Carbon copy: Final Product

Nov 20, 2017
3 min read

Copy

Evaluation:

This was my first attempt at using Photoshop outside of drawing frames for an animation, so I was working from the proficiency I had gained last year whilst doing my final major project for my Art and Design course as well as what I knew from using Paint Tool Sai from my personal projects. This meant I was able to use a graphic tablet to my advantage in order to make the outline of the cutout of my model as subtle as possible. I was also able to use a paper texture overlay to mimic the one in the original. I was surprised at my level of ability, predominantly because the professionalism of adobe programs intimidate me, but I was able to utilize the program as it was intended with some prompting in places from my tutor. If I were to attempt to replicate this image again I would make sure my colours matched more closely to the original. I underestimated the saturation of the colours from the original and the brightness of the model causing the coloured background to turn out too pale and the model turning out too dark.

Original

Name: Unknown

Artist: Unknown

Copy

Evaluation:

This photo needed its brightness touched up around the puddle in order for the silhouette to stand out more. I did this by highlighting the puddle and brightening that area, then doing the same to the shadow, except I made it darker. This necessitated the smudge tool around the puddle as there was no clear end where the water started and ended. The smudge tool made this easier as it blended the area I had highlighted to the rest of the image. If I were to do this copy again I would make the highlight of the puddle a different hue. I used pure white for the highlight when I should've used a slightly warm colour, using true white gave the puddle a slight blueish tint which didn't look natural.

Original

Name: Unknown

Artist: Martin Schmidt

Copy

Evaluation:

This photo required that I cut and pasted a hare's head on to a profile of my body. In order to make the photo look relatively natural, I had to remove one of the images from the wall along with my face so that it wouldn't show behind the hare. This worked out to my advantage in the end as the negative space mimicked the original image's minimal theme. The hare's neck wasn't long enough to cover up the skin showing on my neck, this meant I had to copy and paste portions of fur over the skin and blend it with smudge tool with a textured brush in order to make a natural transition of layers/make the fur look like one piece. I also used the smudge tool to make little tufts of fur jut out from the hair so that it didn't just look like a 2D cutout. This can be seen on the head, neck, as well as where the neck meets the shirt. If I were to redo this copy I would use more varied cutouts for covering the neck as you can vaguely see what looks like a pattern emerging in the neck fur where I have used the same selection more than once, making the image look artificial.