Ok, this is one of my absolute favourite manips ever. I know it doesn't seem like much, and other manips have been vastly more popular, but to me this manip stands out because it was a 100% joy to make, and it was all about the challenges.
Challenge #1 was the source picture itself,
Challenge #2 was finding the right headshot,
Challenge #3 was getting the colours and lighting to match.
And I cannot even begin to tell you how satisfying it was to overcome each and everyone of those challenges.
Left: found a really poor quality version of this picture on pinterest. It looked too good to be true, but the fact that the quality of all the versions I could find was so crappy led me to believe it was genuine and not AI - which was great news. Had to do quite a lot of detective work to finally hunt down a bigger cleaner version from a pdf. (FYI, this is the cover picture from an old issue of a niche French magazine) I felt mighty proud of myself for getting my hands on it. Challenge #1 unlocked! 🏆
Right: Took me a little while to find the exact right scene, but I knew there had to be a Kilgarrah scene where Merlin looks up at the camera, so I rummaged through the episodes until I screencaptured The Headshot. Challenge #2 = done! 🏆
So you immediately see that the camera angle and the head tilt and light angle are all a great fit... except that Merlin is a nighttime shot (or "night" filtered)!! 😅 So I had to play with the temperature, colour, lighting, painted over some layers, etc, until I got a suitable skin tone. Challenge #3 was overcome! 🏆
And I hope by now you understand why I love this manip. It was awesome to create and I loved the result. 😊
Right: "vintage" source picture
Left: wristwatch removed + hands smoothed a bit + equipment on the deck of the ship made less conspicuously yellow + blond windswept hair removed
tagging @ravenwilds @my-own-quiet-corner @jacks-the-flower @herstarlight @catbellybuttons @cbk1000 (don't hesitate to let me know if you want on or off that tagging list)
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