jo-gurl
08-31-2005, 01:59 AM
This is for the wonderful people who posted comments in my All About Me LO (http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=40002&cat=500&page=1) who wanted to know how I made my avatar. I did this in another software and tried as much as possible to translate the terms in PS language. I hope you find this helpful.
1. Put the photo you want to copy in your bottom layer.
2. Add a layer. Using the pencil tool or the lasso tool, trace around your hair. Or, give yourself a new hairdo as I did with mine. This is one place where you do not have to have a bad hair day. Where your hair goes behind your neck, just draw a straight line (just like the way your hair goes straight across your shoulder or whatever length your hair is). Use the eyedropper tool to get color from your hair, then use the paint bucket to fill your hair with that color. Add highlights too, if you like; you could use the brush tool. Hide this layer for now.
3. Add a layer for face/shoulder/skin. Following the steps above, trace around your face, neck, shoulder and other skin area that you want on your avatar. This will be one big mass of shape, but that’s all right. Again, pick color from your skin and fill this shape with your skin color. Since the play of lights on our features produces lots of color gradations, and since we only use one color for the avatar, the skin tone will be flat and cartoonish. Hide the layer.
4. Add a layer each for the various facial features, and use the same procedure: trace and color. For facial features that come in pairs (eyes, brows, pupils), use the shift key while drawing the second part.
Note:
Eyes – Draw the pupils in another layer, you may use dodge to put catchlights in them. Note that pupils are not exactly round, try to follow your natural eye shapes as closely as possible. Also, I found it necessary to put ‘eyelids’ – I made mine somewhat triangular in shape. I used two: one is black for ‘eyeliner’ and the bigger one above it is brown. This gives the eyes definition especially when shrunk in size, as avatars have to be small. But adding the ‘triangles’ are a matter of choice.
Brows – they come in all shapes and sizes, but giving yourself a brand new shape is fun. Goes without saying that staying close to the original shape will make a spitting-image avatar, but hey, if you’ve always wondered how you would look with Hedy Lamarr’s eyebrows, I’d say go for it.
Nose – in anime and in avatars, the less nose, the better. I think it’s because when you shrink the avatar down, having too much detail will simply clutter up the picture. You can choose to have just the nostrils, or just a line, or curve, or point… or you can go without. Your avatar can survive without one.
Lips – Notice how makeup experts always say emphasize either the eyes or the mouth, but never the two at the same time? It makes sense for avatars too. Play up your best facial feature. For the lips I traced the lips part first, then the white part after. The highlight – again, you can play around with this or not have one at all – is in another layer (one can never have too many layers), color it white, then adjust the opacity.
Cheeks – I traced around the full part of the cheeks in a polygon shape, applied a radial gradient with the outer part the color of my blush and the inner part white. Laugh lines – use the brush to draw a single stroke of color where you want the lines to be
Un-hide all the layers. Then – this is crucial – adjust the opacity of each layer so that there is a sort of ‘soft’ blending of features. You may want to leave the eyebrows dark. But the cheeks will need to be adjusted: reduce the opacity so that the red part sort of blends or vanishes into the skin.
5. Make the dress and BG.
6. Since avatars are square, you might want to ‘stretch’ your avatar to fill the square more closely and get a bigger picture in there. I did that with mine, won’t alter the look that much.
7. Voila! Your own likeness in an avatar!!!
If anything here doesn't make sense in PS or other software, maybe the other talented people here can help. I'm not very adept with those software myself.
I do hope this helps, and thanks!!!
1. Put the photo you want to copy in your bottom layer.
2. Add a layer. Using the pencil tool or the lasso tool, trace around your hair. Or, give yourself a new hairdo as I did with mine. This is one place where you do not have to have a bad hair day. Where your hair goes behind your neck, just draw a straight line (just like the way your hair goes straight across your shoulder or whatever length your hair is). Use the eyedropper tool to get color from your hair, then use the paint bucket to fill your hair with that color. Add highlights too, if you like; you could use the brush tool. Hide this layer for now.
3. Add a layer for face/shoulder/skin. Following the steps above, trace around your face, neck, shoulder and other skin area that you want on your avatar. This will be one big mass of shape, but that’s all right. Again, pick color from your skin and fill this shape with your skin color. Since the play of lights on our features produces lots of color gradations, and since we only use one color for the avatar, the skin tone will be flat and cartoonish. Hide the layer.
4. Add a layer each for the various facial features, and use the same procedure: trace and color. For facial features that come in pairs (eyes, brows, pupils), use the shift key while drawing the second part.
Note:
Eyes – Draw the pupils in another layer, you may use dodge to put catchlights in them. Note that pupils are not exactly round, try to follow your natural eye shapes as closely as possible. Also, I found it necessary to put ‘eyelids’ – I made mine somewhat triangular in shape. I used two: one is black for ‘eyeliner’ and the bigger one above it is brown. This gives the eyes definition especially when shrunk in size, as avatars have to be small. But adding the ‘triangles’ are a matter of choice.
Brows – they come in all shapes and sizes, but giving yourself a brand new shape is fun. Goes without saying that staying close to the original shape will make a spitting-image avatar, but hey, if you’ve always wondered how you would look with Hedy Lamarr’s eyebrows, I’d say go for it.
Nose – in anime and in avatars, the less nose, the better. I think it’s because when you shrink the avatar down, having too much detail will simply clutter up the picture. You can choose to have just the nostrils, or just a line, or curve, or point… or you can go without. Your avatar can survive without one.
Lips – Notice how makeup experts always say emphasize either the eyes or the mouth, but never the two at the same time? It makes sense for avatars too. Play up your best facial feature. For the lips I traced the lips part first, then the white part after. The highlight – again, you can play around with this or not have one at all – is in another layer (one can never have too many layers), color it white, then adjust the opacity.
Cheeks – I traced around the full part of the cheeks in a polygon shape, applied a radial gradient with the outer part the color of my blush and the inner part white. Laugh lines – use the brush to draw a single stroke of color where you want the lines to be
Un-hide all the layers. Then – this is crucial – adjust the opacity of each layer so that there is a sort of ‘soft’ blending of features. You may want to leave the eyebrows dark. But the cheeks will need to be adjusted: reduce the opacity so that the red part sort of blends or vanishes into the skin.
5. Make the dress and BG.
6. Since avatars are square, you might want to ‘stretch’ your avatar to fill the square more closely and get a bigger picture in there. I did that with mine, won’t alter the look that much.
7. Voila! Your own likeness in an avatar!!!
If anything here doesn't make sense in PS or other software, maybe the other talented people here can help. I'm not very adept with those software myself.
I do hope this helps, and thanks!!!