Contextualising 3D Models - Contrast

I am now at the point where I need to get my 3D model, find an interesting angle that I would like to work with and then export it as a 2D graphic into Adobe Photoshop in order to begin contextualising it and adding entourage.

The following is the progression of contextualising and adding entourage to my two Contrast 3D models:

First Contextualisation

So this is my final development of my previous development within my post:
Developing Contrast Principle in Sketch-Up

So after the first step of importing my 2D graphic of my model into Photoshop and cutting it out, I have duplicated the layer and then scaled it down as if swirling down.

Continuing to scale down and rotate to increase depth.

Duplicated one last time, then scaled down and rotated.

The next step was to create the swirling effect. I created a new layer and got a soft cloud brush that was bigger than the canvas and using a low opacity and flow, I placed the brush onto the layer. I then selected the layer and created a radial blur with using the Blur method of spin instead of zoom. I duplicated the layer a couple of times and played with the scale and opacity to make the swirling effect clearer and bolder.

I then found a cut-out car that was free to use on the website cutoutpeople.com/transport and then used the blending mode luminosity to change the colours and once put behind the layers of radial blur made it tie in a lot better. The last step was to place a radial blur on it as well to make it look as if it were spiralling along with my model. Therefore I applied a small radial blur to it - just enough to make it look as though it was spinning, but not too much that it lost its original integrity - viewer's still need to be able to see that it is a car.

Like a couple of my previous contexts, I then created a white central glow coming from the centre of my model.

The next step was to apply a colourised hue / saturation to the glow to make it stand out more. But I had to make sure that it only affected the glow that I created.

Finally, the last step was to add lighting effects. I used a point style with the following values:
Colour: White
Intensity: 21
Colourise: White
Exposure: 100
Metallic: 100
Ambience: -30

Second Contextualisation:

This was my first trial when adding my stars to the background. I played around for a while with changing the layering (three different layers of my star model) to see what each part looks like when they are behind/in-front of different parts of each layer. In the end I felt that at this scale and the view / angle that I exported from Sketch-Up into Photoshop was not right so I went back into Sketch-Up and played around to find another view.

As I stated in the previous description, I went back into Sketch-Up to firstly find anther angle to export, but secondly to zoom out as I did not want parts of my model having to be restricted to being on the sides of the context image because they were cut during the exportation process. Once I had found a view that I was happy with, I imported it into Photoshop and began to duplicate certain parts to create a more realistic skyline of starts that the humungous models like above.

After this I then created a white outer glow for each of my stars before applying a point lighting effect in the centre of the sky order to create the effect above.

After creating a point lighting effect in which the light radiates out in a circle from a central point, I then applied another lighting effect, this time a spot effect. With this style of lighting effect I have a lot more control and authority on the light as I am able to choose what parts get light and which parts don't. Because the image has the red light in the centre of the page, I wanted to emulate that by creating the lighting as if dispersing from the light in the image. In the end I got to this.

Next step was to apply entourage. I found a cut out man in which I then scaled down and applied a colour overlay to using the red light image as the colour I went off. By doing this, it looks as though he is standing underneath the light.

Finally, I added one more person for effect and tried to replicate how the light would disperse if he was actually there, and thus what the light would be on himself as he walked by.