Realistic Ice

Oh, hello one more time!

Another Day I was arranging some Bauducco’s boxes and my dog stole one cookie. I went to the corner where she sleeps and discovered that she had opened the package and eaten the biscuit. Until here everything well, after all, what dog never ate a stolen biscuit? But what most impressed me was that the package was not all tears and pieces everywhere, was nearly full, as if someone had opened it to her. Curious, I went and gave to her another biscuit. It is surprising, it secures the package with both feet and with the mouth, and she pulls the plastic where it has to be pulled, exactly in the right place. I think I will make a movie and send it to Faustão (Domingão do Faustão is a Brazilian tv program).

That’s the life, but that’s enough of my histories (this is true, just saying). Have like two days I was looking for a good tutorial that shows how to do an ice effect in things, you know, with refraction and everything else, like transparency and distortion. I was angry when I realized that no tutorial was what I wanted. Continued searching, I spent like two days on it, but didn’t found nothing. So I decided to develop my own technique and split it with you, because that’s why I created this blog, because I found gap in certain types of tutorials, as this of ice, that I searched so much. The effect of today is this:

First Step

Before all, you need the image where the effect will be applied. The mine is a model, which I found in a group of Flickr. Secondly, if you look careful for the detail will see a lot of little cracks in this “statue”. These cracks were done with Brushes that I found in my library, and are already renamed, so you can search some in Deviantart.

Let’s work. The first thing to do is cut the object of the background. To do this duplicate the image (just for security) and work with the copy. To cut you can use the Polygonal Lasso Tool (L), or the Pen Tool (P), if you choose the second option, after done the shape, do a click on it with the right button and select the option “Create Selection”. Then select the image layer, hit “Ctrl+Shift+I” to invert the selection and “Del” to delete the selected part. Like this:

Second Step

After cut the object is you need to fill the empty space. So, to do this I’ll use something like Stamp Tool (S), cause my wall have a texture, but if your background is clean you can use the Brush Tool (B). Is important erase the shadows too, ahead you’ll see why.

Third Step

Everybody has studied physics, and even who don’t had studied knows that an object fill for something translucent, like water or glass, makes an alteration in the image we see behind it. If I’m not wrong this is called Luminous Refraction.

To recreate this we need to select the layer of the object with “Ctrl+A”. Then let’s change the Tab from “Layers” to “Channels”. In the Channels Tab exists 4 layers: RGB, Red, Green and Blue. Now create a new layer, which will be automatically named “Alpha 1”, and paste (Ctrl+V) the cut part. When you created this new channel the others gone to invisible mode and the object must be in the middle of the screen. So select another channel to you can adjust the right position, as I done here:

Next, let the channel one more time invisible, so you only see the “Alpha 1” channel, which is with black background and B&W. Select this channel and go to “Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur”. Use a radius like 3,5 pixels.

Now do a click with the right Button in the image that’s beside of the name “Alpha 1” and select the option “Duplicate Channel”. Will appear a window, in the destine section, where refers to “Document”, select the option “New”, and name it “Ice Distortion”.

A new Photoshop file, Ice Distortion, will appear in the screen. Save him in place which can be easy to load, because soon we’ll use him.

Forth Step

As my wall is too clean, I decided to put some shapes in it. I used a brush that I had found in this site. After done adjusts, the cuts and everything else, changed the Blend Mode to “Linear Burn”.

I saved the image in a new JPG, which I’ll use now. You know the image you cut and then filled the empty space, and that in my case I did some changes? Put it as background. Then duplicate it and put above the object that you cut.

Do a click with the right button over the name of the layer that you had created and putted above the other layers, then select the option ”Create Clipping Mask (Ctrl+Alt+G)”. This do the cut without need to cut, letting appears only where, in the image under this, is filled.

Now select this layer and go to “Filters> Distortion> Glass”. In the window that opened do a click in the arrow beside of the texture choice space. Choose “Load Texture”. Search for the PSD file that we saved before as “Ice Distortion” and load it as texture. To finish this step just adjust the levels of distortion and suavity to it be as you want, but don’t change the scale.

Fifth Step

Well, let’s put a body that will make this distortion in the background we created. Duplicate the layer of the object and put the copy over all other layers. Then do a double click to load the FX window.

I will not write everything, just follow the references of the image sequence next. More easy for you and for me, but don’t do everything as it is here, the values, you should adjust then in reference on this values, but doing the necessary changes to work well in your image and kind of light.

Save this new style, it can be useful in the future, in some other image.

Sixth Step

Let’s create the shadows now. As the glass, the water and ice are translucent, and the shadow isn’t complete and uniform as occur with other materials, she has light inside, like a stuffing.

To do this let’s create a new layer under this layer we just had created and, with “Ctrl+Click”, let’s make the selection of this girl, doing a click in her layer (that one under the glass distortion). Then choose a light gray, and other darker to, with the Brush Tool, we make the edges stay darker than the center, which will be lighter, filling the selection. Next thing is use the Gaussian Blur, with a small radius, to mix everything. Must be like this:

This was the shadow behind the object, so let’s bring down the opacity to something like 18%.

The original shadow was projected in the wall, so she must be recreated in this same line of work. Repeat the process of selection showed above and create a new layer under the shadow layer that already exists.

Choose a dark gray and paint the selection. Then hit “Ctrl+T” to create this distortion selection, and bring to the left, like this:

Next thing is select one more time the original body and delete this part of the new shadow layer, letting just the projection off the body. After this select this layer and paint as you had done in the inner shadow. To finish, use the Erase Tool to take a gradient style at the edges. That’s not necessary to bring the opacity down, cause she must look like this:

Seventh Step

We have one glass girl, but it’s not what I want. I want to create an ice thing. Let’s go, between the object and the shadows create a new group. Inside of it create a new layer. In this layer create the girl’s selection and, in the colors, choose white and a light grey, but not too lighten. So go to “Filters> Render> Clouds”. The cloud was created in the shape of the body; now change the Blend Mode to “Color Dodge”, and the opacity to 17%. This creates a glow of the refraction of the light and expands the body.

As my girl now is translucent, I recreated the arm and leg that was behind of other parts of her body. To that I used the Pen Tool, turned it into image, applied the ice style and then mixed it with a new empty layer. When I done this, could erase the fusion parts without having the ice style remodeling himself to the new form. Then I bring down the opacity to 80% and changed the Blend Mode to “Linear Light” and “Darker Color”.

The cracks, to me, take an especial aspect of little details, and I have this details thing, you know, so… But, let’s see, it can’t be so explicit, should be something that says: “Hey, I’m here. Ops, where I am?”, I mean, it can’t call the attention, so I used some crack brushes, in white color, with small stream, and fill with details.

To finish, a little and opaque star in the right side, where there is a good light concentration, denoting a concentrated glow. These little stars can be found in many brushes, but you can use the Custom Shape Tool (U).

Final

The refraction is cool to make water, water ripples, a fake pool, a magnifier, glasses, bottles… A lot of things. The ice style is similar to water style. There are a lot of tutorials showing how to do this, but the only one that I liked was this of Fabio, which is owner of Abduzeedo.

Well done, this is the end of one more tutorial, I hope you enjoyed. See you.