2 replies to this topic

[Seifer]

Baldurizing a portrait - Painting Hair - K'aeloree

So, you've read the other tutorials (well, at least, you should have!) and have finally come to this one hoping to be enlightened. No, this tutorial is not magic, you will not autmatically be able to paint hair, but hopefully I will have sent you along the right track. I use a WACOM Tablet, and although it makes the process a LOT easier, you can do it with a mouse as well.

This tutorial assumes you have a bit of experience with Photoshop, such as how to create a new layer, change brush opacity etc.

I use the following brushes in this tutorial:



The best pieces of advice I've ever recieved about painting hair are

1) When painting hair, you only need to give the impression that there is a lot of it
and
2) Practice makes perfect.

Both of these are equally important, and it would do you well to utilise these during this tutorial!

I made this tutorial in Photoshop 7, but it can be applied to other programs as well, with a little thought.


Step 1: Let's Get Cracking!

First, obviously, you need to choose a portrait. For the sake of this tutorial, I will be using the below picture.





Now, first we want to 'block in' the hair using a small round brush set on full opacity using the base colour you want for your hair. Preferably darker than the actual colour you want your hair to be - it will end up much lighter. Create a new layer, and just play around until you have the look you want.





I decided I wanted long, blue-grey-black hair. Whatever colour you chose, make sure it's exactly how you want it before continuing on with the next step..


Step 2: Blocking In Highlights




Make a new layer, grab a spackled brush (above) set at about 15% opacity, and using your highlight colour (I used a greyish blue) start painting the parts you want highlighted. If you want it to be dark, turn down the opacity, and then turn it up for places of bright illumination. I chose to have a lot of the hair higlighted, partially because I didn't want the hair to be black - it's more of a blue-blackish grey. Then use the below brush to smooth it out a little bit.






Step 3: Defining the Hair

Now you need to start defining the hair. Make a new layer, and use the defined brush you used in the previous step, at a higher opacity (25% or so), brushing over the parts that you want defined. This is where a tablet comes in handy - you can fade in and fade out using the stylus pen.





And more defining..




And, unsurprisingly, more. I also added in the eyebrows here, just using the second brush in the previous stage.





I've started to use the following brush in conjunction with the defining brush here:






Step 4: Finishing Touches

You're almost done! Congratulations! Now, you simply need to use a very small round brush to start painting individual strands, and then fixup any mistakes!





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Cuts tutorial Seifer

As part of the FW anniversary, the SES members decided to hold an art competition to mark the event and this tutorial is part of a series by them to help facilitate a good response to the event.

Application

This tutorial was written with Photoshop and should work from version 6.0 upwards. I imagine it can be used with Fireworks and GIMP with some innovation on the user?s part. If I?m able, I?ll see if I can make a PSP version.

Our Model

To make this tutorial as simple as possible I?ve decided to use the simplest avatar that I can. I?ve decided against using a ?work of art? in this tutorial as people tend to focus more on this then what the lesson is actually about. In using a basic, unprepared, pre-rendered avatar, I?m hoping that I can control the end users attention a little more.

With that in mind, say hi to our model. His name is ?Freak? and he?s not as scary as he looks.



We?ll start off with scars I think as they?re not too challenging to pull off and they also introduce a few of the tools that you?ll use when going over portrait editing.

Right, the first step and one I that I?d suggest doing every time you plan in image editing is to duplicate your base image. You can do this fairly easily by dragging the layer over the new layer icon in the layers palette. Rename it to something more appropriate if you?d like. This ensures that if there are any mistakes made that you might not be able to reverse, there?s always a copy of the original image.

Next, it?s an idea to zoom into the area where you want to add the scar itself. One very important aspect to do here is to be aware of the lighting of your portrait. I don?t know if BGII style portraits have a specific lighting convention as I?ve never compared them but it?s important for a simple reason. A scar is raised skin and does catch the light.

Select the dodge tool and in the range dropdown box select midtones. Use a high exposure, mine was 75% and use a small brush and draw a line representing your scar.



The next step is to do exactly the same with the burn tool. This is what we use for out shadow. Pay careful attention to the lighting here as mentioned earlier. Freak has a strong light coming from your left hand side so the shadow will need to fall on the right side of the scar. With the same settings, create a dark line placed at the correct side of the one you?d made earlier.



In order to soften the scar up a little bit, select the blur tool, set it in the 20?s somewhere and use a brush that covers the whole scar. With these settings, brush over the scar once.

The last bit here is just some cosmetic touching up. Grab the dodge tool again and lower the exposure. Go over the scar in a few places you think it?s likely to receive more light then the rest of the scar. Once you?ve done that, zoom back out to 100% and you have a reasonable looking scar like the one below.




Tutorial Three - Skin Tutorial - Plasmocat
http://catalogingjun.../BaldurSkin.htm

Edited by Seifer, 27 May 2005 - 05:01 AM.

[Seifer]

Adding Backgrounds to Portraits - Tutorial by Archmage Silver
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2nd of April, 2005

Note: Arcsoft Photo Studio was used as the graphics program for this tutorial.

Index:

1. Choose Your Background

2. Starting In Your Graphics Program (Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc.)

3. Possible Changes In The Background

4. The Easiest Way To Add A Background - Part 1

5. The Easiest Way To Add A Background - Part 2

6. Finalizing

7. Finish - Now You Have A New Background!

8. Words From The Author

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1. Welcome to the tutorial, gentle reader. This tutorial was written to describe the very basics of adding backgrounds to portraits. Now, this is the time when you look at your portrait and think: I need a better background for this. Well, the first thing you should check is the nature of your portrait and what you do you want it to feel like. After all, a dark sorcerer doesn't need a pink background, yes?

