amazing work!!! so powerfull!

--
♥▼♥ love u Mike ♥▼♥

+ =

Thanks sweetie!

--
"Hell is not a place, it's a state of mind..." - Unknown (to me )

I love this Thanks for the mention too Did you use the wind filter to make those spikes on the lines? Then pen tool is my most used tool apart from the brush tool and i would say you have definitely done the pen tool justice, excellent work

Thank you so much! Of course I had to mention you, it was the least I could do, considering I "stole" your idea! And yes, I used the wind filter on the lines hehe, and even though you are so sweet to comment on my pentool skills, it's still obvious who's the master here hehe..Thank you again!

--
"Hell is not a place, it's a state of mind..." - Unknown (to me )

Haha i'm by no means the master You didn't steal my idea, u just stole my technique hehe. Nothing wrong with tht You seem to pull out the bezier handles horizontally, to get better curves i think you might be able to pull them out diagonally, try to follow the contours of her body and you will see what i mean, it's good practice to cut out bodies to get really good with the pen tool, because you will sort of be able to use it naturally and get lovely fluid movements Great result for a first try though

Yeah, you see, that's the odd thing with me, I've been cutting out people with the pen tool for quite some time now, but when I'm gonna do it "freehand" so to speak, it looks awful, and all of a sudden I can't handle it at all! Really really strange! Well, there's only one thing to do, more and more and more practice!

--
"Hell is not a place, it's a state of mind..." - Unknown (to me )

I only recently discovered the pen tool, about 2 weeks ago but i came from adobe after effects where i did special effects for video so i got into photoshop's pen tool immediately I cant draw by hand very well at all, in fact i'm terrible. I think you might benefit from this advice: stay close to the edges of your image, don't fly all over the place otherwise it looks a bit fake and disconnected, wrap a strip of paper in a spiral shape around your pencil, cool huh? Use that as a guide to getting the perspective on your light beam wrap around effect Study how the ones further away arent exactly in the middle of the ones towards you, subtle adjustments make things really work. Also make sure your beam layer is white with a soft edge and an outer glow layer style set to colour dodge, i find that really makes things pop Its a fantastic picture already and i know i'm sounding like i am moaning, i don't mean it to sound that way

Oh no, it doesn't sound moaning at all!! It is great to get "hands on" tutorials like that! I've copied your text to my harddrive, so I can study it later, hehe, constructive criticism is always really good, at least that's what I think, and it can only make me better! Thank you sooo much for the small tut, I'll practice it, and the next time I use it in a pic, I will master it hehe, and only thanks to you!! Thank you again! You're such a sweetheart!

--
"Hell is not a place, it's a state of mind..." - Unknown (to me )

No problem seriously, you are too nice Good luck I enjoy making people happy and if i can make you happy by teaching you the pen tool than thats awesome One thing that changed the way i work, and inspired me to photoshop and get into graphics was studying real life, to find parallels in photoshop techniques and apply them to my projects. I loved the way at sunset light takes an orange hue, so i took that into daytime and applied some sillhouettes and there we are If you want some nice light streaks by the way:
1. filter>render>clouds
2. filter>blur>radial blur (zoom, best, 70-100)
3. filter>sharpen>unsharp mask
4. set blending mode to screen and paint on some colour