Paint a Vaporwave Fallen Titan on a Neon Grid Sea

Open Lopsy. In the New Document dialog choose Pixels and enter 1600 × 2000.

Drop two guides by clicking the rulers:

• Click the left ruler at y 1120. That's the horizon, a little under halfway down.
• Click the top ruler at x 800 to mark the centre line.

Click the Background layer. With the Rectangular Marquee, select everything from the top of the canvas to just below the horizon guide. Pick the Gradient tool and open Advanced…. Set four stops: #1B1240, #4A2482 at 42%, #C8448E at 80% and #FF9B78. Drag from the top edge straight down to the horizon guide.

Press Cmd+D to deselect and rename Layer 1 to Stars. Marquee the top 860 px of the canvas and fill it with mid grey #808080 (Edit → Fill).

Press Cmd+D to deselect. Choose Filter → Add Noise… with Amount 100, Mono and Gaussian. Then Filter → Threshold… at Level 184. Only the brightest specks of noise survive, as white dots on black.

Set the layer's blend mode to Screen so the black disappears. To fade the stars out lower down, click Add Mask, then click the mask thumbnail to edit it. Drag a white-to-black gradient from near the top down to about y 760. Click the layer's name to go back to editing pixels.

Add a layer named Sun. Choose the Elliptical Marquee and click once on the canvas to open its size dialog. Enter From 430, 530 To 1170, 1270. That's a 740 px circle on the centre line whose lower part dips below the horizon. The sea will hide that part later.

Set the gradient stops to #FFF27A, #FF9D5C at 50% and #FF3F8E. Drag from the top of the circle down to the horizon guide.

Deselect, then drag a thin, wide marquee across the sun a little below its middle. Hold Shift and drag five more bands below it. Shift adds each one to the selection. Make each band a little thicker than the last (about 8, 12, 16, 20, 24 and 28 px) and the gaps a little narrower, so the stripes crowd together toward the horizon.

Press Delete to cut all six at once.

Deselect. Open the Sun layer's Layer Effects (the sparkle icon on its row) and turn on Outer Glow: colour #FF5FA8, Size 90, Opacity 70.

Add a layer named Cloud Strata and set the colour to #33195A. With the Lasso, draw a long, thin, lens-shaped cloud across the sun: a gently humped top edge and a flatter, slightly lumpy bottom. Hold Shift and draw three more:

• a shorter one just above it
• one lower down that runs off toward the right
• a thin streak in the empty sky at the upper left

Choose Edit → Fill.

Deselect and give the clouds an Inner Glow in #FFB3C9, Size 8, Opacity 70. It reads as the sun catching the edges of the clouds.

Add a layer named Sea. Marquee everything below the horizon guide and drag a gradient from the horizon to the bottom edge: #43206F, #22124C at 35%, #090820. This layer hides the bottom of the sun.

Add a layer named Horizon Haze. Marquee a band from about 50 px above the horizon to 30 px below it. Choose Select → Feather… with 40, then fill with #FF6FB5. Deselect, set the layer to Screen and its opacity to 55%.

Add a layer named Grid Tile and set the colour to #45F0FF. In the top-left corner of the canvas, click once with the Rectangular Marquee to open its size dialog and fill two thin bars, pressing Cmd+D between them:

• From 0, 0 To 40, 2: a horizontal bar
• From 0, 0 To 1, 40: a vertical bar

Together they make one corner of a grid cell. The horizontal bar is thicker on purpose: the far rows get squashed by the perspective later and would vanish at 1 px. Select the 40 × 40 px square that contains them and choose Edit → Define Pattern. Then delete the Grid Tile layer. The pattern stays defined.

Click Horizon Haze and add a layer named Neon Grid above it. Marquee everything below the horizon and choose Edit → Fill with Pattern…. Your grid tile is already selected, so click Apply. You now have a flat grid: rows and columns 40 px apart.

