Avatar Photo Retouching Pt.2

 

On the left, you can see the original photo, and on the right is the "After"

I really enjoyed the process, as it immersed me in an exceptionally creative process. I think created an alien from an advanced civilization... Let me tell you how I did this:

1) The first task was to find an image with great resolution that had not been already retouched. This is why I chose a portrait of my friend that I shot in RAW. 

2) Just like in out TutVid tutorial, I added a layer with skin texture to the cheeks, chin and forehead. However, in the end, I had to mine this layer above all the rest. 

3) To change her face, I started with the eyes, which I cut out with the lasso tool, and changed the size and position with cmd+T. I blended the edges with a soft eraser on low opacity. I repeated this while changing the position of her nose. 

4) To remove the eyes (and later nose and brows) from where they originally were, I used the patch tool and took samples of other parts of the face. Also, I cleared some flaws using the spot healing tool. 

5) Changed the face shape in the liquify mode: nose, lips, skull, and aligned eyes a little. 

6) copied the ear using the quick selection tool and cmd+J. I also added some shadow to the second ear so that it did not look too flat. 

7) As for the eyes, skin, hair and lip color - I created new mask layers for each of those (solid color), and then painted over the details with the brush tool. What is really important is that I set the blending mode of the colored layers to "soft light" to make them look more natural. 

8) To highlight the cheekbones, I used the dodge & burn method. 

9) As the last step, I found a cosmic background, blurred it; cut out the avatar and put its layer over the background.