How to Cheat in Photoshop

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Posted on 29/10/20 3:49:46 PM

Mariner
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

lwc wrote:
Great one Mariner... now that is indeed 'spooky'.

Thank you Loyd, yes I think that should strike fear into almost anyone!

Posted on 29/10/20 4:13:06 PM

DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Mariner. Very odd and unsettling. Perhaps we should hand Trump over to Damien Hearst so he can be preserved for posterity.

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Posted on 29/10/20 4:19:52 PM

DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Ah! The classic FoxWagen ........ (works better in German where the V is pronounced soft like an F).

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Posted on 29/10/20 5:10:53 PM

josephine harvatt
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Late to the party and not particularly spooky but I thought such a mangy looking beast deserved at least one decent meal

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Posted on 29/10/20 5:39:40 PM

DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

vibeke wrote:
I thought it was about time I contributed again,

Have you noticed how the rock in the background echoes the foxes head?

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Posted on 29/10/20 6:40:52 PM

vibeke
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

DavidMac wrote:

vibeke wrote:
I thought it was about time I contributed again,

Have you noticed how the rock in the background echoes the foxes head?

No David, of course not, I'm hopeless with details. When I took the photo a couple of days ago, we spent a lot of time looking at what some of the rocks looked like.

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Posted on 29/10/20 6:47:39 PM

dwindt
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

The scarecrow and the fox

For my Halloween image, I couldn't find a fox that was scary enough but I found a wonderful bust of one, with his mouth wide open. So I made my own fox based around the head. 20 odd layers later and I had a suitably fierce looking fox that I'm pretty pleased with.

Having no brain, the scarecrow used the twit of the fox to hunt but now that he has found his brain, they will hunt as a duo.

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Posted on 29/10/20 8:26:58 PM

lwc
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Definitely a vicious fox, and great lighting...

Posted on 30/10/20 00:32:00 AM

Mariner
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

DavidMac wrote:
Mariner. Very odd and unsettling. Perhaps we should hand Trump over to Damien Hearst so he can be preserved for posterity.

David, I found "spooky" quite hard to do, so I went for "repugnant" instead. I agree, Damien Hearst, not my favourite artist, does spring to mind with his dead animals thing, although I had not thought of that until you mentioned it.

Posted on 30/10/20 00:33:16 AM

Mariner
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Jim, I like your hand from the grave idea.

Posted on 30/10/20 09:26:36 AM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

First to deal with the fox this week was Ben Mills, who has hidden it in a thicket. Perfectly integrated into the scene, Ben, and the lighting is exactly right. I like how it’s part hidden behind the grass. Excellent.

A glorious pub sign from DavidMac - did you build the Trumpkin? Very effective. The fox looks a little surprised to be there. A very fine werefox in the second entry, in a truly extraordinary location. Is that place real? Or is it Macimagination?

A bizarre room setting from lwc, referencing an old Peter Sellers film: who puts a column in the middle of a fireplace? The fox fits well, though. I like the triple showing in the second entry, and that doll is truly spooky (as dolls always are). I enjoyed the third entry, with its pile of skeletons; the zombie Waldo is cute (and, for some reason, we call him Wally in the UK). More Halloween spookiness in the fourth entry: very atmospheric, the leaves and must are excellent. Not entirely sure about the twitching pheasant. I did enjoy the guest moose in the fifth entry, though. I think you should incorporate a guest moose in more of your work. A really fabulous scarecrow in the sixth entry, and thanks for posting a cutout of the original: a tremendously good sculpture. I wish I’d made it. End that’s either an enormous fox or a tiny Big Mac in the seventh entry - but I do like the eyes. And the bats, of course. A gorgeous eighth entry, with a perfectly imagined fox driving pheasants. Of course, all it needs is a guest moose. And Loyd - feel free to post as many as you want. They’re always entertaining.

I see Michael Sinclair is revelling in animal cutouts now he’s moved to Photoshop CC. An elegant couple of foxes, and the new head is neatly blended into that body. Of course, neither of them is the fox I supplied, although that’s certainly a more attractive pheasant.

Astonishing work from dwindt, channelling Aesop. The pheasant removal is great in itself, but moving the angle of view to above like that is extraordinary. I still can’t figure out how that was achieved. And that’s a beautiful second entry, too, with an ingenious solution to the problem of how to fit a wide neck into a narrow collar. A seriously frightening third entry: remarkable work, with perfect lighting.

A spooky scene from JimH, with its hand reaching out of the grave - Carrie, I think, was the first film that really scared me like that. I like the glowing red eyes. But that fox needs a shadow, and the lighting needs to come from behind it as in the rest of the scene:

Aha! New Zealand Lamb! Well, what else would Vibeke put in the fox’s mouth. Very nicely done: putting that hawthorn in front of the fox blends it neatly into the scene, as does tucking it behind the wispy grass. From a compositional standpoint, I’d move that boulder directly behind it.

A fun entry from Mariner, although I think you’ve been rather flattering to Potus Schmotus’s physique. Excellent lighting, and tremendous matching of that extreme perspective. Perhaps mahogany cases might be more appropriate in those surroundings?

Fine work from Josephine Harvatt, the fox neatly integrated into the black and white scene. Does the rabbit have rigorous mortis, though? I think it should flop a little.

Posted on 30/10/20 10:25:24 AM

dwindt
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Thanks for the kind words Steve. I thoroughly enjoyed this challenge. I would have like enough time to do the fox and the stalk fable aswell.

I tried changing the camera angle on another image before, to see if it would work. With the right tweaks, you can get it close on some images.

The man's back in both images is still standing upright.

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Posted on 30/10/20 10:27:17 AM

Mariner
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Steve wrote
...tremendous matching of that extreme perspective. Perhaps mahogany cases might be more appropriate in those surrounding

Thanks Steve. I had a couple of time-consuming false starts on this one. Of course I created the cases from scratch, which also took a while, and, yes they should be made out of mahogany but I ran out of time.

Posted on 30/10/20 12:33:28 PM

DavidMac
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Re: Challenge 829: Foxing about

Steve Caplin wrote:
- did you build the Trumpkin? Very effective.

Yes I did. From a line drawing I found. As I stated in the entry I wanted to do Boris as the fox. Generic anthropomorphism, like last weeks peaches, is not too hard, but to turn a man (however foxy he looks) into a fox is much harder as the physiognomy is so different. I kept ending up with a fox wearing a Boris mask. If I adapted further towards the fox then Boris lost his personality and recognisability. After three different attempts I didn't feel I had anything that merited posting.

Is that place real? Or is it Macimagination?

No idea. I found it on the web. I can't believe it's real. I can't remember the source. Deviant Art perhaps? It's a wonderful source of the weird .......