Still Alive: How I Made it [Step by Step]

Sep 7, 20135 min read

Deviation Actions

Published: Sep 7, 2013

2.4K Views

Let me begin by saying that this is in no way a tutorial; I am still a beginner in GIMP (My very first piece was "SpellThief,)" which I completed on 11/11/11. At that time, I didn't even know how to use layers. I still have very much to learn and do not pretend to be a professional. However, I thought that at least one of my six watchers might take interest in how I make my artwork.

Still, feel free to critique me to your heart's content. I'm eager to learn!

Now that that's out of the way, let's begin!

I started with a photo I took on a stormy afternoon from my front porch:

Taken using my Samsung Galaxy S4; not a professional camera, but not bad considering.

I thought that if I flipped it upside-down, the blue sky shining through could act as a sort of "glow" coming from the city. Fortune seemed to favor me, as it turned out much better than I was expecting.

Here's the final version of the clouds after I was finished modifying the color, flow, transparency, perspective, etc.

MirrorsEdge 2013-08-11 20-36-19-94 by thetechromancer

A screenshot from Mirror's Edge was the basis for the city lurking below the clouds; I liked the look so much I actually considered removing the clouds altogether and creating a night shot overlooking the city.

I wanted to add a sense of scale, so I used a screenshot of a random skyscraper in the city to make a building rising up out of the clouds.

Now came the fun part. I have always been TERRIBLE at drawing people, so I knew that making Faith would be a challenge. However, I had just completed my previous piece "Mirror's Edge - The Door," in which I made half of her face up close. I came into it with a fair amount of much-needed confidence.

By doing a little bit of tweaking (and maybe cheating,) I was able to get Mirror's Edge to play in third-person mode. I found it interesting that the development team had taken the time to create a very good-looking model of Faith, complete even to the point of idle animations.

At this time, I wasn't even sure what I was going to use for the foreground. I had intended to have our heroine standing on a second building. It wasn't until I ran across the red crane that I realized this was unmistakable and a much better choice.

After a painstaking 15 minutes of clicking tiny pixels, I had it cut out and pasted into a new layer:

The first thing I wanted to fix was the skin. Even on max settings, it still didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped. I spent a good amount time searching for a stock image to use as a starting point (during which I was relieved my parents did not walk in.) xD

I touched up the rest of her skin using mostly larger brushes, the blur feature, and colors from the shoulder.

The tattoo and hair seemed easy after that:

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the crane. That red crane and I were not good friends for the two days I spent fixing it's jagged polygons and questionable shading.

Here's the final product in GIMP:

And exported and cropped:

Mirror's Edge Catalyst - Still Alive by thetechromancer

PC Specs:

Program Used: GIMP

CPU: Intel Core i7 3770K 3.50GHz

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 780 3GB

RAM: 16GB DDR3

SSD: Kingston 128GB

OS: Windows 7 Professional x64

Thanks to all those who support my work and to my friends and family. I hope you enjoyed this journal entry; I plan to do more in the future! :happybounce: