Avatar

 This is a shot of my friend, Lindsay, in her mother nature Halloween costume from several years ago when we were much younger and cooler. I thought it would make a great base for a fantasy avatar design because it already seems somewhat otherworldly. I wanted to use an entire human figure, rather than just the face. 

I followed the Avatar Na'vi - Photoshop CS6 Tutorial, learning new tricks, like adding a masking layer, a skin texture layer, and "dodging and burning." I enlarged her eyes, appreciating the “feather” effect, added a darker outline, and painted in vivid irises. I used the "liquefy" feature to elongate her finger and toenails, and to bulge her nose and lips. I painted her hair purple and her skin with a yellow tone. I played with the hue/saturation effects, added a translucent butterfly mask over her face. I added a firefly photo to create additional lighting effects. I then made a brush from the butterfly photo and used it to add to the background and to color her skin with an orange hue. I also put a “Poster edges” filter over the entire composition. I am concerned that the final product is not that different from the original photo and that the original was so cool to begin with, that I can’t really take any credit for the alterations.

This is a photograph of my 8 year old niece, Isabella. I followed the tutorial to yield this rendition of the avatar. In the final draft I added a background of the "soul tree" from the film. The process ages her in a disconcerting way. I'm not sure if I like it!

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