So… many… gradients… I had fun with this one. Originally I had planned to  make Russel’s battle aura red, but any shade of red that looked right for the flames was too similar to his jacket. I ran into the same problem trying to do a red background when I realised I couldn’t have a red aura, but in the end I’m quite happy with the orange fire. I guess it fits, since he’s got a lot of yellow on him as well. I created the effect around the Friendship Beam with a simple sawtooth circular blend from blue to orange. Originally I wanted to go for a double helix effect, but that turned out not to look as good in practice as it did in my head. Ah well.

~Luke