In the final image that I have created, Bella looks very angry and irritated. She shows this through her facial expressions!! Her eyes and mouth are wide open with fury and she has grown fangs. Whenever Mercedeans become angry, they grow fangs. Bella looks very tense and wild in this picture.
There were a number of steps that took place to make this image look like a mercedean that has come from the planet Mercedes. The first step I did was finding a picture of Jessica Alba showing anger. I then inserted a leopard fur mask on top of the picture of Jessica Alba. Once I had turned the opacity down on that layer, I started to rub away everything except for her skin. Then when I turned the opacity up, you could see that her skin was leopard fur. When I selected different overlays, the leopard fur mask would change to suit Jessica Alba’s face. I selected the one I liked the best, which was the soft light overlay.
The next step that I completed was to make the eyes bigger. Firstly, I duplicated the layer that had the right eye on it and selected a box around the eye. When I pressed the inverse button and then delete on the keyboard, everything deleted except for the right eye. Now that I only had the right eye, I got a mask and then rubbed out all around the actual eye. When this was completed, I pressed Apple T on the keyboard and stretched out the eye to make it bigger. This process was repeated for the left eye.
The third step to making my Mercedean was to change the colour of the pupils. For this image the colour had to be red because their eyes change colour to show their emotions and red represents anger and irritation. The first thing I had to do was duplicate the layer that had only the right eye on it. I then made a mask on this layer, so that I could rub away everything except for the pupil. Then, when I selected Hue/Saturation and clicked the colorize button, I could change the colour of the pupil to red. This process was repeated with the left eye.
The fourth step that was completed was to make her lips a different, brighter colour and have fangs. The first thing I did to do this was finding a picture of red/orange lips with fangs (vampire teeth). Once I had found the right image, I placed it on top of Bella’s original mouth. I then made a mask on that layer, turned the opacity down and rubbed away everything except for the lips. I lined up the vampire lips with her original lips and adjusted the size of the new lips by pressing Apple T on the keyboard. Now when I turn the opacity up on that layer, it looked like the new lips were meant to be there and that Bella had grown vampire fangs.
The fifth step to finishing my Mercedean was to liquify parts of the face and ears to make her look more like an alien. Every Mercedean is born with a special feature on them. Bella has three lines below her eyes. To do this, I selected the layer that has her face on it. I then selected the liquify tool and stretched her skin in a line down her face below her eyes, to give the effect I wanted. I did this three times below each eye. When this was completed I stretched out the bottom of her ears to make her ears look different from normal ears. After I had finished using the liquify tool, Bella looked much more like a Mercedean and looked like she had come from a different planet called Mercedes.
The sixth step that had taken place to make my Mercedean was to put in a forest background. I had found a picture off the Internet of a rainforest and decided to use it as my background for my Mercedean. It shows what the planet Mercedes looks like. Firstly, I dragged the background over Bella, and made it the same size as the canvas. I made sure that the background was behind all the other layers. I then, turned down the opacity on the original picture of Bella and made a mask. I then rubbed away everything, apart from her. Now my background was completed.
The last step that was completed to finish my Mercedean was to change the colour of her shirt. Mercedeans don’t wear normal singlets, they use leaves as their clothes, as they live in a rainforest environment and do not know how to sew or knit. The first thing I did was to find a picture of leaves on the Internet. I then saved that image to desktop and opened it in Photoshop. After that, I dragged the image over Bella’s singlet. When I turned the opacity down on that layer and made a mask, I could rub away the parts of the leaves that were not connected to the singlet. Now when I turned up the opacity, the leaves were in the shape of her singlet. After this was completed, I had finished my Mercedean!!!
I really enjoyed doing this piece of work and learnt a lot about Photoshop and how to use it. I enjoyed using all the different tools and making a Mercedean. I found it was interesting and was always excited to do it.
The things that I found I did really well at was that I always made sure that I was updating my blog, so that I didn’t have to do it all last minute. I also made sure that I was using my time appropriately and responsibly, so that I didn’t spend five weeks on one Mercedean and one week on the other. I made sure that I got them both done in time and that I spent reasonable amounts of time on each Mercedean.
The things that I found I didn’t do very well at or that I could have done better at were saving my images after I had completed different steps, so that I could show them as I am explaining how I completed the steps. I also needed to put my final images that I had created by using Photoshop onto blogger when I had Photoshop handy, otherwise they will not load.
