Creative Entry #3: One and One makes One

So we've already established I don't do much by the way of photography, and neither do I like taking photos of myself. Taking a step back and thinking about it, I realize it might not just be because I'm uncomfortable and more than a little conscious about how I look, but also because it's been done before so many times through various ways. I'm one of those silly people who can get pretty damn nitpicky about making something unique, it's part of why I strive to put so much detail into my pieces, I suppose, so that even if the subject matter has been done before it can still make people go "wow, that is neat!", but I digress.

Last week while browsing DeviantArt, my little niche in the big bad internet, one of the people I "watch" uploaded an interesting ID for their homepage:

Original link here: http://astrozerk04.deviantart.com/art/In-my-Mug-ID-151909859

The minute I saw this ID I loved it and knew I had to try it for myself. Combining photography with an art form I prefer like drawing wasn't something unknown to me, in fact I'd had the idea to do something similar before, but perhaps not for an ID. But usually when I draw the sketch is done in pencil, the lineart finalized in ballpoint or gel pen, and the only digital touch is in the final coloring stage when I whip out my trusty Intuos 4 tablet, Photoshop CS, and a movie to run in the background while I work. Seeing AstroZerk04's ID gave me a little boost of "I can do this!" and I tried drawing straight on a photo of me on Photoshop, keeping everything from the sketch to the final version entirely in a digital medium.

The result was as follows:

... And I wasn't happy with it. The character behind me is my roleplay character from Aion - The Tower of Eternity: Jaris the Asmodian, and everything about him just looked so off. He was too short, hence I cropped the original photo in an attemtpt to create the optional illusion that he's taller than me, and his face came all wrong, not nearly as dashing and (dare I say it?) sexy as he's supposed to me. And so, after brooding on it for almost a week, I took out my tablet, took a few deep breaths, and tried again:

Original link here: http://canadian-rainwater.deviantart.com/art/Jaris-Shrine-152243238

I'm much happier with the newest version, having learnt from my mistakes before and using the tools Photoshop gives me (such as the ability to crop certain areas of my base sketch to skew and resize it, allowing me to make the body more proportonal before adding the final colors) to improve. Additionally, I also used some of the fanart seen on the wall (in particular, my friend Nathie's interpretation of Jaris, seen here: http://nathie.deviantart.com/art/Hello-Mr-Sexy-151712083) as a reference to make Jaris's face a little closer to how I saw it.

It's not perfect, but I'm still learning. And practise makes better than nothing.

--Sak