Self Portrait Ashes and Monsters
With some subliminal inspiration from 'A Monster Calls' (amazing film, go watch it) I've been working on another self portrait 'Ashes and Monsters' and thought I'd work on a breakdown on the project.
Starting with the original RAW file, the contrasts, hues and saturation were adjusted to bring out the most detail, ready for editing.
Clean Up
Next, a basic skin and blemish pass.
Cut Out
The head was isolated, contrasted and made black and white.
A charcoal texture was placed underneath the skin layer (set to Overlay). The charcoal texture was then liquefy distorted to follow the contours of the face depth and contrast corrected.
The embers in the cracks of the charcoal texture were then painted in and enhanced over several layers with outer glows.
Next…
The body was then added back into the image, which looked out of place...
To help the clothes match the brightness of the image and build an appropriate background: the clothes were re-contrasted and a darker background with similar lighting position were added. Finally a glow around the neck was added to help add heat under the insulation of the clothes.
Hence we have our final image: 'Ashes and Monsters'
