Photoshop - Blur Effect?

Question

How did he do that? I can not find the path to that artwork.

Answer 1

There is no blur involved, it's all Warping.

1. Start with an appropriate image. Here is one I like :)

(from http://www.serialoptimist.com/admin/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Images-of-Jackie-Chan.jpeg)

2. Make sure you have a free-standing Jackie - make a copy of him without the background. This will be necessary later on, because some of the sweeps go behind the image.

3. The warping effect works best with a single extremely thin sliver of pixels, ideally only 1 pixel wide or high. Make a selection in the image that is at least as high as the target swipe is going to be, and in a good orientation (either horizontally or vertically).

4. Copy, and paste it again to get it on a layer of its own. Now expand this to the left and right, using a simple Free Transform. You'll end up with a swath of color stripes:

5. Use Warp to maneuver this into position. Make the left edge taper off "in the distance", and make sure the right edge fits more or less nicely onto the position you copied it from. Then move the layer with Jacky on top.

6. We have a bit more movement here, so repeat for other moving elements: his foot and his arm. To make the effect go 'under' his foot, I also copied that onto a layer of its own.

7. That original orange background is a bit boring. Here is a final image with some heavily blurred flames (just to have some blur in the image).

8. Add an appropriate quote to finish it off.