Photo manipulations and dress designs thread...

Wow Okami! Your creations are so beautiful. I especially love the "Bells" design. You added a touch of sensuality to the original concept, which makes the end result really stunning. I kinda wish you were her designer.

These are gorgeous! I hope your hand returns to its former shape, if at all possible. It's a shame that you would have to give up something you love for a one-time accident.

The Bells dress is out of this world! Not too over the top, and not too simple either.

I agree, your Bells dress is simply gorgeous—it's powerful and yet beautiful in a way that the actual one was not (in my oh-so-humble opinion). I always loved the color scheme of that dress, but the ruffles were just so distracting...

Okami, I really really like your remake of Bells! I wonder if we can show Mao your creation and have her do an encore of Bells in the future or something with this costume!

Okami, both dresses are gorgeous. The first one is a bit similar to her dress from FS in Goteborg, the second one is simply

Thank you all for the comments!

Alokya wrote:

I hope your hand returns to its former shape, if at all possible.

I'm mostly fine now. The new layout was already done after I recovered from the accident. There might be some lingering effects, but I can hold a pen or a stylus pen without problems, so it's fine.

Okami wrote:

Thank you all for the comments!

Alokya wrote:

I hope your hand returns to its former shape, if at all possible.

I'm mostly fine now. The new layout was already done after I recovered from the accident. There might be some lingering effects, but I can hold a pen or a stylus pen without problems, so it's fine.

It's good to hear that your recovery went well. Btw, Okami, may I use your "Bells" design as my new avatar? I really like that picture.

aoi88 wrote:

Btw, Okami, may I use your "Bells" design as my new avatar? I really like that picture.

No problem!

Okami wrote:

aoi88 wrote:

Btw, Okami, may I use your "Bells" design as my new avatar? I really like that picture.

No problem!

Thanks!

Okami wrote:

And my remake of the Bells dress:


BTW, the links to my previous ones are dead, but I'll re-upload them soon.

This could be a good tango dress.

Okami, what do you use doing this designs? I'm also an artist, but kind of new to computer drawing, can you explain me some basics?(I have graphic tablet)

I love the new designs! It's been too long since we've seen any of your beautiful creations! It's nice to see some new ones! They are as good as Mao's best dresses, and better than some of her other dresses. Your work puts my dinky, amateur photo manipulations to shame!

Those are beautiful, Okami!

polosatik wrote:

Okami, what do you use doing this designs? I'm also an artist, but kind of new to computer drawing, can you explain me some basics?(I have graphic tablet)

Any program that allows the uswr to work on layers would work. Photoshop, GIMP, Paint Shop Pro, etc.. It's good if the program has a Quick Mask option - Photoshop and GIMP have it, not sure about PSP, I haven't used it in ages.

The picture that you use to make the photomanip must be in fairly good quality. If it's too small or pixelated, it won't look good.

What I do is:

1. Paste the image as a separate layer (with clear background, i.e. white) and clean it up - make sure that the colors look good (Levels or Curves, Hue/Saturation, etc.) and, if it's needed, the smart blur filter to get rid of the "fuzzies" around the edges.

2. Get rid of the background. In Photoshop there's an Extract filter (it needs to be downloaded for the newest versions, but it's free) which might be helpful. Another option is to use the Eraser tool. But my favourite way to do this is to use the Quick Mask. After you activate the QM when you paint on the layer with black colour, it turns transparent. If you use white, it makes the layer visible. It's more time-consuming, but if you make a mistake, you can easily correct it later.
Once the thing/figure is separated from the background, I usually copy the layer and make the older one invisible. Who knows, it might be of some use later.

3. Now I remove all of the old costume that might get in the way of the new one. (For example in the Bells costume I kept the gloves and sleeves, but sometimes I remove the entire costume. For example, this: http://www.maoasadaforum.com/gallery/Skating-outfits-designed-by-fans/Okami/Mao-Magic-001-pic_60.htm manip was based on a photo from a practice session, so I had to re-draw everything - the right hand, the legs, the hairstyle. It sort of shows...
To do this, I remove all parts of the costume that "stick out", leaving only the skater's silhouette, then lock the transparency of the layer (if you use Quick Mask, make sure you are not on the QM layer but on the actual one by clicking on the miniature). Then using the Eyedropper tool sample the colours of the skin and paint over the unnecessary parts of the old costume.

