Hellblazer Cover Finishing Off

Saturday, 5th of May

I did the last bits and bobs today for the Hellblazer cover.  I started by lloking up cicarette smoke. I am very rarely around smokers so I wanted to be sure.  The photos confirmed my thought that I would be hard pressed to paint it.  What I did notice was that it looked a lot like ink in water so I thought I'd try that out.  At first I just wet paper and dropped the ink on but that didn't work.  Then I got a photo developing basin and filled it with water.  With the camera standing by I droppe din Indian ink and whooshed it a bit.

 I took numerous photos, this is the one used.  I then turned it negative in photoshop to get the right colour for smoke. 

I then added it to the picture.  It took a bit of playing around but I think the way it is now works well.  I used the lighten Layer Setting to add it to the picture.

I then tidied up the rest, the edges were quite rough and were showing those horrible little white/grey lines on the edges, the tell-tale sign of a lazy photoshopper.  I copied the text and logos from the original cover and placed them.  I changed the names of the writers a little bit, but it's still prtty close.  I did a few other other little fix up jobs and now I'm happy with how it looks.

As I said I'll leave it week before sending it off in case I spot something wrong.