Here you can see all the parts I used to make the first fish

step 1,2 and 3, the beginning of fish 1 The parts I have created using the warp tool and pentool.

shaping the fishparts with warptool till im happy.

Step 5, 6, 7 and 8. And the fish grew bigger and bigger and also got an eye :)

9, 10, 11 and 12 shows how I created the fins. The tail I created in that very same way, however I dont seem to have a step by step file of that for some reason o.o;. Sorry

Creating the mouth of the fish, again with using warptool and a part of the totem.

Flipped the first part of the mouth and used warptool to make it fitting the way I want it. It kinda turned out accidentally like this with the mouth open but i liked it and kept it that way. My plan was more like the 2 fish his mouth But I couldnt get it tht way rly. I liked this much better anyway so here it is ;P

All the parts I used to create fish 2 come from the totems as well. Used warptool to get them in the right shapes.

Step 15 and 16 show the beginning of the creation of fish number 2. It had to become a totally different fish so I used different shapes. Also formed with the warptool.

Created the fins...

shaping the bottom fin with the warptool. as you can see overal the fish is a lil rough here and there, I fixed that up all in the very last step using blur brush over the edges and a little smudge here and there.

For the mouth of this fish I used the same part as the eye. Shaped it with warptool. Later I filled the middle part of the eye up so it look more like a mouth :)

Mouth is filled and the tail has been created too.. voila, fish number 2.

Created the flooring from the stone floor the totems where standing on. cut out a rockshape with pentool and changed it with warptool to what you see here.. Ignore the totem parts in the middle I decided not to use that after all.

The background and the bubbles have been created from scratch by myself. I started with the water. I did look arround on the web at several tutorials to get an idea how to get this done. I folowed a small part of the tutorial listed here.

Step 1 of this is the gradient as you see here.

Like i said i folowed the tutorial partly here are the steps i folowed:

01. Create a new landscape A3 document in Photoshop at 300dpi. Fill the background layer with a gradient using colour reference #050808 for the bottom colour and #41616d for the top colour (click on the swatches at the bottom of the Tools palette to input the colour references). Next, create a new layer, fill it with black, and select Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Set the Amount to 400%, distribution to Gaussian, and ensure Monochromatic is ticked. Then select Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur, setting the amount to five pixels. Rename the layer ‘Surface’.

Continued folowing the tutorial I listed as source here.
02. With the ‘Surface’ layer selected, go to Edit > Transform > Distort. Make the top part wider than the bottom – this will require you to drag the corners off the canvas, pulling the vertices while holding Alt/Opt. Next, go to Select > All and copy and paste the layer area. Delete the old layer, rename the new one ‘Water Surface’, change the blend mode to Color Dodge and select Image > Adjustments > Levels. Increase the black and white – I used 96, 1.00 and 149 for the levels. Next, select Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. Use 0 for the angle and 100 pixels for the distance.

Continued the tutorial you can find listed as source here.:

03. With the Eraser tool (E) use a big brush set to a hardness of 0 to erase some areas of the ‘Water Surface’ layer so that it looks as though light is piercing the waves from directly above. Duplicate the layer and name it ‘Light Reflections’. Select Motion Blur (see Step 02). Use 90º for the angle and 999 pixels for the distance. Then select Edit > Transform > Scale. Increase the height only and go to Distort (see Step 02). This time make the bottom part much wider than the top. That will create the rays of light from the surface.

And this is where i stopped folowing the tutorial.

Here I started to work on the color adjustements. Step 17 shows I used match color. Matching the fishes with the background.

I also copied the layers with the rays and put one below and one on top to give a lil more depth, played some with the colors of the several layers.
duplicated the background layer 2 times. put them on top of all other layers. I changed the opacity to very low and set one of the layers to over lay and the other on softlight. So the fishes looked a lil more IN the water.

The bubbles I created from scratch using the tutorial listed below. Ofcourse I have a step by step to proof I did do it myself and not just downloaded a brush.

Create a 300 dpi canvas and fills the background with Black color because in white background it is difficult to see a bubble.

Create new layer, select Elliptical marquee tool, press shift and create a big circle on the black background.

Go into Edit > Stroke, Enter width as approx 10px, color must be “Gray” and Location - “Center”. Press Ok

Before move further save the scene and also save the circle selection for future use in the tutorial. Go into Window > Channels and press “Save selection as channel” button in the bottom of the tab. Now “Alpha” layer will be automatically created in the Channel tab.

Press Ctrl + D and blur the circle stroke. Go into Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and enter the value between 12 to 15, so all the edges can be blurred out properly but you can still figure out that as a blurred circle

Go into Window > Channels again and press Ctrl and click on the Alpha layer which you created before.

Create new layer and go into Edit > Stroke, Enter width as approx 1px, color must be “White” and Location - “Center”. Press Ok. Reduce the opacity of the layer to around 10%

Go into the previous blurred circle layer and resize it down little bit so almost 90% blurriness will come under last created stroke.

Continued with the tutorial as listed as source here.

Create new layer, select brush and change “Hardness to 0%” and adjust the size of the brush as per your circle size and create 2 highlights as shown in picture.

Go into Window > Channels again and press Ctrl and click on the Alpha layer for the selection and go into Effect >Distort > Pinch and select value around -60, so your highlights can bloat.

Select brush and change the hardness to 100% and create 2 more highlights on the previous highlights as shown in the picture

Select soft edged brush and paint a highlight in the bottom of the bubble too

Last few steps in the tutorial I have listed below as source


Save this as a brush by Edit > Define Brush Preset and now you can select from the Brush Tip shape and start painting on the image. But few settings need to be check before proceed and before painting set the foreground color as white for transparency.

For the settings for the brush you will have o look at the tutorial page as I did not made screenshots of them.

And voila I produced my own bubbles brush.

Allright now we have bubbles we can continue with the image. In the next few steps u see how I added some bubbles, played with the color settings just to get it the way i wanted. I thought the color was a bit bland so I added a lil yellowis and greenish. then i felt the image was too dark and lightend it again a bit playing with the layer blends and opacities.

Added more bubbles on different layers in different sizes and opacities. messed with the color adjustments , brightness, and opacity to create distance and depth in the layers of bubbles.

thats about it.