I love title sequences and I love the stories of H.P. Lovecraft, so this was really fun to work on. I really wanted to get a handle on the Saber plugin for this piece and it's what I used to get the main glow.
Cthulhu is know for their tentacles, so started with an image of a statue of a nautilus. After cutting it out in Photoshop, I used layer styles to add a gradient with the green color. I then animated the angle to simulate the movement of light and also animated the levels effect to make it appear to get brighter. I also added some subtle movement using the Puppet Pin tool.
Next I used the Saber plugin applied to masks for the shapes. I used it again on the main text layer and animated it to look like it brightens up to the point of blowing out.
Lastly I used an image of stars on top of the whole piece and gave it some subtle animation with Wave Warp. I wanted it to look like the scene was deep in the ocean, but also wanted to retain the otherworldly "cosmic horror" of Cthulhu by using an image of space.
An overview of the After Effects workspace. I animated the Levels effect to get the green to appear to be moving on the tentacles.
An image of the settings of the Saber plugin. I used it on the text layer to animate the title drawing on.
A screen shot of the timeline showing the various keyframes for the subtle puppet animation on the tentacles.