A few weeks ago, I created an image for the Halloween Wallpaper of the Week. It was an image of a ghost flying around, and that ghost I did when I was playing with Maxon Cinema 4D, a 3D app from Maxon, very cool and kind of easy to learn. Of course I had a help from Lynda.com where I was doing their Cinema 4D course. So I decided to write the tutorial just to share a bit of what I learned.

In this tutorial I will show you how to create a nice ghost using Adobe Photoshop mixing an image created in Cinema 4D with some photos. The process is easy and I will also show you how to use the Cloth feature in Cinema 4D.

Step 1

Create a new document in Photoshop, I used 1920x1200 pixels as usual. After that select the background layer and go to Layer>Layer Styles>Gradient Overlay. Use Radial for the Style and Black and a Dark Brown for the color.

Step 2

In this step I used a photo from sxh.hu, you can download it at (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/641457). After that change the Blend Mode to Overlay and use 90% for the Opacity.

Step 3

With the Brush Tool (B), use black for the color and a very soft brush, a regular one. Paint the end of the corridor. Use the image below for reference.

Step 4

Here I used Cinema 4D to create the base for the ghost. Cinema 4D has a fantastic Cloth engine that allows us to create clothes very easily. To show that instead of images I have a small video. Basically I created the cloth and render one frame that I thought was the best for what I wanted.

Cloth in Cinema 4D from fabio sasso on Vimeo.

Step 5

After the Cinema 4D I render a frame that thought was really good. Below you can see the image and, also you can download it here.

Step 6

With the Eraser Tool (E) create 2 eyes in your ghost.

Step 7

With the ghost layer selected go to Layer>Layer Style>Color Overlay. Use green (#87A261) for the color and Overlay for the Blend Mode. Also change the Opacity to 70% and the Fill Opacity to 75%.

Step 8

Duplicate the ghost layer and add a Outer Glow with the Layer Styles. Use Screen for the Blend Mode, 100% for the Opacity, Yellow for the color, and 30% for the Size. For the Layer's Opacities use 20% and for the Fill Opacity change it to 0.

Step 9

In this step I used another photo from sxc.hu, you can download it at (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1078716). Place the skull in the document. Resize and rotate it until you align the skull's eyes with the eyes of the ghost. After that change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge and the Opacity to 35%. Also with the Eraser Tool (E) use a very soft brush and delete some areas of the skull to make it fith with the ghost cloth.

Step 10

For the ghost's eyes create a new folder in the Layer Palette and rename it to eyes. Change the folders Blend Mode to Color Dodge and add a new layer inside this folder. With the Brush Tool (B), select a very soft brush and white for the color. Then start painting the eyes. Because of the Color Dodge, the white will get a very nice glowing effect.

Step 11

Create a new layer and go to Filter>Render>Clouds. Use black and white for the background and foreground colors. After that just change the Blend Mode to Color Dodge. Also with the Eraser Tool (E) you can erase a bit of the clouds in front of the Ghost.

Step 12

Once again lets add another photo just to create a nice horror style. You can download it at (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/422276). Just place the image in your documen and with the Eraser Tool (E), erase some areas to make the image match with the rest of the design and change the Blend Mode to Screen. The idea is that this image will be hardly noticed but it will add a nice atmosphere to the image.

Conclusion

You can add another texture on top of all layers. I added one from sxc.hu (http://www.sxc.hu/photo/947335) and used Soft Layer for the Blend Mode with 40% opacity. The idea of this tutorial was to show a bit of Cinema 4D. I'm still learning and loving this app. There are lots of sites with nice tutorials for Cinema 4D on the web, and this effect of Cloth I learned from Lynda.com when I had access to their library. I highly recommend that you visit Lynda's site and subscribe to their courses. It's very useful indeed.

Click on the image for full preview

Click here to Download the Files

• Click here to download the Photoshop file used for this tutorial
• Click here to download the Cinema 4D file used for this tutorial

About the author

My name is Fabio Sasso, I'm a graphic/web designer from Porto Alegre, Brazil and I'm the founder of Abduzeedo. I hope we can share lots of information, tips, and ideas through Abduzeedo. Also you can follow me on Twitter or my personal site at http://fabiosasso.com.

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