My magic wand effects don’t look particularly magical. Any advice?

Martha Sokolowski, US

Answer

Mélanie replies

Here I choose to paint a basic magic effect, but the possibilities are infinite. I begin by choosing a suitable colour for my magical ray of light. I want my character to be very girly so I pick a bright pink, after disregarding yellow. I use this colour to lay down the base of my magical effects, by creating a huge glow of light on the top of the wand, and a long curly ray/wave – like a shooting star, for example – all around the character. This ray follows the trajectory of the wand or the direction of the magic spell that’s being cast.

Because I want the light wave to be diffuse I use a custom brush that’s very soft and textured. You can download it along with the rest of this month’s resources. You can also play with the Layer Opacity or mode to generate more cool colour effects. Here, I erase some parts to achieve the perfect render.

I also work with different shades of pink, to enhance the magical look and also to bring in more texture. I mix a pale pink with a deep pink and create some extra waves over the ray of light.

The top of the wand will be the brightest part, so I ramp up the visible light here. Finally, to increase the magical effect I add sparkles around the wand and the wave. I use a precise brush to do so, with sharp edges to generate marks that are neat and well defined.

The wand’s light must affect everything around it, in this case the spellcaster’s face and clothing. So I add more pink light to her jawline and lips. I tend to add a lot (maybe too much!) of sparkles and effects when I paint magic in action. Adjust...