After doing so much work on my apartment, I am excited to host a Halloween party! Last year I made a Burrito costume, which was pretty well received. For this party, I decided to have a theme to the party to give people a starting point for their costumes:
"Life, The After Party!"
The idea is that guests come as someone who's passed away (historical, fictitious, or just completely imagined) and to show up as that person with the story of their demise as part of the costume. I think that this gives people creativity, but a framework to start with, a question to be answered: how did you die? There's also the fun of trying to guess who that person is, and it's still on theme with Halloween. Will everyone keep with the theme? Who can say, but I'm excited to see what people come up with.
To start off the party, I set up a Facebook invite and was searching for a fitting event image. When I couldn't find what I was looking for I knew I'd have to do it my self. I searched a few reference photos and made a quick sketch:
With that as a starting point, I brought it into Photoshop and started rendering it:
- I started by filling in the black background and some of the basic shapes.
- Next was adding in the lighting. This was all about using the lasso and brush to strategically brighten up an already dark image. Obvious the party was coming from the grave, so that's where the light source would be coming from.
- Then I added the text on the tombstone. I skewed it to match the perspective and added a bevel & emboss to make it look like it could be carved into the stone. As always, I struggled to pick out a font, especially with the stock library I've never bothered to add to.
- The final touch was the lasers. I tried to add a disco ball light pattern, but couldn't get it to work. Lasers were a pretty good bet for "party" and add a nice dramatic touch.
Presto! My Halloween invitation image was ready! Now to get cracking on the decorations...
