Dr Strange – Behind The Scenes

Doctor Strange is one of the lessor known marvel superheroes. But, in my opinion, he is a great character with a great film and a strong part of the Avengers Infinity Wars film. The Sanctum Santorum was iconic and I really enjoyed creating his shields as he prepares to do battle to protect the time stone.

The Concept

My idea was to create a photograph of Doctor Strange outside the Sanctum in New York as he faces Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian. I knew I wanted to create a dynamic pose to put the shields on in post production.

Here is the original shot.

As you can see, his left arm is posed to hold a shield and his right arm is down. That was so I would be able to clone it out and create the illusion that he was holding a shield towards the camera.

I didn’t do anything in lightroom this time – other than import the pictures. I didn’t have a graphic for the shields. There are often tutorials on youtube with links and tips on how to do most things. The one I found with this one by AF Toys.

Then it was straight into photoshop.

Photoshop

My first action was the clone out the right arm as this would distract from my vision for the final image. I used the cline stamp tool and selected the red coat and parts of his leg and body to remove it. I knew I wouldn’t need it and that the shield would be covering where his arm should be. Hence it needed to go. Here is was it looked like.

Next action I worked on the shields. This was a matter of placing the shield and transforming them to fit their position. The right hand shield was easy as it was facing the camera. The left hand shield needed skewing so that it appears not to be facing the camera. I added a hue and brightness adjustment to get them both a bit brighter and more orange.

I painted an orange colour around the shields and set that layer to screen. Then I used another layer of orange set to soft light. This created a nice glow around the shields – hopefully similar to how they appear in the film.

Lastly I added some sparks around the shields to give them a more movie like feel. There are actually four sparks layers all set to screen blend mode for each shield. I used the brush tool set to black to blend the edge of the sparks and create the following image.

At this point I’m fairly happy with the shields.

I added a layer of fog using an image in screen mode, then a layer of dust to the bottom of the image – again in screen mode. I brushed out some of the fog and dust on Doctor Strange so it didn’t drown him out. This took a few goes before I settled on an opacity of 40% for the brush. It looked a little too much at 100% so I’d played around to find what I liked the best in terms of the right amount of fog and dust on our hero.

I then added a new layer and painted in a green infinity stone on his necklace – like in the film. I used a brightness adjustment to make this stand out.

With hindsight I’d probably spend a bit more time making this stand out over the shields but I don’t think it’s too bad and doesn’t detract from the image.

The final step was to add a gradient map to darken the edges of the frame and really help the hero and his shields to stand out.

Conclusion

Overall I’m pretty happy with the final image. I really like Doctor Strange and I’m pleased I could create an image of him in lego with his magic shields.

In case you’re not sure this figure and the background are from the Marvel Avengers Sanctum Santorum Showdown Building Set – Lego 76108. Which, by the way, is a fantastic set that I’ll be reviewing shortly. Take a look here:

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