Final Product
This design is just a fun Halloween poster that plays off the TV show House MD. I started by taking a picture of Hugh Laurie and duplicated a layer. I created a mask and then changed the layer modes to bring out the tones in his face. Using the liquify filter I distorted his face to give him a more Frankenstein Monster look. I added a hue/saturation filter to give him the green colored skin. From there I added the bolts in his neck and distorted them for a more crude feel. I gave him scars, warped them to match the contour of his face and blended them down to his skin. The tooth was added and a small drop shadow was added to give it some depth. All of these techniques included the use of selection tools and masking.
The haunted house was added to the background and I used photo RAW to adjust it's contrast, bring out some of the dark spots and tone down the over exposed areas. I then blended in the edges of the image with the black and gray clouds, that were created using a difference clouds filter, using a mask.
To finish the poster I added the title "House of Horror". This of course being a play on words in conjunction with the imagery. I used the same font that was used in the TV show and then a classic looking Halloween type font. I chose white for the 'House' font it was clean and had good contrast with the dark background. For the 'Horror' font I used red because it reminds us of scary blood and guts - and isn't that what Halloween is all about ;) To make the Horror stand out I put it on an angle and warped it to better follow the roof line of the house. I then added a drop shadow to help it stand out and to give the poster added depth.
In regards to the placement of the elements in the design I positioned them in the center because it made the design simple and balanced. The colors used were chosen based on the subject of Halloween (greens, purples, reds and black/gray). I put the text all together at the top in close proximity to each other because it makes it easy to read. It is also part of the designs hierarchy and helps you to understand what you are looking at when you get to the images at the bottom of the poster.
*The original images can be viewed by playing the slideshow.
Photoshop Skills:
The haunted house was added to the background and I used photo RAW to adjust it's contrast, bring out some of the dark spots and tone down the over exposed areas. I then blended in the edges of the image with the black and gray clouds, that were created using a difference clouds filter, using a mask.
To finish the poster I added the title "House of Horror". This of course being a play on words in conjunction with the imagery. I used the same font that was used in the TV show and then a classic looking Halloween type font. I chose white for the 'House' font it was clean and had good contrast with the dark background. For the 'Horror' font I used red because it reminds us of scary blood and guts - and isn't that what Halloween is all about ;) To make the Horror stand out I put it on an angle and warped it to better follow the roof line of the house. I then added a drop shadow to help it stand out and to give the poster added depth.
In regards to the placement of the elements in the design I positioned them in the center because it made the design simple and balanced. The colors used were chosen based on the subject of Halloween (greens, purples, reds and black/gray). I put the text all together at the top in close proximity to each other because it makes it easy to read. It is also part of the designs hierarchy and helps you to understand what you are looking at when you get to the images at the bottom of the poster.
*The original images can be viewed by playing the slideshow.
Photoshop Skills:
- Selections
- Masking
- Adjustment layers
- Layer modes
- Layer styles
- Text tool
- Transform tools
- Camera RAW
- House M.D. (fontmeme.com)
- TreeHausHorror (dafont.com)