CREATING AN ALIEN

This assignment covers how to turn an average photo into a visitor from outer space.

  1. Open Photoshop
  2. Click File then Open and open the image you want to use to create your alien – I will be using the image below in these directions…
  3. Duplicate the original layer (which is probably named Background) by right-clicking the layer name and choosing Duplicate Layer
  4. Click OK in the Duplicate Layer window
  5. Click Filter then click Liquify to open the Liquify window (yes, it is a large window)
  6. On the right you will see the Brush Size control

    adjust the brush size so that the circle is as large as your subject’s head

    HINT: pressing the ] key will increase the brush size in small increments (press and holding the key will cause the size to gradually increase) while pressing the [ key will decrease the brush size (these keys are just to the right of the P key)
  7. Let’s increase our victim, I mean subject’s head – click the Bloat Tool on the left of the Liquify window
  8. Click in the middle of the forehead and hold down the left mouse button to grow your subject’s head
  9. Now click on the left temple and grow the head some more
  10. Now repeat the process on the right temple
  11. Let’s give him a tiny chin by selecting the Pucker Tool , which has the opposite effect of the Bloat Tool
  12. Decrease the size of your brush slightly and place the center on your subject’s chin
  13. Press and hold the left mouse button until you have a nice shaped tiny alien chin
  14. Let’s use the Pucker Tool on the ears, nose, and mouth – be sure to decrease the brush size so you are just working with the head parts you want to work with
  15. Time for the eyes –click the Bloat Tool again and use a brush just large enough to cover the eyes and click in the middle and enlarge the eye, then click and enlarge the left side and then the right side of the eye; you should end up with large alien eyes
  16. Now for a quick step to add a little personality to our character, let’s adjust the mouth so that our character has a nice, big smile – click the Forward Warp Tool
  17. Change the brush size so that it is rather small then click and drag the corners of the mouth up
  18. Now increase the size of the brush slightly and drag the tip of the chin down just a little
  19. Now decrease the size of the brush and give your subject pointed ears
  20. Use the Forward Warp Tool to make any other adjustments you would like to make
  21. Your character should now have a distinct alien look…
  22. Time to turn your subject green – click OK to exit the Liquify window
  23. We just want to turn the person green and nothing else in the image, so let’s select only the person by pressing the Q button to enter Quick Mask mode
  24. Click the Brush Tool and choose the Hard Round brush
  25. Make sure Opacity and Flow are set to 100% in the Brush Tool property bar
  26. Adjust the brush size to something that works with your image and begin coloring in your person – notice that while in Quick Mask mode that Photoshop colors your subject red

    don’t freak out, this is what we want – color in all parts of your person including the entire head and any arms or hands or feet or anything else showing
  27. Fill in as much of the person as you can with the larger brush, then decrease the brush size (remember the [ and ] keys) and fill in the smaller areas until you have all of your subject in red

    keep in mind that if you go outside your person that you can use the eraser tool to remove the red area, and at this point you might consider removing the red area over the teeth (if they are showing)so they remain their original color – you don’t have to so this, it is up to you
  28. Press the Q key again to exit Quick Mask mode – all of the image not in red should now be selected
  29. Click Select then click Inverse to switch the selection to your person
  30. Select the Lasso Tool and go around the edge of your selection one last time to fix any stray areas – press and hold the Shift key then click and drag the Lasso Tool to add to your selection, or click and hold the Alt key then click and drag the Lasso Tool to delete from your seletion
  31. Click Image then point at Adjustments and click Hue/Saturation
  32. Drag the Hue slider to the right until you a get a color you like – keep in mind that you can adjust the Saturation as well if you like to get a color that makes you happy

    to create the above color, I used a Hue of 80 and a Saturation of -15
  33. Press Ctrl+D to deselect your image
  34. Alien eyes are always darker then the rest of the head, so let’s darken our eyes by using the Quick Mask mode to select or eyes (reread the directions above if you don’t remember how to do this)
  35. Press the Q key to exit Quick Mask mode and invert the selection
  36. Click Image then point at Adjustments and click Brightness/Contrast
  37. Move the Brightness slider to the left to darken the eyes until you get something you like, then move the Contrast slider to the right until your eyes look good

    for my character, I used a Brightness of -50 and a Contrast of 100
  38. Let’s finish up by giving our alien a tail –click the New Layer button at the bottom of the layers palette
  39. Hide the layers with your person on then by clicking the eye next to each layer thumbnail
  40. Select the empty layer and click the Rectangle Marquee Tool
  41. Click and drag to create a rectangle that stretches from the top to the bottom and is about 50 pixels wide (you can tell how wide it is by pressing Ctrl+R to turn on the Ruler)
  42. Press the D key to reset the Foreground and Background colors to the default black and white, then press the X key to swap the colors
  43. Click the Gradient Tool and make sure the Gradient Tool property bar matches the image below

specifically, make sure the Gradient is set to Foreground to Background (you can check this by clicking the drop-down arrow pointed at with the red arrow on the left above), the gradient type is Reflected Gradient (the 2nd red arrow from the left above), the Opacity is set to 100%, and Reverse is not checked

  1. Press and hold the Shift key and click the center of your rectangle and drag to the right to the edge of the selection box
  2. Click Edit then point at Transform and click Perspective
  3. Drag one of the outside bottom resize handles so that it sits atop the middle handle (the other handle should move automatically)
  4. Press Enter
  5. Press Ctrl+D to deselect
  6. Click Filter then point at Distort and click Shear

    move the line so that it matches the above image then click OK
  7. Click Image then point at Adjustment and click Hue/Saturation
  8. Adjust the setting so they match the image below

    be sure Colorize is checked or your changes will not take effect
  9. Use the above settings as a starting point and continue to adjust your color until it matches the color you used to create your character’s face
  10. Click Edit then click Free Transform and rotate, resize, and reposition your tail as needed so that it looks like it goes on your
  11. Use the Eraser Tool to remove the lower portion of your tail so that it appears to be behind your character
  12. Save your alien character to your personal folder as a Photoshop file as alien_yourname

Your Alien is now complete! Good work!

O’Kilen