Wallpaper Tutorial: Manipulations
As requested. Manipulations can take a lot of guess work and judgement calls, but if you know how to blend two or more images together you're already half way there! When beginning there are a few things to take into consideration in order to achieve a clean and realistic result. Although steps may vary depending on what the base calls for angles, proportions, hair, skin tone, and final touch ups are all important roles in creating your manipulations. Keep in mind that there are many alernative tools that may work easier for you or may produce different results. Never stop experimenting.
For this tutorial, I will be walking you through the steps used to create this Dark Angel manipulation by using this base with this head.
Step One: Angle & Proportion
The angle and proportion of the new head to the base body can make or break a manipulation from the start. It can take a lot of trial and error before you come across the perfect head to fit your base body. I very rarely ever end up using the first head I try, so test your options before committing. It can be frustrating starting out, but the end result is always worth it. Pay close attention to the angle of the face and the position of the eyes. Can you see both eyes clearly? Is it a front view, slightly turned, or a side view? In what direction should their head be facing based on their shoulders and body position?
When you're ready to replace the head, its time to resize and make sure the new head is the correct proportion to the base body. It usually comes down to a judgement call, but there are a few things to look for that can help. Start with your base, then recreate a new layer with your head. Play around with lowering the opacity of your head and using free transform function (edit >> free transform) and size your head to your base. I usually find it easiest to try matching up the eye(s) on the head to the base as it serves as a good marker. Another good trick if your base has hands visible, try to compare the size of the base hands to the new head. When open wide, a person's hand more or less covers their face. Would your base's hand (if spread open) spread across your new head's face correctly? Once you have the size set, very carefully (with a small circular brush) erase everything away from the new layer except for the face (and sometimes bangs or hair surrounding the face) and blend it onto the base body. You might also play around with the color of the new head, such as Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, Color Balence, and/or Curves until you find something you like.
Step Two: Hair
Hair can be a real pain to work around, especially when cutting out or erasing away strays of hair. If you can use the base's original hair it's a lot easier, but sometimes to achieve the look you want you have to alter it. If the hair color does not match the new head, start by selecting the base image and using the Polygonal Lasso Tool (with Feather set to 1px) cut out the hair and layer via copy so that the base's hair is a new layer. Then using different coloring techniques such as Color Balence, Brightness/Contrast, Hue/Saturation, and/or Curves I match the base's hair color to the new head's hair.
Now with this manipulation, I could almost leave the hair like that and move on, but the haircut is a little short for Max and I am going for a Season 1 look when her hair was curly. For this I will be taking parts of this hair from different promo of Max and blending them over top of what I have here. When looking for other pictures to use hair from, the angle of the head usually doesn't matter, as I'm only using parts of the hair and not the face. Again, I will play around with different color techniques and go over some areas with the Burn Tool set at Range > Midtones and 25-30% Exposure.
Step Three: Skin Tone
In most cases you will probably have more skin tones to match up than in this manipulation, however, any exposed skin gets the same treatment. For this manip since Max's has a tan complextion, I will be changing the skin tone in the base's hand, and I will be doing it the same way I did for the hair. Selecting the base image carefully trace around the hand with the Polygonal Lasso Tool and layer via copy into a new layer. Again, I play with the coloring of the hand layer till it matches the face.
Step Four: Final Touch Ups
Final touch ups can include everything from extra blending and smoothing out of the skin with your Smudge and Blur tools, to adding highlights to the eyes, and anything else you want to fix up before you move onto incorporating your finished manipulation into your wallpaper. For this piece, I will be removing the gun, design on the shoulders/tail of the coat, and background of the base image. To get rid of the gun and background, I am first going to select the base and using the Polygonal Lasso Tool again, cut out the base body, select inverse, and hit backspace. This should remove the background and barrel of the gun, leaving only the base body and layers of the head/hair you already manipulated.
I will then use my Clone Stamp Tool, Burn Tool, and for this piece just a small paint brush matched to the color of the pants and take away the rest of the gun. I'm also going to use the Burn Tool on the coat to darken/blend away the design on the shoulders and tail.
Step Five: Add Background
When you are satisfied with your manipulation, select all layer, and merge. Play around with coloring some more if you like, add your background/textures, effects, text, and you're done!
I hope you found these pointers helpful. Any further questions, please feel free to ask and I will try to explain my "techniques" to the best of my ability. I would also like to suggest that you check out Wendy's tutorials @ Black Lagoon, as I learned a lot from her tutorials when I was first began attempting manipulations. Good luck!
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