In this tutorial I'll use a red wizard portrait of my own making as an example.


Now I want a red stone background for him. Using google's image search function I found a one that I like and saved it to my computer.



2. Now is the time to choose the graphics program you'll be using. Adobe Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro are good examples. I chose to use Arcsoft's Photo Studio, a less known but versatile program. And now just open up the chosen background and portrait.



3. Now you can play around with program and see if the background needs any changes. I decided that I want a red stone background. I open up the hue and saturation and change the colour to dark red.


There, it is done and ready for use.



4. Here you start the process of adding the background to your chosen portrait. Now I'm going to demonstrate two styles to do this, both are very easy to accomplish. Style one: First you need to 'select' the area you are going to add the background to. This can be done with the freehand select tool for example (Photoshop also has the magnetic lasso tool).


Now you can either change the colour of the existing background (Colour change now applies only to the 'selected' area) or use the clone tool to copy a part of the new background to the portrait (The rest of the portrait is protected from copying as long as the 'selection' is active, so you can only change the 'selected' area now).


Now repeat the process to any other areas you want to change.


5. There is also a faster way to add the background, click on the clone tool, select the source and copy the new background to your portrait without 'selecting' any of the areas you want to change.


If you 'lose' a part of the portrait when the new background went 'over' it, simply undo the action, or, if you are nearing the end of the background adding and don't want to copy again, open up the portrait again and copy the missing parts from this unaltered portrait to your portrait with new background.


6. The final touches - skip this if you are satisfied with you portrait. Now you just adjust the colours, size etc. etc. of your portrait. You can also sharpen and blur certain parts of it to make it look better. Armor and weapons can sometimes use a bit 'sharpening' for example. When satisfied, just save the new portrait.


7. Congratulations! You have finished my little tutorial on how to add a new background to your portrait! And now you (hopefully=)) have a nice new background for your portrait. Thanks for reading, I hope this small guide has helped you at least an inch forward.



8. This was written fully by me, Archmage Silver. Copyrights Reserved. This is made for new image manipulators, so pro's won't need this (You're not a pro if you do, that is). This piece was offered to you by Silver Corp. and Illuminati Ltd. Yeah, right.

[Kaeloree]

How to Baldurize Portraits - The Skin - Plasmocat

This tutorial is intended as a beginner's guide to creating a painted effect to skin using Adobe Photoshop 6.0. The addition of scars or tattoos and changes to type of clothing and background are not going to be addressed here.

1. Choose or draw a picture of the character you'd like to Baldurize. In this case, I'll be using a photograph of a model found on a hair salon site. Try to use a photo that is as clear as possible, and preferably a bit larger than you'd like the end result to be. You can work with a portrait that is less than perfectly clear, however, and that's why I have chosen an original picture of medium to fairly poor quality.



2. Before starting the project, it'll be necessary to clean up the picture a bit. We need to balance out the color, clear up the stray pixelation, and sharpen the edges.

You can automatically adjust the color and contrast by going to the Images menu. Select Images/Adjust/AutoLevels to adjust the color depths and then select Images/Adjust/AutoContrast to adjust the brightness. If you don't like the amount of contrast or the way the picutre automatically levels you can either Edit/Undo the selection, or you can use the Edit/Fade function to graduate the effect to your taste. For this example, I am only illustrating the AutoLevel tool as the AutoContrast didn't provide a significant difference in picture quality.

Clear up stray pixelation by using Filter/Noise/Despeckle.
Sharpen the edges with Filter/Sharpen. Don't worry if some of the edges appear too sharp at this point.



3. At this point it will be necessary to use specific tools. If you can't see a floating tool menu on your screen, open the Windows menu and make sure the item on the menu says "Hide Tools," since that will indicate the tool menu is showing.



4. Select the "magic wand" tool and set the tolerance at a rate which will pick up the block of color you wish to highlight. This will vary per each picture and per each color, so you'll have to experiment a little. In this case, in order to pick up the lightest creamy tone I set the tool to 50.

Now, open your layers window by selecting Window/Show layers. At the bottom of the window this spawns you will see an icon representing a turned-up page. Click this to add a new layer to your picture. Without deselecting your color pattern, add a new layer and use the paint bucket to fill in the area chosen from the previous layer.

Repeat this process for at least three colors: lightest, medium, and the darkest. If you feel confident painting the skin freehand, you can also refer to the tutorial found a the Portrait Portal (here).



5. Now you will want to soften the edges of your color blocks. For each color's layer, select Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur. Adjust the blur of each later so that the edges are softened without losing the shape of the block.



6. To further blend and soften the effect, I like to merge the color blocks into a single mask, using Ctl+E per each layer merged down. Use that color mask to paint the skispellholdstudios.netn to the desired level.



7. Now, add a new layer and paint highlights to the skin tone using a white paintbrush. When you have chosen the areas you wish highlighted, use the Gaussian Blur tool again to soften the edges. Finally, adjust the opacity of the highlights until they have the desired effect.



8. Finally, you should take the time to use the blur, sharpen, shadow, and/or paint tools to provide a proper finished look to the portrait. Make sure that the light source appears defined, none of the edges are too sharp and that your shadows are well blended.



*Compare to original*



9. And that's the end of this tutorial. I hope you've found these instructions helpful and that you have fun creating your new art. At this point you may want to add scars or tattoos, background or armor. If so, you may also consult the additional tutorials found in the above posts.


Written by Plasmocat for Sol Ek Sa, with acknowledgement to the Portrait Portal for providing inspiration.