Photoshop - Scene Design

My scenes were mocked-up in my sketchbook as both large thumbnails and in storyboard format. This made it easy to re-produce my designs in Photoshop.

Below, I will run over the brief process of creating my scenes in Photoshop.

The above is the base scene of, Humpty Dumpty Loses His Footing. The layer palette can be seen below, where I shall explain how it was generated.

Sky: This was created by filling the canvas a sky-blue and giving it a Gradient Overlay of white-to-transparent to enhance the depth of the scene.

Wall: This was created by filling a rectangular selection a brick-brown and applying a Gradient Overlay. The gap in the wall where the brick is to be placed, was cut out using the rectangular marquee tool.

Grass: This layer was generated by repeatedly stroking a path (created with the pen-tool) with a grass-shaped brush, until achieving a simplistic look. A drop shadow was then added to give contrast between the blades of grass and the brick wall.

The above is the base scene of, Humpty Dumpty Gets Hit By A Ball. The layer palette can be seen below, where I shall explain how it was generated.

Sky: This was simply duplicated from the previous scene.

Basketball-net: The frame of the net was made by filling marquee selections with red. The net itself was generated by creating a curvaceous selection with the pen-tool, filling it white and then using the layer styles to remove the white-fill, by setting it to 0% opacity, and then applying a net-Pattern to it. The structure itself was created by filling marquee selections (the shape of the structure) a metallic-grey and then adding Gradient Overlays to give the frame some depth.

Wall: The wall, like the previous scene, was also generated by filling a selection a brick-brown and then adding a simple, Gradient Overlay style to it.

Floor-court: The floor-court was made by using a rectangular selection and filling it with the chosen colour. No layer styling was used on this layer.

Brick: The brick itself was made for both this scene and the last; in this one, it depicted the width of the wall and was generated by the initial selection used to make the brick cut out, in the last scene. It was filled with a darker, brick-brown and had a soft Inner-Shadow applied to it, as well as the typical Gradient overlay.

The above is the base scene of, Humpty Dumpty Becomes Food. The layer palette can be seen below, where I shall explain how it was generated.

Sky: This was simply duplicated from the previous scene.

Podium: The podium was generated by creating a rectangular selection with the marquee tool with a 15px smoothing to give the rounded corners. I filled it a concrete-grey and applied a simple, Gradient Overlay to it before adding a Pattern Overlay to give the concrete some texture.

Steps: The steps, similar to the podium, were generated by using multiple, rectangular selections with the marquee tool and filling them a concrete-grey. With the steps built, I Ctrl+Clicked the layer, to select the contents, before applying a 15px smoothing to the edges and cutting off the excess. The Gradient Overlay on the steps differ from the podium, in that it's orientated horizontally to give them more depth than the podium itself.

Rug: I wanted to add something to stage the seriousness of Humpty's visit; I decided on a red-carpet. This was generated by filling a rectangular selection red and adding a Gradient Overlay. The border was created by adding a new layer, shrinking a selection of the rug, filling it white and then setting the blending mode of the layer to Soft Light.

Grass: This was simply duplicated from the previous scene.