October 19, 2009
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Anatomy of a Profile Pic 2
This is a different kind of PhotoPost. One of my more intriguing entries was the first Anatomy of a Profile Pic, from July of 2007, where I diagrammed how I created Mike as Groucho, one of my most popular profiles. Since Hallowe'en is coming up, I wanted to at least put a new profile up with me in "costume" as it were. I'm spending Hallowe'en here at my blog as "Mikula", poet, philosopher, fool of the vampires. Of course this being the internet, I really only have to do a few tweaks in the ol' Picture Publisher program, my handy photo editing software, and voila' I'm Dracula, er, Mikula. It's now past 11am and I began this latest project at 6:30am when I got up, so this did take a little time.
Here is a self portrait from last week. My beard was getting a bit scruffy, and of course it's a full beard now, so since Dracula is clean shaven, something that will never happen to the ol' Mikester, I at least wanted to begin by trimming the beard. The first idea was to completely "edit out the beard" in the photo editing software, but this proved to be more trouble than I wanted to go through.
So first thing I did this morning, was to trim my beard, and cut my hair. I do this myself, with professional trimmers and a mirror. Then after my shower, I put my camera on a tripod and took a few shots attempting to look like a vampire. I knew I was going to place my head and neck into an online photo of Dracula's suit, since I don't have the costume, so I didn't wear a shirt. In the title image above, I've added a few of the dozen or so shots I attempted. Even though the above shot, which is what I ended up using, was the first one taken, and I hadn't even shaved, I thought it was the best "pose" .
For the background, I found the image below on the internet, but I didn't like the cloudscape. So I overlaid this cloudscape I took right before the rainstrorm hit SoCal last week. This is a typical cloudscape taken in the sky above my house.
I searched for three images, "Dark and Stormy Night", "Dracula color", and "Dracula's Castle." This is the Dark and Stormy night photo. Even though the profile pic is only 250 x 350 megapixels in size, I captured all the images "full size" then sized them to an 800 pixel wide master in the editing program. After I finished, I resized the profile pic to 250 x 350.
This is what came up for the search for Dracula's Castle. I captured this image before the Dark and Stormy night image. I didn't realize there really IS a Dracula's castle and this is it. However, people who shoot photos of buildings usually don't have stormy skies behind them, so I has to improvise uisng the images above.
I spent a lot of time finding the right Dracula costume. I didn't want a generic vampire, and of course the Dracula movie was made in black and white in 1931, so I couldnt use any image captures from the film, or else I'd be spending a lot of time with the colorizer. I used to have a model kit of Dracula when I was a kid, but the pose wasn't as neat as I remembered. I ended up using this costume photo from a Hallowe'en Costume shop online. Off with his head, and I'm ready to start compositing.
I decided not to bore you with the several "steps" it took. Here is the final composite image, from which I created the profile picture I will use through the end of the month. Besides masking and layering the several images, I also had to darken lots of areas so it looks like night time. I overlaid an image of the moonscape on top of the moon from the web image. On the actual profile pic, of course, there needs to be a dreamcatcher, and I used a 50% transparency and "projected" the dreamcatcher on the moon.
Well, it's the weekend, so I have time on my hands to be "creative". This is actually the first real composite image I've done in a long while, since before the operation in June.
Posted October 18, 2009 11:22 AM
Comments (64)
I love everything but the castle. It's looks very sunny and cheerful. Not the gloomy abode of the Prince of Darkness.
I've always been impressed with your knack for entertaining avatars.
Very interesting steps. Love the way it turned out.
You are so cute! Seriously, I love the new pic.
haha, look at you, perfect profile pic for october
I like to see the anatomy of your brain next time, my friend. That was brilliant!
Wow. Great job!
LOL. awesome.
it's cool to see what all photos you put involved in your newest profile creation. i really liked the picture of the moon threw the trees. (although i know you said you did't take that one i just like moon shots)
nice photo construction. thanks for walking us through it . i may try something like that
Wonderful! But, you don't look scary hahaha.
Nice work
I like it. Thanks for taking all that time to get us feeling spooky.
lol lol lol
Time to seek new blood, Count!
Nice... material and style. You look uberly well-dressed and ghouly.
Well, Mikula, I must say, that proved you to be quite the veteran photo shopper. I likely will always remember your profile pic though of the one where you showed the top of your head with the Xanga badges "tatooed" onto there. I always appreciated the way in which the simple picture had a way of making a strong satirical statement. And I do love my satire.
:wave: Brilliant, Mikula!
See, this is a grand example of why I said you are so very talented and creative in many ways. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't come up with doing anything like this. Of course, it would take a lot of time, too; and my time is spent doing other things that please me. So you do what pleases you & it's wonderful that you share all this creativity. It's a gift to be shared, so thank you.
~~Blessings 'n cheers :coolman:
It's amazing what can be done with photo editing now!! :goodjob: You've done a very clever and entertaining job of this, Mike. :spinning::fun:
I suppose you are aware of Vlad the Impaler - the historic Dracula. There is no way any costume you come up with could be as scary as this real guy.
One well documented occurrence in his life was the time he invited a group of visiting dignitaries to lunch. The feast was outdoors in a forest of impaled victims - some of whom were still alive. Such spectacles probably did keep his grocery bill for the feeding of those he was trying to impress at a minimum.
If I knew how to do that....I could have some fun! (like you!)
Brilliant!
Ha! I love this! Brilliant! I, also, like seeing your teeth.
I've been told I'm a vampire. I guess it's 'cause I like to bite and be bitten and the night is my best time...I like to stay up all night, etc. 
Hey, Mike, I've been very ill the past few days and am taking some heavy duty sinus med's so I'm a bit loopy and tired tonight....so I'm not going to leave my usual long, drively comments.
But, HUGS, as I'm not contagious
this was a fun post to read :sunny:
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