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Step 7: Repeat steps 2 to 5 on the energy ball to give it a glow similar to that present on your beam layer.   When you have done this, merge your beam and energy ball layers together.

Step 8: Now give your ion beam a different angle of your choice using the Edit > Transform tools.  This is all fairly simple, but make sure your ion beam is the selected layer, or you may move the wrong layer!   Once you are happy with your beam placement, create a new layer on top of all the others called 'explosion' or something similar.   Use the Polygon Lasso Tool to create a basic angular shape, and then Edit > Fill the shape with white to create a very basic explosion shape.

Step 9: Its now time to add a little character to our basic explosion.  Lose your selection and then run Filter > Distort > Wave, hitting randomize a couple a times until you get a weird shape. Press OK, and immediately afterwards run Filter > Noise > Add Noise, increasing the strength until you are left with a speckled white (ensure monochromatic is ON).   Round off your character-building exercise with Filter > Stylize > Diffuse, making sure the mode is set to normal.   Press OK.

Step 10: Repeat steps 2 to 5 on the explosion to give it a glow similar to that present on your beam layer. This time, however, DON'T FLIP YOUR LAYER HORIZONTALLY... or you'll end up with a right mess!

Step 11: Duplicate the explosion layer and set the duplicate's blending mode to color dodge. Run Filter > Distort > Wave again, pressing randomize a few times to give your explosion a different look than the original. Hit OK and merge both explosion layers together to create something akin in our creation on the left.

Step 12: Now put the explosion layer below the beam layer, duplicate it and put the duplicate above the beam. Set the duplicate's layer blending mode to Pin Light and set the opacity to 75%.  Merge All your beam and explosion layers together and set the blending mode to taste (I find the 4 coolest options are normal, color dodge, vivid light, and screen). And that's it - You now have a completed Ion Beam!

I will leave you at this stage, but don't forget that this effect is highly modular, and goes well with light swirls, abstract swirls, sparkles, etc.  Just keep adding detail and see what you can create!

This tutorial was written by Andantonius. If you have any questions feel free to E-mail him at Jneimeis@hotmail.com. Please do not take credit for this tutorial. Thank you.

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This worked excellent, got a request for a logo similar to the Halo 3 logo yesterday. Which was really new to me! And this came in very handy

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Actually the guy is over the wall. I rammed him so hard he wen't straight over.
:rolleyes:

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Yay, truck dismount! I seriously think you wasted the truck this time though... LOL! ;)

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Oooh, this came out really cool. I added light swirls to my beam and it looks awesome! :rolleyes:



Whaddaya think?

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Great work ElectricHarmony. I really like your explosion. :)

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