Thank you! I try to think of a concept first before attempting anything, but sometimes that doesn't work out so I go and look for references and bg inspo. For this one tho, I just played the level over and over until I caught on to an idea that I wanted to attempt! For sure wanted to showcase their fight, but also make them stand out as much as possible(which isn't too hard with Gabriel since he's has more color than V1).
Cutting things short:
1. Play with angles(above/below/etc). I put both in the air because since they have aerial abilities, it made the most sense and that kinda was my idea from the start.
2. Choose your main subject. Gabriel is the main character in the pic since he's that's being targeted, so I made sure to have V1 aim the focus towards him(the whiplash disarming him, the gun reaching out, his 'face' not showing in order to not draw focus away).
3. Use atmosphere to your advantage. The transition from enraged to normal was crucial, but I really wanted to keep the blue water and red setting somehow, so I had play around with colors for a while. I did get stuck here for a long time, but eventually the transition from his red to white armor made the most sense. The point of contact was his arm so everything around that section reverted back, thus giving me the excuse to keep the red lighting and the blue flooring. Finding reasoning like that was probably not necessary, but wanted to keep it as close to the original fight as possible lol
4. Blurring and zoom. The easiest way to make it seem more 'alive'. Just blur out the corners and slowly make way towards the main subject. Of course you're going to need to play with this since it's not as straightforward as you'd think, but there's many tutorials that explain it better!
5. Effects. My go-tos are Filter>Sharpen>Sharpen and Layer Style> Advanced Blending>Select R only and shift. Can never go wrong with these!!
Hopefully this wasn't as confusing, but there's many more tutorials I've done under the tutorial tag in my blog, so hopefully this helps:'D
