Create “Dance on Fire” Scene in Photoshop

In this Photoshop tutorial, I will show you the process I took to create this “Dance on Fire” Scene in Photoshop. Have a try!

This is an intermediate level difficulty tutorial and some steps can be tricky.

Note: The Photoshop tutorial is done in Photoshop CC – therefore some screenshot may have slighting different layout as in the earlier version. Some brushes are exclusive to Photoshop CS6.

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

flower-dancer-psdvault-flatten

OK Let’s get started!

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

Grass

Model

Fire

Rose

Step 1

Create a new document sized 1400px *670px with black background. Load the grass image into Photoshop and select the grass portion. Copy and paste the selection to our document, place it down the bottom as shown below:

1 paste

Fade the top edge of the grass with a soft eraser:

1 fade

Use the Warp option of the free transform tool to warp the shapr of the grass as shown below:

1 warp

Apply the following 3 adjustment layers on top of the grass layer:

Black and White

1 bw

Levels

1 lvs

Curves

1 curves

and here is the effect so far:

1 effect

 

Step 2

Use a cloud brush to paint some cloud over the grass as shown below:

2 cloud

Load the model image into Photoshop, select the model and move it over to our document:

2 sel

Position the model to the centre of the canvas, adjust the size of the new layer and use a soft eraser to fade the following areas of the model:

2 paste erase

Apply the following 3 adjustment layers as clipping masks to this model layer:

Black and White

2 bw

Levels

2 lvs

Curves

2 curves

and here is the effect so far:

2 effect

Step 3

We will add the flame effect to our image in this step. Load the fire stock image into Photoshop and select a portion of the fire with Lasso Tool (set feather to 40px):

3 sel

Copy and paste the selection to our document. Place this new layer under the model layer,  and set its layer blend mode to “Screen”:

3 screen

Use the free transform tool to adjust the size of the fire, and place the fire behind the model:

3 paste

Repeat this process and add more fire to our document:

3 more fire

 

Step 4

This step is optional. Personally I think adding some flying hair would make the overall effect look more dynamic. So I use the Pen Tool to create a path like this:

4 pen

Choose a 2px, hard brush:

4 brush

Then go back to the Pen Tool, right-click and choose “Stroke Path …”:

4 stroke path

Use the brush we chose and add “Simulate Pressure”:

4 brush stroke

Here is the effect you will have:

4 effect

Use a soft eraser to fade the top and bottom of this hair:

4 fade

Duplicate this hair a few times – rotate, re-size the duplicated layers as you go. Also adjust the layer opacity of the duplicated layer.

Eventually you will have the following hair effect:

4 more hair

 

Step 5

Load the Rose flower petals image into Photoshop and select the petals:

5 sel

Paste it to the following area and it will look like the petals are falling:

5 add

Also add some petals on the face area:

5 add 2

Step 6

We’re almost done! For final touches, I flatten the image and duplicated the background layer, then applied the following Oil Paint filter to the duplicated layer:

6 oil paint

Layer mask on the duplicated layer (in red):

6 mask

As you can see, the oil paint filter smooth out the skin and hair, giving the image a painting effect:

6 after oil paint

and here is the overall effect:

6 effect

I further added some colours with image adjustment layers such as colour balance, selective colour and vibrance. Here is my final result: (click to enlarge)

flower-dancer-psdvault-flatten

 

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful! If you have any questions about the steps, please contact me or leave a comment below. I will try my best to answer them.

Till next time, have a great day!