How I created my broken puppet doll conceptual image
Broken
My “Broken” puppet doll, which won the “Design & Illustration” category of the The KelbyOne Photo & Design Contest, is a a composite of about 5/6 images.
Every image was taken with my camera on a tripod, from from the exact same position, angle and focal length.
First an image of a clean(ish) background - so I could mask in any areas that I needed to.
I wish that I had taken a completely clean shot without any cords or cables or a shot with the lighting cable in a different position, as I had to to spend a bit of time cloning out the cable.
Clean(ish) background for composite
And then various images of the parts that made up the doll, and broken leg.
With Gabbi, my loyal assistant always close by.
Various doll parts
Once I had all the images, I brought them into photoshop. I chose parts of each image that I liked (the dress from one, the head position from another, the arm position from another. And I spent a bit of time masking, out (and in) the various areas that I wanted to see. And cleaning up the background.
Masking in the doll parts
Broken arm
For the broken arm, I masked out the actual arm with a fairly hard brush. And the “blank” shot was underneath so that showed through. I added some shadows and cleaned up the background to make it look more realistic.
Masking out the broken arm
Broken leg - top (thigh) section
I cleaned up a bit more and took out the upright pipe, and I added the horizontal pipe.
I positioned that over the leg in the position that I wanted it and then I added a layer mask and masked out the areas that I did not want to show.
For the front “open” part, I used a low opacity brush so that the pipe looked like it was under the dress.
Masking the horizontal pipe into place
Joint pins and joints
I first drew the joints and pins in photoshop and then added layer effects to try and make them look a bit more 3 D (bevel and emboss, drop shadow)
Joints and pins
Broken “standing” leg
1. I positioned the leg (piece of the real leg) where I wanted it
2. And added the pipe in the right position
3. Then I masked out the parts of the pipe that I did not want to show
4. And used a pinkish brush and changed the layer to multiply mode to make the white PVC pipe look pink
Creating the broken leg
I then went crazy on the frequency separation to make the skin look very smooth and plastic like.
Frequency separation
Lastly, I added some texture layers and I used a layer mask to take some of the texture away from the “doll”. And various other adjustment layers – curves, hue and saturation, photo filters. I just played around until I liked what I saw.
Texture
This has turned out to be one of my favourite conceptual images.