The Representation of Emotions, Extracted with Care
Step 1
Found a collection of stock textures on the net that would be the building blocks for the image. Found a wall texture and smoke/ ink in water shot.
Step 2
Dug out stock images of a broken egg shell and a jelly fish. These would be part of the visual elements to be used.
Step 3
Picked out an expressive face from T-gar's stock collection on deviantart.com to create the 'protagonist' of the piece. Arranged the model's face on top of the texture and erased out enough to force a seamless blend. Colour-toning the image helped in setting the mood. The green was chosen to give it a little 'creep' factor.
Step 4
Time to explode the face. Chopped off the eggshell and placed it to fit the contours of the face.
Step 5
Added some shading and colour to get the depth. Air-brushing helped to get the desired effect.
Step 6
Blended in some cracked earth/ peeling paint textures for stress marks where the face exploded.
Step 7
Took the smoke/ ink pic and masked it out to get the 'hot smoke' feel. Blended it in Screen mode to get the desired effect.
Step 8
Took a couple of the jellyfish pics, inverted, huerotated and curve-adjusted the jelly out of them till they looked adequately ominous.
Step 9
Took another one of T-Gar's lovely face shots and placed them in line with the flow of the jellyfish body.
Step 10
Masked out the extra bits and did the usual blend-mode/ colour correction routine till it started looking natural.
Step 11
Did this for multiple jellyfish till a swarm was created.
Step 12
Placed it all together. The finished piece started taking shape a little.
Step 13
Added appropriate shading to get depth. Some ink-splats and similar textures were added to enhance the 'creep' factor. A liquid spurt on the head, some spot colour and final colour-toning signed it off.
Step 14
Got the final image.