Create a Vivid Alien Invasion Scene with Photoshop

Step 26

In the next step we will add some volume to our alien so it looks more three-dimensional. White colors seem closer and black colors seem further so we will want to take advantage of this little trick and paint the sides of the alien with dark colors and the interior areas with white. We will want our changes to affect only the alien so we will used clipped layers.

Step 27

Add a new blank clipped layer and using a dark color sampled from the alien paint the sides using a soft brush. Add a clipped curves adjustment layer and use the settings shown below. Paint in the layer mask using a white soft brush to darken the side even more. Also paint on the top of the head. Duplicate this layer, fill the layer mask with black and using a soft white brush darken the neck below his chin.

Step 28

Add a clipped curves adjustment layer and use the settings show below. Paint with white in the layer mask to lighten the inside areas. Make a duplicate and paint even more until it look good.

Step 29

Now let’s work on the head. We want to make those striations stand out so let’s make a new clipped curves adjustment layer and in the layer mask paint with white over them. We notice that the head is a bit grey and doesn’t color match the body so we will add another curves layer and tweak the red, green and blue channels curves. In the layer mask paint with white so only the head is affected. Those eyes are a bit dark so let’s add some color. Make new layer and sample color from his head. Using a soft brush with 20% opacity paint over the eyes like shown below.

Step 30

Using a black soft brush at 20% opacity paint the alien shadow like shown below. Move this layer below the “Alien” layer.

Step 31

Group all these aliens except the shadow layer and name the group “Better Alien”. Add a layer mask and paint with black at the base of his feet. Be careful not to paint over the alien. Now using the Smudge tool at 80% strength smudge the black area upwards so it looks like grass.

Step 32

Let’s add some objects to make the scene more interesting. Open file “Flying Saucer” and make a selection of the alien ship. Ctrl+J to make new layer from selection, copy and paste into our document. Make as many duplicates as needed and free transform them until the scene looks like shown below. Select all these layers and press Ctrl+E to merge them into one layer. Enter advanced blending mode and use the settings shown below.