Panorama!

I went shooting on campus with Andrew Vizmuller looking for a good panoramic scene. It was very windy that day so we stuck to architectural shots. I took 5 photos in a row from left to right, panning the camera on my tripod.

In order to blend them together I loaded the photos into PS and then made a new document wide enough to fit the length of the 5 photos in their original size. I put each photo in on their own layer, overlapping and lowering opacity so I could figure out where exactly they should be placed. I had to transform/adjust/warp/tweak most of the photos to make them fit well with each other. That was definitely a challenge. I used a soft brush to blend in the edges together, then linked everything and adjusted the levels to create consistency in brightness and colours.
This is the first panorama I've ever done so it took longer than expected, but I am quite happy with the final result :)

DMA 101 - Self-Portrait Transformation

Before/After:


Assets:



What I did:
I used a picture that was taken at Sauble Beach 2 weeks ago and decided it would be fitting to turn myself into a mermaid.
I used a lot of layer masks and blending options (particularly Overlay)
and manipulated some images I found off google.
The facial texture is from the inside of an abalone shell
I used liquify to pinch the pupils to give them more of an amphibian look and made layers to manipulate the colours and add light to them.
I wanted the face to look a little more elongated so I used liquify for that as well.
I didn't want my mermaid to have the animal print look from my bathing suit so I selected the colour range for black and filled it with a gradient.
To add drama to the eyes I brushed on some shadow with a soft brush.
The hair colour involved a series of different coloured layers blended together and erased in some parts for dimension.
It took a good couple hours to do but I pretty much winged it the whole time.

Oh, and the wisps of smoke coming from the seashell is the spirit of the sea.

DMA 101 - Character Illustration

Definitely THE hardest project I've ever done in the Adobe suite. It took a LONG time (hours and hours) to figure out how best to do everything, and then do it as close to perfect as possible. Missing class didn't help, but I looked up some tips on youtube before I got started.
FINAL PRODUCT:

This is Zoe the Elf Princess. She is a high priestess specializing in elemental magic, particularly earth-based. 

This was based on a drawing inked by gz12wk on deviantart.

My main challenges were primarily detail-oriented, and being a perfectionist this made it very time consuming (several hours over the course of a few days)

all the big pieces in their own separate layers and sublayers, mainly colour/shape based. It got confusing knowing where to start and end each piece esp the wood and leg areas so I just made them transparent and overlapped the lines. (Selection tool, Window<Transparency)

 there were so many little pieces here and it was hard because of the way the lines were drawn, it was hard to see when they started/ended. Next time I definitely want to work with a sketch that has more definite lines.

The braids were kind of a pain, I did it piece by piece on the same layer. It wasn't so much difficult as time-consuming (45min) to get everything right and forego a couple of the pixelated lines so it would look cleaner.

settled with a curved line here, a mod from the original sketch which was a straight line that was thicker at the top