Tutorial 33 - Painting Magical Dust

This is an effect useful for anyone creating fantasy or sci-fi artworks or concepts.

Let's start by setting up our colors and our brushes.

We're using an analogous color scheme  - we pick a dominant color, in this case plum (purple/pink) and we use a supporting color, close to our dominant, in this case blue (we could also go red, but not green, yellow or orange, we have to stay near the dominant).

Our brushes are;

- a soft brush used with low opacity for the glow.

- some effect brushes for the particles.

- and I've also added a textured brush with fuzzy defined edges for some individual particles, though this isn't needed.

Process

1) Start with a background color, a very dark version of your support color (blue).

2) Using a slightly lighter shade of blue, paint in a  soft glow. This could look like a very soft orb or a shaft of soft light.

3) Paint another soft glow nearer the light source. Use a slightly lighter, slightly smaller brush size and slightly nearer the dominant color (plum/pink). Remember to be subtle and paint with low opacity, building slowly.

Now we're ready to paint the particles.

4) On a new layer paint with your particle brushes set to your dominant color (plum). Experiment with your brush settings, especially scattering, spacing, size and opacity variations.

Be expressive and random but minimal.

5) After just a few applications of the brush, try transforming the layer with warp and distort. Be sure to imagine how the dust is falling and stretch the particles in that direction a little. It's good to touch up some particles with a little blur and smudge.

6) Create different layers for different size particles. Some large medium and small. 7) Duplicate these layers, warp and distort further and try blurring some of them to create depth. Some will be on a near plane and some on a far plane.

8) When you're happy with the layout, create a new dodge layer. Paint with the soft brush to build a subtle glow. Try smaller brush sizes and apply to a few individual particles.

9) Flatten your image and apply some noise filters to add a little grain.

Now you have a great background for a fantasy/sci-fi image.

Remember to:

Keep to your analogous color scheme.

Vary brushes in size and shape.

Use blur filters to create areas of depth.

Add soft highlights to some particles and use smudge sparingly.

Paint particles on to a single layer, distort and warp to shape and repeat this a number of times with variety.