Energetic was a photo manipulation inspired by the song “Energetic” by BOA. It is a high impact club song with a great beat and energy to it and was able to inspired some of my best work. This image has also become one of my most popular photo manipulations on DeviantArt.

Roberto Blake- Photo Manipulation Energetic

Inspiration- As you know the title and inspiration for this photo manipulation was the song “Energetic” by BOA and international pop artist. Her music is newer here in the states but those of you familiar with JPop probably have heard her before.
This photo manipulation was a chance to do some more work with lighting effects. I particularly like working with lighting effects because they are able to convey high energy, motion,  and magic, and sometimes all at once.

In this image I tried to create the effect of the female model almost giving off a nuclear or atomic effect, and a level of energy that almost can’t be contained. I chose the colors based mostly on the model’s outfit but also because they would stand out against the light background well.

Effects- The lighting effects were done utilizing the pen tool in combination with the direct selection tool. By slightly adjusting the path made by the pen tool before creating a new stroke, I was able to make streaks of light with various brush widths at similar or intersecting angles.

I also put the strokes on different layers using different outer glow colors and settings. I made a custom particle brush for this, which I used on the different lighting effect layers. I purposely set them up to look like atomic particles.

Retouching- The retouch work was actually kind of extensive. In addition to the regular airbrush work I’ve been doing some new techniques I picked up from a Rob Shields tutorial to do better sharpening, adjusting levels, curves and other things to give the image a much crisper feel and more depth. The extraction of the model was done using the pen tool in combination with masking, which in most cases it the way I prefer to extract the models.

Print- I actually plan of featuring this image in my self published book coming out first quarter of next year, “ARTFUL MANIPULATIONS“, which will showcase the best digital artwork I’ve done over the past year. I most definitely believe that this is one of the best pieces I’ve done yet, and the response to this image in the online community has been great. If you can actually view a full size version of  Energetic on Deviantart and favorite it!