Keep the marquee. Choose View → Zoom Out a few times, until the zoom in the corner reads about 8% and there's plenty of grey pasteboard on both sides. Press V for Move and click Perspective in the options bar.

Hover just inside the bottom-left corner of the selection until the cursor turns into a diagonal resize arrow, then drag it far to the left, about two canvas widths. In Perspective mode the bottom-right corner mirrors it, so the bottom edge widens symmetrically.

Now drag the top-left corner a little to the left, about a quarter of the canvas width. The top edge then spans the whole canvas, so the far rows run edge to edge along the horizon.

Press Cmd+D to commit and View → Fit to Screen. The transform is projective: the near rows come out tall and the far rows thin, like a real floor.

Set Neon Grid to Screen and give it an Outer Glow in #45F0FF, Size 14, Opacity 80.

With Neon Grid selected, click New Group and name the group Titan. Drag the downloaded photo of Augustus onto the canvas. It arrives as a new layer inside the group. Rename it Titan Head.

Press Cmd+D. Pick the Magic Wand, set Tolerance to 30 with Contiguous on, and click the dark backdrop near a corner of the photo. Press Delete.

Marquee from just under the chin to the bottom of the canvas and press Delete to get rid of the metal rod and plinth.

The wand leaves a thin dark rim and a few loose specks. To clean them up:

1. Cmd-click the Titan Head thumbnail to select its pixels.
2. Choose Select → Shrink… with 3, then Select → Inverse.
3. Press Delete.

Press Cmd+D, then marquee around the head. With Move, hold Cmd and drag the bottom-right corner handle inward a little, to about 94%.

Then drag the rotation handle outside the top-right corner about 68° counter-clockwise, so the head lies on its cheek with its face turned toward the viewer. Press Cmd+D to commit.

With nothing selected, drag the head with the Move tool so it sits a little right of the centre guide, with the top of the skull just touching the horizon. Placing it off-centre keeps the head and the sun from stacking up into a bullseye.

Choose Filter → Desaturate, then Filter → Brightness/Contrast… with Brightness -4 (a touch darker) and Contrast 40. Neutral marble takes colour much better than the warm museum stone.

Cmd-click the head's thumbnail and add a layer named Titan Tint. Drag a gradient across the head from upper left to lower right: #FF5FA8, #B45CFF at 55%, #2FD6F5. Deselect.

Set the blend mode to Color and the opacity to 62%, then choose Layer → Merge Down to bake the tint into the head.

The sun is behind the head, so the top of the skull should catch its light.

Cmd-click the head's thumbnail again and add a layer named Rim Light. Open the Gradient tool's Advanced… editor and set just two stops: #FF9A8A and black. Drag from the top of the skull down about 170 px. Deselect.

Set the layer to Screen at 60%. Black has no effect in Screen mode, so only the top edge brightens. Choose Layer → Merge Down.

Cmd-click the thumbnail, add a layer named Shade, and set the gradient stops to white and #2A1450. Drag from the middle of the head down to its lower quarter, where the water will cut it off later (about y 1625). Deselect.

Set it to Multiply at 45%. White has no effect in Multiply, so only the lower half darkens. Merge Down.

A glitch slice is a thin band of the image that has jumped sideways:

1. Marquee a thin band (15–25 px tall) right across the head, through the forehead.
2. Press Cmd+C, then Cmd+V. The band is pasted in place as a new layer.
3. With Move, drag it 60–90 px sideways.
4. Layer → Merge Down.

Do this three times: across the forehead, across the brow (drag that one the other way) and across the lower face. Keep the slices off the eyes so the face still reads. Copying instead of cutting leaves no holes behind.

Select the three bands again. They're easy to find because each one sticks out past the side of the head. Drag a marquee over the first, then Shift-drag over the other two. Choose Filter → Chromatic Aberration… with Amount 5 and Direction 0. The red and blue channels split apart only inside the slices, which makes them read as signal damage. The rest of the head stays sharp.