4. I paint the new costume on a new layer. If I want the skirt or other parts of the costume to be see-through, I paint them on a separate layer from the rest of the costume and use Eraser or Quick Mask to create the transparency effect.
If the skirt or sleeves are see-through it looks good at add an additional layer below the skater's silhouette and paint the back part of the skirt/sleeves on ot.

5. I add the detials, like make-up, rhinestones, light reflections, the background, etc. Sometimes it looks nice to add an adjustement layer or some texture over it, change the blending mode and lower the opacity. It's different every time, though, so all advice I can give is to experiment a lot.

I can't wait till the day I get a good program like that. I just use a free one right now, and I can't really do what I want with it.... Oh well. At least it's something I can goof around with until I get a good program.

Thank you soo much Okami!!! Sounds so cool! I have Photoshop so I hope I can do something like this.

Star85 wrote:

I just use a free one right now, and I can't really do what I want with it....

What program do you use..?
There are some free ones that are quite good and support layers, layer effects and transparency, or even can read Photoshop plugins - like GIMP. I've seen some modified versions of GIMP that make it look a bit more like Photoshop. I recently checked out GimPhoto + GimPad and it seems to be quite stable:
http://www.gimphoto.com/
GimPhoto is a mod of GIMP, and GimPad is another mod that is installed in addition to GimPhoto and makes it look Photoshop-like (not identical, but the layout and shortcuts are like in PS).
It's free and it can read Photoshop plugins (there are a lot of great free ones ).

GimpShop is also nice, but crashes a lot on my computer.

Okami wrote:

Star85 wrote:

I just use a free one right now, and I can't really do what I want with it....

What program do you use..?
There are some free ones that are quite good and support layers, layer effects and transparency, or even can read Photoshop plugins - like GIMP. I've seen some modified versions of GIMP that make it look a bit more like Photoshop. I recently checked out GimPhoto + GimPad and it seems to be quite stable:
http://www.gimphoto.com/
GimPhoto is a mod of GIMP, and GimPad is another mod that is installed in addition to GimPhoto and makes it look Photoshop-like (not identical, but the layout and shortcuts are like in PS).
It's free and it can read Photoshop plugins (there are a lot of great free ones ).

GimpShop is also nice, but crashes a lot on my computer.

The one on photobucket....

Star85 wrote:

The one on photobucket....

Check out some of the free ones sometime! Maybe I'll post some simple tutorials earlier... I just have to take care of some things in the Real Life first...

Okami wrote:

Star85 wrote:

The one on photobucket....

Check out some of the free ones sometime! Maybe I'll post some simple tutorials earlier... I just have to take care of some things in the Real Life first...

Next time I do some manipulations I will. Thanks!

One new dress, 2 variations:




Velvety bodice (black on the right side, deep red on the left) and belt, overlaid with red pattern on the right side and black on the left. Sleeves - black illusion material overlaid with the red lacey pattern (version 1) or red and silver rhinestones (version 2). Black choker with huge red rhinestone on the front. The whole thing is sparkly, like the Pur Una Cabeza dress.

Sorry about the poor image quality, I couldn't find any good source pics... It seems the photographers this seasons just fell in love with photos taken in the middle of a jump or a spin... And most of the nice pics were too tiny to use.

I really like the dress, wish mao would see you're designs, isn't there a way for you to send them to mao??

ballerinamao wrote:

I really like the dress, wish mao would see you're designs, isn't there a way for you to send them to mao??

You pretty much took the words out of my mouth! Yes, you should really try to get into designing!

ballerinamao wrote:

I really like the dress, wish mao would see you're designs, isn't there a way for you to send them to mao??

I want to print out a fan artbook and send it to Mao, but I still need more pictures to put into it!