Virtual Customs Fire by HammerJack

[HammerJack]

I give you... 'Virtual Customs Fire'..
My 2nd attempt ever at creating a wallpaper.
((Click on screen shots to enlarge))
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While looking for a background to use on another project, I became frustrated so decided to try my hand at making my own.
I have an infatuation with fire lately and I wanted something with a text that looked like it was on fire. And what better text than Virtual Customs!
The fire had to be what I call a lazy fire licking around the text, as opposed to looking like someone was holding a blow torch over it.Good images of flames are hard to come by, . So I started dissecting numerous amounts of flames into smaller parts that I liked. Then started re-sizing, rotating, flipping, blurring, stretching, duplicating, layering, judicially erasing, & fading each part in an attempt to create letters that were wrapped in flames. All told I ended up with over a hundred layers of flames alone.

I have to admit my skills are only limited so I started by studying several tutorials found on the web. There's literally hundreds of them but I mainly kept going back to one.
So credit goes out to 'Collis at Psdtuuts+' who got me started on this one, and after many trials and errors I came up with something I can live with. Credit goes to the original artist's of the flames who have shared these in the past. The flame images are numerous and all found on the web for free. Here are just a few good links I came across.
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Package - Blaze - by ~resurgere on deviantart.com
Element : Fire by ~Gwathiell on deviantart.com
Transparent Fire Packs by ~shutupandwhisper on deviantart.com
stockvault.net ~fire-fog-and-smoke
freestockphotos.biz ~Flames
adigitaldreamer.com ~Fire, Fire Balls, Flames
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Other Credits:
Free High Res Grungy Paper Textures from bittbox.com ~free-high-res-grungy-paper-textures
Preview display by ~EldiS82 on deviantart.com (Modded a little bit by me)
Font Angryblue ~Angryblue on dafont.com
Alien Styles by sonarpos ~Alien-s-styles by sonarpos
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Anyone who has ever used Photoshop knows that even when you follow a tutorial, you have the desire & freedom to experiment and create. So even after starting with a tutorial, I believe I have permission to call this my own work to some degree. Right down to the last layer when I decided to keep a couple of extra versions after playing with some gradients. One of the layers used a Linear gradient in overlay mode, and another used a Radial gradient in the Vivid Light mode.
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(( Click on screens for larger view. ))

Resolutions of each version available in the download:
VC_Fire_1920x1200_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1920x1080-HD_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1440x900_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1366×768_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1280x1024_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1280x800_by_HammerJack
VC_Fire_1024x768_by_HammerJack