Effects Photoshop Tutorial:Create a Chained Arm with Blood Stain Effect

OK Let’s get started!

To complete this tutorial, you will need the following stocks:

Arm

Chain

Cracked Brush

Splash Brush

Step 1

Create a new document sized 800px * 900px with black background. Create a new layer, use either a cracked or a grunge brush, paint some texture over the background layer, set the layer opacity to be around 30% for a subtle effect:

Load the arm image into Photoshop, select the arm with the magic wand tool:

Copy and paste the selection into Photoshop, resize and position it as shown below:

Step 2

Add the following 2 adjustment layers as clipping mask to this arm layer:

Black and White

Levels

On the Level adjustment layer mask, use a big soft eraser to erase the top left part of the fist, and you will have the following effect:

Step 3

Now let’s add the chain into the composition. Load the Chain stock image into Photoshop – Now we want to cut of the chain from the rest of the image: grab the background eraser tool from the toolbox:

Apply the following setting for the background eraser tool:

Unlock the background layer of this chain image, erase the textures around chain with the background eraser tool – this creates some dusty effect around the chain:

Once you’ve done than, use the quick selection tool to select a portion of the chain and its surroundings:

Copy and paste the selection onto our canvas, resize and rotate it with the free transform tool, attach it to the right side of the arm:

Step 4

Add the following 3 adjustment layer as clipping mask to this chain layer:

Black and White

Levels

Curves

Use a soft erase to remove the edges around the chain to fade it into the background:

and here is the effect so far:

Use the cloud filter and a cloud brush, add a new layer of cloud over the chain for some dramatic effect: (set layer blending mode to around 20%)

Make a new folder and put those adjustment layers and the chain layers into the new folder, then duplicate the folder and flip it horizontally, move it the left:

Use the crack brush as an eraser, apply a layer mask on the arm layer, and use this crack eraser to add some cracking texture on the arm:

Step 5

Now let’s add some blood and stain to the arm. Select a dark red colour, grab the water splash brush we downloaded, and paint over a new layer (set layer blending mode to “Color Burn”):

and you will have some dark black spot over the arm and fist area:

Duplicate this layer and change the layer blending mode of the duplicated layer to “Color”, and you will have some red colour over the black spots, creating a stained effect:

Add some more blood splash around the arm with the dark red brush:

You can add some motion to the image by adding a new layer, paint or render some cloud on it, and apply some motion blur to this new layer:

Set layer opacity to be around 30%, attach the motion blur layer to the fist – this adds a air flowing effect to the image:

Step 6

OK we’re almost done! We can add some final touches to the image. Go back to the arm layer and apply the following unsharp mask settings:

This will bring out more details from the arm:

Add some soft highlight around the chain with a soft white brush with 20% flow and opacity setting:

Also I added some lens flare effect over the figure:

And here is the final effect I have for this tutorial: (click to enlarge)

That’s it for this tutorial! Hope you enjoy it and find it useful :) Till next time, have a great day!