Happy holidays everyone! It’s the first day of my holidays, and fortunately all my shopping is done. It’s been snowing a bit here, and apparently, record temperatures, but nowhere near as bad as say, Halifax or something, where the temperatures fall below -40c. Now THAT’S crazy cold!
This festive season is when most of my friends have gone back home to visit their families. This of course, makes a boring holiday season for me. But what better time than to put some effort into improving my art, and playing Valkyria Chronicles!
I’m fortunate that most of my family is local, so I don’t have to travel long distances to celebrate Christmas with them.
In case you’re wondering, no I didn’t get a special variant Loligoth Asuka figure. I am a photoshop artist after all. More on that after the jump!
Tada! The original, untainted, spontaneously taken photo of Asuka.
I started by painting (yes painting) a layer of red over top the black sections, and set the layer to Color. I then adjust the opacity and brightness of the red to get a tone that looked more natural and realistic.
Because the black absorbs a lot of light, the clothing looked a little dull. When it has color, it should reflect more light. I wanted more shine, so I started a new layer and with a slightly off-white color, painted highlights on the specular areas and set the layer to Color Dodge.
Because the dress is no longer black, red color should be reflected onto the white frill of the dress. This is called radiosity. Here you can see me faking that radiosity with a soft airbrush set on color dodge. In this close up, you can also see how close to the edge the red was painted. I’ve discovered that painting is more accurate than using the marquee tools.
What’s Christmas without a Santa hat? This is the first santa hat (and probably most popular) you get when you do a google image search.
The hat is then color and tone adjusted to fit into the scene, shadows are painted underneath and around the hat to blend it in more. It’s not perfect, but it gets the point across. Finally, a lens blur effect is added for the final image.
Less than five more days until Christmas! I wish you all a safe and happy holiday, and may you get the PVC girl you want under your christmas tree!
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Happy Holidays, great photoshop! When I first saw it, I thought, “Oh wow! There’s a Christmas Asuka!?” Then I realized that the pose looked familiar and that it was probably a photoshop. Great work once again. Me being picky like always, the Santa hat looks fuzzy, as in made of fuzzy material, while the outfit isn’t. It would’ve been cool for the red bits on the dress to look a little fuzzy as well. Then again, that would take work.
I’ve also realized that the falling snow on your site is controlled by the position of my mouse. Wow I’m easily amused.
wow nice work! that gothloli asuka is one of my favourite figures. ^^
happy holiday for you too! 🙂
nice photoshop there, nice hat!
Wow that’s some really nice conversion there! You’re truly a photoshop artist~
Merry Christmas to you too Radiant! Hope you have a nice holiday!
Damn that’s not fair XD I’ve been wanting to do something like this for ages but it all come out like crap 😛 .
Merry Christmas ^_^
As per usual, your photoshop skills continue to amaze me! Another outstanding work, you should consider making Christmas cards out of that photo 😀
Happy Holidays!
Thank you for a most interesting workshop. You sure are an artist!
Wishing you and your wife a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Tonight Christmas Eve, which is the highlight of Christmas for a Dane, I am invited out to Michael for the Christmas dinner. Other Danish friends will be there.
[edited to protect names]
nice work! Merry Christmasu!
Heya! Thanks for adding me to your blogroll but it seems you’ve spelled my name a bit wrong haha. I’m adding you to mine now.
I saw this Asuka posted over at DC and I was really amazed. I think your figure photography is at a level I can aspire to reach one day. I haven’t done any photoshop work with mine except for a hair-colour change from purple to teal.
Wow you repainted it instead of using curves! Lotsa work there 😀 I am so far behind in your skillz good sir. Merry Christmas to you as well!
great work, its a nice christmas gift to your readers, here’s one back to you, Nozomi-chan
http://japansugoi.com/wordpress/nozomi-sasaki-wishes-you-merry-christmas/
Happy Belated Christmas to you and a Happy New Year Radiant ^^.
Thanks everyone for the Christmas wishes! May everyone have a great start to their New Years!