If he wasn't 6 foot tall

He would have made a good dwarf in one of the LOTR movies don't you think? Oh, wait, I think all the guys were nearly that tall or taller anyway. Maybe I should make him one in the graphic novel. That would be novel indeed. He can be Nukiel Vikingson. Unless you can come up with something better.

Royal visitor

     I am having so much fun doing these and can't wait to get them finished. Getting them finished will just be the beginning as I need to get dialogue and captions for the graphic novel. If the kids don't write them for me, guess I will just have to make them up. Not sure they would really appreciate that, but they have a choice.  

     When they were preparing for this ceremony, they knew what to expect since they do a lot with the re-enactment groups. Me, not so much. I did a lot of reading on what the Viking women would wear since my son was wearing Viking clothing. MiLady though went forward in time a little. Still we had a great time. Including Pan who had to walk around in the chain mail for a couple of hours.

French braids to the rescue

Mom, ddpuppies and me

     Mom and ddpuppies took a moment to french braid my mass of hair. Still weighed a ton but made it easier to keep the kerchief on. Though I am wishing I had made a little cap like they are wearing. I think it would have stayed on better.

     In doing the pictures for the graphic novel, I have found that I am not always happy with the colors, especially the skin but I guess I will have to just get over myself and learn to love what I do. :)

Such a cute couple

MiLady and Nuke

They make such a cute couple especially in the full renaissance regalia. We had such a good time.

What expressions

Nuke & MiLady

I have been having a delightful time altering the photos to look like comic characters, but trying to figure out what to have them say is making me want to pull my hair out. That is unless, Nuke and MiLady want to tell me what was being said (or what they want everyone to be saying).

On a roll

MiLady, Nuke, Brindel, Timon

Instead of cartoonizing (is that a real word, I wonder?) the background, I applied was is called a milkglass technique. Sent the Bug a link to the tutorial and she went milkglass crazy, LOL. I think it works well with the cartoon characters and doesn't overpower them. Makes them shine.....

Back to the drawing board

Pan, Nuke, Bear

Aren't they just the cutest? Pan had been standing in the shadow and I didn't get a really good skin color for him. So I will redo him later. But for now, I just love how it turned out. And when I sent it to ddpuppies, she sent me some wonderful pictures she had taken at the ceremony. Can't wait to get started on them. Now if I can just get some from Nuke and MiLady....hint, hint

Muskrat Love

MiLady and Nuke

I may have actually posted this one before. Soon after Nuke and MiLady had their Viking wedding ceremony, I got this "brilliant" idea to make a different kind of wedding album. But this was the only picture I had gotten done, before other things took over my time. Well, I have been re-energized by taking classes from Cassel at the Scrapbook Campus. I have started again. My newer ones are more comic book like than this one, but I don't think I will change it. I'll be posting them as I get them done, but they won't be in any special order until I get ready to make the book.

Object(ive) remover...Not!

Original photo

 Last example was of using the object remover in Paintshop Pro. Not real impressed with it. You must have a photo with very distinctive edges for it to really work. Lots of contrast between what you want to keep and what you want to get rid of. With that in mind, it does a fairly good job with wisps of hair. And it is preferable that you duplicate the layer (hiding the bottom) just in case it misses a few areas (like Indy's neck and ears, LOL).

postcard

Edit Selection = Quick Mask

original photo

One of the things I missed when going from Photoshop to Paintshop Pro was the use of the quick mask. I used it for making selections of everything. To me it was just so much faster than using a marquee tool as all you had to do was paint around what you wanted and could use brushes with harder or softer edges to get just the look you were after. Taking the master class from Cassel was the best thing I have done in a long time. I learned that Paintshop Pro has a "quick mask," it's just that it is called "edit selection." And I have made a postcard using a sheet of paper from "Beaches N Cream" again, by Kristmess, and from Elizabeth McCoy, postcard word art. 

postcard

Extractions and a card?

Original photo

Took a master class from Cassel a week or so ago about extractions. I had done a lot of them as a graphic artist for a newspaper, but it has been years now and I had used photoshop at work, not paintshop pro. In this technique, I followed her directions for making a mask from an RBG channel. As you can see from the before image (above) to the after image (below), it worked really well. Then using a paper from "Beaches N Cream" by Kristmess and I piece of word art, designer unknown, I made my own personal postcard.



After