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Hey there! Sorry I have not answered this before now. I have been so busy getting Luce images and clips and working on my new Little Lucy's that I have not been here in several days.

Okay, first, how I usually (I say usually, because it really dose depend on the piece) take the original image BEFORE I cut it out and blacken the background completely around the hair or whatever you are gonna cut out. I do this because what I do is overlay the layer onto the background as a screen. Then what you do is basically blacken the area behind the part you just overlayed. That way, the background disappears completely when you over lay it into the new background. I have noticed that the very edges of the hair (the parts you add with a single pixel brush) do not need to be cut around because if you leave them the kinda get a nice highlighted look to them from the screen overlay. To do that, I use a 100 % fuzzy brush, very soft so that the edge dose ont look harsh. Dose any of this make sense? I am TERRIBLE at explaining this stuff, I am sorry. I just tried to find an example of what I am talking about, but it has been such a long time since I have actually done one that exact way.

I really need to know what yo are actually trying to do. I have been doing entire bodies recently, and not doing any actual cuts. Like for my Vamp Lucy, I simply blackened the entire background behind her, (most of it was already done, so in this case, it was easy. and set the background pieces into it as screen layers and the parts behind her blacken up so that they would disappear leaving her in the foreground. Now, I am working on another piece where the background was not so clean and I had to do a lot more drawing of hair as you described. I still did it on the original image, not after I overlayed it into the background. Oh, and just for clarity, I do EVERYTHING on a different layer. So the hair strands To do the hair, you really need to be precise and clean with the drawing.

I have attempted to show you examples of this. Now I must say, this is not a completed piece, but I THINK it shows what I am talking about.



Let me know if any of this has helped at all. If not, I can try and explain better. Thank you for asking by the way. xX

Aurora Goddess wrote:

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I have to say, Charis, that your work really does look awesome and so realistic. I'd love to attempt to do what you do. Very impressive. And the step by
step images does help in seeing how you work.

Thank you! I really do not explain myself very good. I am glad it is sort of clear. xX

Aurora Goddess wrote:

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Where do you get the backgrounds that you have used? Do you have any specific sources that you rely on or do you just search the internet for the kinds of
images that you want to use for a particular piece of art?

I think getting the lighting correct so it matches the background can be difficult for me
sometimes. Do you have any tips? And the tedious drawing of the hair would be the most time-consuming, I would think. But it looks really great when it's
done.

My backgrounds over the years have come from many sources. Most of the time I do get on the internet and just search for what I need. It usually means combining several images and doing a whole lot of changing. Just for the piece above the full background contains I think, four images, plus I went back and removed a river from the centre of the whole thing after I realised that for some reason it did not belong there. In this case also, I had to do some actual drawing on the background to get the landscape more to what I wanted. When I finally post the finished piece, I will explain it. On some of my recent pieces, I have actually been able to use some photos that I have taken as backgrounds. As for matching lighting, that can be a bitch. Actually, the piece the above example is mainly not done because I can not get the lighting really correct. In some of my pieces my lighting is really more ethereal than realistic, which helps to make it easier to do since reality is not necessarily needed. Really all you can do is try and figure out where the light should be coming from and add the lighting that way. I have also been known to change the lighting on the figure to more match the background lighting. This can be difficult, and kinda hard to explain how to do. I will say, for me, the backgrounds are usually the hardest part, and have many a time thought about not even bothering. They have held my pieces up for months on end.

For the record, hair is a bitch too! But well worth the effort! xX