Stealing Antiquities

Stealing antiquities by using some flour to locate the security laser beams.

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Caution Tech Stuff:

First I shot a slice of foamcore that was stained with some wood stain. I dragged a blunt item through the wet stain to make it look like large bricks. I shot it with a flashlight to give it beams. I added votive candles that I elongated in Photoshop (PS). The flames are just little parts of a fireplace flames.

Next I put up a piece of black velvet and shot myself the head and a palm full of cornstarch with a small softbox.

In PS we have the painted foam core and the candles. Flatten those and then put some Gaussian blur to it.

Next step is to remove my black background using a mask.

Now we add the laser beams which protect the antiquity. The invisible laser beams if broken will trigger the alarms. How can I see where the beams are? By blowing some fine powder into them to make them visible for a moment.

First I drew full red lines from top to bottom. Then I erased the background lines from the front of the face because there are laser beams all the way around. I added a glow to the beams and lowered their opacity.

Using a dry tip paint brush set to a very low flow I painted in the dust. That worked better than I thought it would.

I made a "new group from layers" and added the laser beams and the airborne powder. I needed to erase most of this so I added a mask to this new group and masked out the top and the bottoms of the beams so only where the powder is will you see the the laser beams.

I then pulled a crop, a little lightning and darkening and its done. Another fun one that I have been thinking about for days.

BTW: with all these laser beams I'm not getting this prize today. Enjoy...