Especies que no han logrado la supervivencia

I know cutting out and manipulating photo textures sounds like a Herculean task, especially when you could bypass the whole ordeal and model it in 3D, but trust me, it really is a lot faster and less infuriating to do it this way. And anyway, there’s something incredibly reassuring about mindless repetitive labour.

07

In Illustrator, create a swarm of neon signs in every garish colour you can think of. You can base them on real logos or come up with your own. Drag the neon signs that you have created from Illustrator into Photoshop one by one and place them onto the façade of the buildings. Try to retain the legibility of the text as you are layering the neon signs.

06

One of the most important aspects of creating a successful cityscape is realistic lighting. Draw long, rectangular, white boxes with the Rectangular Marquee tool and locate the positions for the lighting to be placed. Double-click on the layer you are working on and apply a light yellow Outer Glow layer style.

05

Using the Rectangular Marquee tool, draw rectangles approximately the same thickness as the walls and fill them in with a dark colour to create the floor slabs. Now draw dark, rectangular shapes in varying sizes and shades of grey to denote furniture and doors inside the buildings and apply a Gaussian Blur (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur) to keep the objects ambiguous. Committing to too much detail will confuse the image, especially when you start adding the advertisements.

08

Glazing is notoriously difficult to emulate in Photoshop. The easiest way to deal with it, especially in a night-time image, is to draw everything behind the window and create a light grey fill over the areas of glazing, use the Bevel and Emboss layer style and set the blending mode to Multiply. Play with the opacity settings to achieve the desired effect.

One of the reasons that computer-generated images end up looking sterile is that the computer works out perspectives mathematically and the eye just does not view in perfect perspectives. Next time, even if theoretically the perspective is wrong, if it looks right visually then stick with it!

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Place the crane in the water in front of the buildings to create a sense of perspective and depth. Select the crane’s layer and make a copy of it. Flip the layer vertically (Edit>Transform>Flip Vertical) and apply a Motion Blur (Filter>Blur>Motion Blur). Do not be tempted to set the distance of the blur too high. Turn down the opacity until the blurred object looks like a reflection of the second tower crane.

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Draw a rectangle, fill it in using a dark colour and start designing your billboard. Play with the perspective to create depth by using the Transform option (Edit>Transform>Perspective). Even though the words on the billboard will form part of a greater sentence in the composition, try to make them relate to the product that it is promoting.

10

Create the cityscape behind your buildings by piecing together elements from various cities. Keep the silhouettes dark and ethereal by turning down the opacity; they are only there for context and should not compete with the buildings in front for the viewer’s attention.

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I’ve chosen to create a night-time scene for various reasons. First, the darkness will make the neon signs and the lighting shine more brightly and will capture the sense of rapture of being in the city. Second, and more importantly, night-time scenes are more forgiving, providing a veil of darkness for edges to disappear and fade into the background.

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Finish the artwork by adding a few more images of trees to the background and adjust the lighting and shading so that the whole image looks balanced as a composition. Zoom out, sit back and enjoy the view.

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To intensify the atmosphere, exaggerate the light pollution behind the buildings. Draw a long, elliptical shape with the Elliptical Marquee tool and adjust the Feather to a high setting. Fill this shape in white and apply an orange Outer Glow layer style. Separate the layer style (Layer>Layer Styles>Create Layer) and delete the bottom half of the glow.

14

Locate the boats in a darker area of water. This will help with the illusion that they are sitting in the water. Delete the bottom section of the boats with the Rectangular Marquee tool, having adjusted the Feather to a low setting. Choose a font that looks like it has been handmade with a paintbrush or something similar, and flip the text vertically. Make a copy of the boats and the text and flip them vertically. Apply a Motion Blur onto the boat layer and give the text layer a small Gaussian Blur. Lower the opacity on both.

13

Place the airship at a height that is above the billboard so that the eye is immediately drawn to the first word in the sentence. Horizontally, the position of the airship should relate to the billboard so that the eye picks up the next words. Using the Warp tool (Edit>Transform>Warp), curve the text to align with the surface of the airship for naturalism.

Create the cityscape