Deselect, click Add Mask and click the mask thumbnail. With the Lasso, draw a gently wavy line across the lower quarter of the head and close the lasso around everything below it.

Set the colour to dark grey #3A3A3A rather than black and choose Edit → Fill. Grey hides most of the drowned part but lets it show faintly under the grid. Click the layer's name to leave the mask.

Finally, give the head a subtle Inner Glow in #FF9AD5, Size 6, Opacity 22. It softens the cut-out edge into a faint pink rim.

Click Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Titan Reflection. Click the × on its mask row to delete the copied mask. Cmd-click its thumbnail, press V and click Flip Vertical in the options bar.

Press Cmd+D. Drag the copy straight down until its waterline meets the original's, so the two mirror each other across the water. Lasso everything above the waterline and press Delete.

Then:

• Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 90 and Distance 20 for vertical streaks.
• Add Mask and drag a white-to-black gradient from the waterline to near the bottom of the canvas.
• Set the layer to Screen at 38% and click its name to leave the mask.

The copy landed above the head. Drag Titan Reflection by its grip (the dotted handle at the left of the row) and drop it just below Titan Head, under that layer's mask row. The reflection now sits under the head.

Select Titan Reflection and add a layer named Ripples. It lands between the reflection and the head, so the head hides the far half of each ring.

Set the colour to #7FF6FF. Each ring is a filled ellipse with a slightly smaller ellipse deleted out of its middle. Work largest first, all centred under the head just below the waterline, at about x 980, y 1630:

1. With the Elliptical Marquee size dialog, select From 340, 1569 To 1620, 1689 and choose Edit → Fill.
2. Select From 342, 1571 To 1618, 1687 and press Delete. That leaves a 2 px ring.
3. Repeat for a ring 1000 × 88 px (3 px thick) and one 760 × 60 px (4 px thick).

Add two small rings at the bottom right, where the big palm's trunk will stand in the water.

Deselect and give the layer an Outer Glow in #45F0FF, Size 10, Opacity 85.

Select Titan Head and add a layer named Waterline above it. Pick the Pencil with Size 5 and colour #9FF8FF. Click where the waterline meets the left side of the head, then Shift-click every 20–30 px along the wave to the right side. Add an Outer Glow in #3FE8FF, Size 18, Opacity 60.

Click the Sun layer, marquee the part of the sun above the horizon and press Cmd+C. Click Sea and press Cmd+V. Rename the pasted layer Sun Reflection.

1. Cmd-click its thumbnail, press V, click Flip Vertical and press Cmd+D.
2. Drag it down until its top edge sits on the horizon.
3. Apply Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 0 and Distance 60. Then Filter → Pixel Stretch… with Amount 40, Bands 34, Seed 11 and RGB Split 0.35 for a VHS shimmer.
4. Add Mask with a white-to-black gradient about 520 px down from the horizon.
5. Set the layer to Screen.

Collapse the Titan group, select it and click New Group. Name the new group Ruins and add a layer named Column.

Marquee a tall bar about 180 px wide near the left edge, from about a third of the way down to well below the horizon. Drag a gradient across it from left to right: #1E1240, #4A2C82 at 50%, #C77AC0 at 80%, #FFD3BE at 93%, #7A3F94. The highlight sits on the side facing the sun.

Add a layer named Flutes. Pick the Pencil with Size 3 and colour #140A2E. For each flute, click at the top of the shaft and Shift-click straight below it at the bottom. Draw eleven, spaced widely in the middle and bunched toward the edges, the way flutes look on a round column.

Set the layer to 55% opacity and choose Layer → Merge Down.

With the Lasso, draw an irregular, slanting break across the top of the shaft and close the lasso around everything above it. Press Delete. Do the same with a wavy lasso around the bottom of the shaft, a little lower than the head's waterline because the column stands closer to us.

Marquee around the column and, with Move, drag the top-right rotation handle about 5° clockwise, as if the column has settled into the soft sea floor. Press Cmd+D. Then give it an Outer Glow in #FF6FB5, Size 30, Opacity 45.

