Getting My feet Wet

As I promised, I'm doing digital art again. Decided to get my feet wet by doing a challenge on Flickr.

© NeonSun Studios 2011. All rights reserved.

www.flickr.com/groups/makeitinteresting/discuss/72157627527361135/

Starter image with thanks to "http://www.flickr.com/photos/27805557@N08/3330979732/Joes Sistah
Skin, wings, halo - JoesSistah
Model: JoannaStar Model pack at Deviant Art
Background: Darkwoods
Wreath: Ms.Bailey
Eyes: LoveandStyle at Deviant Art

It took about 2 hours. I'll probably go back and do some more work on it. For now (at 4:30 am) I'm happy with it.

A small tutorial on this image:

The vines were actually a wreath. After positioning it I used the eraser tool and wiped away the center of the wreath with a hard circle brush. I reduced the size of the brush and cleaned up the edges around the face and shoulders.

The skin is done using a S2 wrap. This method is so popular that there is a group on Flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/s2wrap/

Here's a quick and dirty way for photshop Elements users. Don't look for the alpha channel. There aren't any in Elements.
1 - Place your pattern layer directly above the face layer.
2 - Select MULTIPLY in the CONTENT pallette that your layers are in. This will make the pattern layer translucent.
3 - Select the ERASER tool from the TOOLS on the lefhand side and find a hard edge, round brush/eraser  from the lefthand top brush drop down menu.
4 - Scrape away the the pattern around the face. Adjust the size of the eraser brush to get into the nooks and crannys, like the ears, etc.
5 - Done.

For the wings which were originally white I used ENHANCE ->ADJUST COLOUR function. There is more on that here on the April 28th 2011 post.
http://neonsunshine-jody.blogspot.com/2011_04_01_archive.html3 - 

Let me know of anything you'd like to learn about and I'll see what I can do. I would love to hear from you. Also don't be afraid to leave a comment about posts. Tell me if the tutorials worked for you or feel free to add any info or links related to posts. Let me know if the TUTS didn't work for you and why. After all we are all in this together.

You may of noticed my snappy new social media buttons at the bottom of the posts. Try them out out. They work exceptionally well. Better than anything I've used before.