Steam punk Pirate

Stock used:
Model: Maria Amanda
Background: Google

Links and Programs used:
Gimp2
[link]
[link]

Commentary:
Okay so I was experimenting with my picture The Vampire King's Entertainer, another of Maria Amanda, and I had to stop () because I wasn't sure if she would be ok with something so until I receive an answer, that one is gonna be left unfinished. :icondepressedonion: Anyhoo, I wanted to try out the whole photo manipulation and decided that I should work on the background stuff. I found this stock and decided that she looked very steampunk and thought, well you know, add a gold background and a slight shading and shadow to her cheek bone and she looks like a pirate. How hard could it be? This is the result. Um... didn't turn out quite like I wanted to. Continue the Commentary after disclaimer/Edits

Disclaimer and edits:
I don't own either the background or the model in this photo. Changes made to the model were as follows:

• Cheek bone: shadowing using blue and purple


• Lipgloss: paled lips with pink lighting


• Contacts and highlights in eyes: from slate to silvery blue


• Artificial hair color: Gold highlights


• Tanning and gold lighting: Skin covered in rich yellow to create this beautiful golden color and lighter yellow over tones added to make it glow


• Costume changes: removal of right lace in skirt


• Erased hair bits: The back, fly aways and a few stray hairs on left


• Physical changes: Whitening of her teeth x2


• Makeup: Red eyeshadow added to offset the gold, blue, and black


• Shading and Highlights: Gold tones added to the shadow under her chin, her hand, and the upper left of her forehead

Note: There are hairs still remaining on the left shoulder but the light is so gold, you can not see them.

Continue of Commentary:
So this WAS my first time with photo-manipulation, but I'm still gonna complain. :iconorzsplz: On the left, I couldn't get all the background out of her hair! Her hair in the bottom right looks too rigid, it's obvious it's edited! Same for most of her hair. Now, I'll make this clear: She has beautiful skin, hair, eyes, and lips. She herself is beautiful. But she is also very very pale in coloring. Platinum blond, pink lips, pale skin, and gorgeous slate eyes (if you're reading this, Maria, :iconoomgnoesplz: I'm sorry for the 'flattery' but it is perfectly true. It's why I love your stock so much.) She doesn't need to be edited. But when I put the background in, she looked... washed out. So I tanned her a bit. Then her hair was too pale. So I added gold lighting to it and highlights. Oops, eyes don't fit in. Add a little color and some highlighting. A little red looked good around her (beautiful) make up job. But then I looked at her lips. They don't look right to me. Okay, let's add the lip'gloss'. After all this, her teeth looked yellow! Which they aren't, they are very well taken of. (Which trust me is a HUGE thing in my book.) Fine... Let's add some whitening! Oh um... Her eyebrows a bit paler too but that's because I just went over them by accident with the lighting and thought it looked better that way. Her natural coloring is wonderful but it belongs in blue and cold tone backgrounds. So yes... This is edited A LOT but then... She did offer it up as stock right? (Sister says I need to stop being so timid. Agree with her? ) And then there's the removal bits. Since she was in a winter background, it was hard to get it out of her hair and then it looked too clean so that's why it looks fake. As for the ruffle on her skirt (which you don't actually have to look hard to find I think if you know it's gone in this image), there were so many overlapping holes that I couldn't get the right fade on my eraser and ended up having to take it out all together. I apologize for that, Maria. (Also, I probably should have waited for you to answer my question before I posted this. Let me know if you want me to remove it.) One amusement of mine, there's a bar to the side of her and it looks like she's got her leg propped up on something. That was COMPLETELY unintentional, I was just trying to get the text out of the image, but it ends up looking kinda cool. However, I was NOT trying to change her pose! There's no real need to. I may MAY end up adding a story to this but I don't think so. It's fine the way it is but... I really am very disappointed in it.


May end up uploading better quality version. Probably not though.