The column gets a fainter reflection, built much like the head's:

1. Duplicate Layer, rename the copy Column Reflection, Cmd-click its thumbnail and Flip Vertical.
2. Drag it down to mirror the column across its waterline.
3. Lasso the part above the waterline and delete it.
4. Filter → Motion Blur… with Angle 0 and Distance 20. A sideways smear suits a thin vertical shape better than streaks along its length.
5. A fading mask about 220 px tall, then Screen at 28%.

Add a layer named Column Ripples and draw two small rings around the column's foot, the same way as the head's: about 400 × 44 and 280 × 28 px. Give the layer a cyan Outer Glow in #45F0FF, Size 8, Opacity 80.

Collapse Ruins, select it and add a layer named Palm above it. Set the colour to #120826.

With the Lasso, draw the trunk: a long band that starts near the bottom-right corner, bows out to the right and narrows as it rises to a crown about four-fifths of the way across and a fifth of the way down.

Then hold Shift and draw nine fronds from the crown, one lasso each. Make each a narrow blade, about 80 px across at its widest and 250–440 px long, that arches out and droops toward a pointed tip. For the leaflets, zigzag in and out along both edges as you drag, in small even steps of about 15 px, so each edge becomes a fine sawtooth.

Make the fronds pointing up and right a bit shorter, and keep the ones on the left short enough that they only just overlap the edge of the sun.

Choose Select → Feather… with 1 to soften the edges, then Edit → Fill.

Pick the Brush (the colour is still #120826), open the brush settings and set Size 11, Hardness 100 and Taper to about 650. Drag from the crown out along the middle of each frond. The stroke thins as it goes, so each frond gets a solid stem that tapers to a point. It joins up the leaflet teeth near the tips.

Fill three small circles just under the crown for coconuts. Add an Inner Glow in #FF4FA0, Size 3, Opacity 40 so the silhouette picks up a little sunset.

Click Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Distant Palm. Choose Image → Flip Horizontal, which mirrors the layer in place.

Marquee around it and, with Move, Cmd-drag the bottom-left corner handle up and to the right until the palm is only about 330 px tall. Press Cmd+D. Drag it over to the left so its foot stands exactly on the horizon in front of the left side of the sun. Set its opacity to 85%.

With the palms in, the column sits a little tight against the left edge. Groups move as one piece: click the Ruins group's row and drag on the canvas with Move. The column, its reflection and its ripples all slide about 40 px to the right together.

Click Stars and add a layer named Sky Haze above it. Marquee the top half of the canvas, Feather it by 80, then choose Filter → Clouds… with Scale 6. Deselect, set the layer to Screen at 14%.

Click Neon Grid, click Duplicate Layer and rename the copy Grid Glow. Apply Filter → Gaussian Blur… with Radius 12 and set the copy's opacity to 70%. The blurred copy, still on Screen, spreads a soft neon bloom around the sharp lines.

Select Distant Palm and click New Group. Name it Finish. It holds the layers that sit over everything.

• Vignette: add a layer, select all, and drag a radial gradient from just below the centre to past the bottom edge: white, white at 45%, #2A0E4A. Set it to Multiply at 90%.
• Bottom Shade: add a layer, marquee the bottom 300 px and drag a white-to-#0A0420 gradient down to the bottom edge. Set it to Multiply at 55%. It stops the empty grid at the bottom from pulling the eye.

• Grain: add a layer, fill it with #808080, apply Add Noise with Amount 40, Mono and Gaussian, and set it to Overlay at 35%.
• Scanlines: add a layer and fill a 4 × 1 px black bar in its top-left corner. Select the 4 × 4 px square around it, choose Edit → Define Pattern and press Delete. Select all and use Edit → Fill with Pattern…. Set the layer to 22% opacity.

Save the project with File → Save Project and export the painting with File → Quick Export PNG.