I've had a couple people wonder why I haven't been chopping lately. Long story short is that I just got too busy between work and personal life. That and switching from GIMP to CS2 meant that quite often I've started a chop and then not finished it because it was just taking too long or I plain didn't know how to accomplish the chop. Most recently I had an idea for the "Fountain Statue" contest but I couldn't pull it off for the comp (for the above stated reasons). </end excuses and whining>

Now I've come up with a thread idea that I think will benefit not only my "chopping rebirth" but should also benefit all the other self-confessed newbs too (and possibly some of the gurus here). The idea is fairly simple. I will use this thread to cover the evolution of what would have been my entry in that contest (had I finished it and entered that is).

I'll start my chop and show the work-in-progress throughout the creative process. When I hit a spot where I don't know how to pull off an effect I want to achieve I'll solicit my fellow choppers for advice, tips, tricks, suggestions, etc.. I'll keep updating and posting links to the .psd and externals used as the chop progresses. I'll continue until the chop is done to the point where it would have been a solid entry.

I'm hoping that the other beginning-to-intermediate choppers will learn something along the way and even share things they've learned in the process. I'd really like to see this thread be about technique and how to utilize the tools available in Photoshop. It won't quite fit into a tutorial category but should help people anyway.

If others choppers want to post their own chops-in-progress please do. But DO NOT POST STUFF YOU'RE DOING FOR AN OPEN OR UPCOMING CONTEST! That's a form of vote-whoring in my opinion and is the reason I specifically waited until the Fountain Statue contest was closed before I started this thread.

Enough talk. My next post will contain details about my chop idea and the first set of links to the files.

Okay my idea was to make a sorceress/witch. I got the idea from the "Rita Repulsa" character in the old Power Rangers TV show:



Fountain Statue source
Pic for the "witch"
Start of the .psd

Isolating the horns and masking out the ram's head is basic so I won't go over that here.

But the first problem I've run into is matching the lighting and colors of the horns and the girl. I've experimented with levels, curves, brightness/contrast and haven't gotten results I like. I've also tried duplicating the layers and going through layer blends. Any advice?


Edit: hopefully people can see the image now.

Will you be serving coffee Tofu? cuz with my 30 second attention span, I'm in need...

image hosted by tripod.... no image to see Tofu, just want to let you know

Good idea tofu" ~ I will offer my knowledge if anyone's interested.
Here's one I'm working on" ~ any suggestions?

Mikey, what is that for?

In general, the main issue with it, is that due to the nature of the skin texture and and shading, it lacks full "depth". The skin really needs to bend across the surfaces or its body in order to achieve 3d. You could also use more detail on the teeth, i.e. lines that create a sense of a 3d surface and also a lot more details, blemishes, and scars on the skin of the beast that would help give it a better and fuller feel.

Maybe use the liquify tool Mikey, to round the body a little, it looks flat.

Thanks guy"s I will here your word's of wisdom and get to work on it" thanks ~ I made this out of a skeleton they found washed up on shore in russia, I think DP posted the skeleton a while back, they determined it was a balooga whale, but I thought I would use my imagination and create a sea creature from the skeleton" ~

I spent 2 minutes with the expand tool in liquify, did bubbles too, I know you can do better, this was just an example.

So back to tofu's chop
desat the horns..
use the colors ya want in a layer above and set layer to color layer, overlay-play w/ it.

Man was I trying to do thing's the hard way eh? I'll give that a shot and post an update.

BTW, I came really close when I used the Filter > Render > Lighting Effects and played with different lighting effects. Will have to go back to that in the end to add drama to the picture.

Yes, post an update tofu ~

Tofu? Oh ya, what's he up to?

This is a Tofu Thread?
Oh Yeaaaaaaaaaah...