose black wings. Not to say she's fallen but perhaps darkness could or has or will enveloped her. Alternatively, the all-black is a way to mourn Drew's childhood. In the last detail, Drew is looking at a raven (or maybe you saw a crow) a symbol for a bad omen, the one Wednesday is worried about bestowing onto Drew. This scene is during the day, in the same sky as at the beginning of the post. Although you could deduce that Wednesday is either cynical or broken, she has hope in the back of her mind (ie in the background) when she envisions her daughter.
The line "I pray that my daughter doesn't look like me, doesn't resemble me." I have always said that Wednesday not only doesn't, like her appearance but she'd hope Drew wouldn't look like her. If you've seen Drew, she looks a lot like Wednesday. The resemblance reminds Wednesday of herself as a child and she worries she'll also see Drew with the same pain.
I've always shown Wednesday to be stoic (almost to fault and a symptom of bad writing). That anger masks a lot of sadness, I believe anger is a symptom of deep sadness. This is Wednesday's mind, where it is not necessary to mask her emotions, there is no reason she should feel the shame of crying. In this space, she feels free to just let out how she feels, and that is by sobbing. I feel like this could make people sympathetic or view her as weak. Who knows! My goal isn't to make the reader sad (I want them to just feel how they feel) but to show Wednesday more honestly.
The line she says is derivative of a quote by Franz Kafka.
The text in yellow! As I am sure anyone could guess it is a song. It is Tell Me by Corbin. If you can take some somber music, Corbin is incredible. My favorite artist. The lyrics and who is saying them or who they are about are really up to the reader. It could read that it was a voice speaking to Wednesday, a more sympathetic voice than her own. I think you could think of Wednesday saying it to Drew. Even a voice like Amelia's or an omnipotent voice saying it to them both. It was very fitting and I wanted it to include it to provide an alternative perspective to the reader.
I spent a lot of time on this post and I am very proud of it. IDK if this new style of storytelling is going to translate to people. Hopefully, it does to someone! This is only the first post so I won't expect too much. I hope to one day get to a point where I can hear other people's interactions and theories on the story and characters. Till then! I'll be sharing mine here. Thank you for taking the to read this post.
I was hoping the game would give me a little more for this edit, at least with the lighting and color but had to do that on my own. lol
I used these free city light brushes again, layered them in purple, then pink, then orange, and finished with yellow to make the glare on the windows. I live in Phoenix, and the way the sun in the morning reflects off the skyline is beautiful. I wanted to capture that vibe. It's not perfect but I go close.
If you're a student (or have an edu email), a subscription to Envato Elements is so goated for edits. They have a partnership with PixelSquid, who create 3D objects. The best part is you can look up any 3D object, rotate it how you want, and download it as a PNG. That is what I used for the birds in this edit and the pipes in the edit before.
It's not the cheapest but discounted if you're a student (or if you're in my Discord server, I don't mind downloading things for people since my subscription is unlimited shhhh).
I was inspired by this image on Pinterest, but I didn't want to use an IRL image for the background and I knew the sims backdrops were a little ... lackluster so I tried taking multiple screenshots of SanMy and piecing them together to make the city look more dense and lively. And ... it worked! Now I want to do it with all the different worlds! lol
I'm a slut for good Photoshop brushes so here are what I used:
I used these free city brushes for the lights, which are phenomenal!
I used these free moon and star brushes for the moon (really love the glow of this moon in this set, it saves me a lot of time not having to do it myself).
If you like really faint starry skies, I highly recommend these free starry night brushes. So quietly beautiful!
These are some of my favorite free cloud brushes! I've used them for many edits (including this one) and I love that they are already in cloud shapes.
My pro tip from watching many many cloud painting videos. Start with a darker color and layer a light color on top like 5px smaller than your previous brush size (press your [ key in Photoshop to do that quickly). Do that for like 3-4 colors. The darker colors will slowly peak out from behind the brighter clouds giving it that depth that can be hard to paint. That is how I painted this!
