Clint-Ché creative process

Peek into creative process.....

...just a short post to show you how i make some of my photo editing stuff.

To start with i decided to create this image as a new profile picture for my Steam account (stoneCrow or stonecrowuk). My last 2 pics had been the Ché pic and a skullché and since my recent addiction to the mod Fistfull of Frags i figured it would be cool to make a western Ché-style pic.

So who else would be suitable for this picture than Clint Eastwood.

I googled around for a suitable pose and found this picture then i cut out a fairly square section of the image with only the bit i wanted for the picture.

After that i seperated his face area and the rest of the image into 2 layers using the box and circle select tools with additive and subtractive boxes (shift or ctrl on gimp), Rendering the 2 layers red and white with the gimp colourify tool (found at the bottom of the colours tab).

I then changed the brightness and contrast of the 2 layers seperately using a tool in the colours tab, with alot less contrast on the face so facial features still stood out.

Oilify was used on the face to make it a little less photo-like and more like a mural.

This next snapshot the light region on the left side of his face has been removed with the Burn tool, set to burn not lighten (whatever that other one is called) and only to affect the lightest region.

I did this because compared to the original Ché image the lighting on Eastwoods face was a little complex for what i wanted

Also the 2 layers were joined at this point, with the wet tool being used to smooth the join between the 2 and the edges of his hair a little.

Finally i noticed that his neck looked a little odd in red so reselected that zone in the same way as i did his face earlier and recoloured it white/grey covering up the oddities with the smudge tool

So that is how that image was created in stages, i hope someone reads this who actually finds a use or interest for it. For everyone else, i hope you enjoyed a look at the progression of one of my images.

As always cya the next time i post