In
this tutorial, I will be going through the basic steps I used to create
these two winning entries. As you can see, what works for clowns also
works for mimes. The only difference is that if you're working on a mime
entry, you're not allowed to talk. You can click on any of the images
in this tutorial to get a larger view. I'm using Photoshop CS2 on a Mac
OSX platform.
[Edited by User on 11/18/2012 11:22:48 AM]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:06:01 PM]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:09:28 PM, Reason: More cowbell]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:12:45 PM]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:19:35 PM]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:23:12 PM]
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:24:49 PM]
Wait
a minute! Where did that hair come from? Well this was supposed to be a
makeup tutorial and if that was what you were here for, you're welcome
to leave. If you're curious as to how I painted in this hair and it only
took about 10 minutes, you're welcome to stay.
[Edited by User on 11/18/2012 11:22:48 AM]
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Sorry to disappoint if you thought I was going to
do a step-by-step on either of these images but since I work a bit
destructively (although I'm getting better at not doing this) and to
make it more fun for me, I'm going to create a brand new image which you
can see each step of the way. I'm going to use that dorky but lovable
actor Michael Cera as our subject. I'm also going to do him as a normal
happy clown. If you want an evil clown, you're free to add blood, fangs
and scars at your discretion.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
The first couple steps I'm going to gloss over
really quickly as they're pretty basic, cosmetic things. I created a new
layer and put a stripey circus pattern on it. Then I created a layer
above it, filled it with dark blue and set it to multiply. I added a
layer mask to this layer and masked out the center of it to create a
vignette. Then I copied the background layer of Michael (we're on a
first-name basis now) and moved it to the top and then masked out the
gray background so I could see what I added underneath.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Ok-on to the makeup. I create a new layer above
Michael which I'll name "white paint" and on that layer I'll do just
that. I grab a brush at 100% hardness and of an appropriate size and at
100% opacity, paint it over his face leaving the eyes unpainted.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Next, we want to change this layers blending mode
to "Color". In doing so, we've essentially desaturated the image. When
first trying to figure out how to create clown makeup, I searched the
web for tutorials and found one that took me up to this point...and
stopped. I've seen many people do this-gray faced clowns. That just
doesn't do it for me. If you've ever had the chance to wear face paint
(sometimes called grease paint with good reason) not only is it bright
white, it's thick and greasy-covers pores and wrinkles. By just
desaturating the image, you're just removing color and to me at least,
it does not give the appearance of makeup. 
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
So how do we get that nice white base? I stumbled
around a bit and came upon this: duplicate the white paint layer and
then change its blending mode to overlay. You can then lower the opacity
a bit to an amount that looks good (here I've gone down to 74%) and if
some of your shadows have gotten a bit blown out, you can add a layer
mask and with a soft round brush at 20% opacity, you can mask a few of
those areas until your shadows come back. Alternately such as on my mime
entry, I set the layers blending mode to Soft Light instead of
Overlay-try them both and see which one works best in your particular
situation.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Ok-now on to the eyes. I've created another
layer, "blue eye" which I set to Multiply and using the elliptical
marquee tool created and filled an ellipse with a light blue color. I
then warped it into the shape I wanted. I think it's important for
realism to not create shapes too perfect or symmetrical because it
doesn't work that way in real life.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
I then duplicated this layer, flipped it
horizontally (Edit-transform-flip horizontal) and positioned it over the
other eye. I warped it again a little bit so that it would not be
identical to the other side then I merged the two blue eyes layers
(you'll have to set it's blending mode back to multiply) and then erased
the blue color where it went over his eyeballs.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Again, a lot of people leave it here. It doesn't
look bad but the color seems a bit too even and unnatural. To change
that, duplicate the blue eye layer and then go to
image-adjust-brightness/contrast and lower the brightness of this layer.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Now add a layer mask to this second blue layer
and mask out some of this darker color (which is also set to multiply)
allowing the lighter blue to show through in places. Don't do this at
random, figure out where your light is coming from (in this case, from
the left) and mask accordingly. Additionally, I've also used the burn
tool (midtones) to darken some areas (to the right of his nose for
example) in keeping with the overall lighting.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
We'll do the same thing for the nose with a
slight variation. Create a new layer set to multiply-and paint in the
red shape. I duplicate that layer and mask out where I want highlights
and this time instead of going to brightness/contrast, I'm going to
image-adjust-hue/saturation and adjusting the hue slider until the red
turns purple. In the second part of the image you can see the result of
that (I've hidden the lower red nose layer). In the third part of the
image, you can see the result where I've turned the lower layer back on.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
You now what? I like that so much that I'm going to go back to my Blue eye copy 2 layer and adjust the hue a bit there as well.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
On to the mouth. Again, it's the same steps: new layer, set to multiply and paint on your color.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
My original intent was to paint the mouth with a
dark purple which would have colored the lips quite well. I changed my
mind but the mustard color I chose isn't really doing the job very well.
No bother. I just jump back down to the White Paint layer, choose white
and begin painting over the missed spots on the lips. I also did it on
the White paint copy layer but I lowered the opacity of my brush down to
30% so I could keep more of the detail in the lips.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Like the eyes and the nose before, I duplicated
the yellow color layer but this time I did it twice and changed the hue
on each of these layers and masked each according. You can use as many
layers as you want-just don't go too crazy.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Now that we have our colors done, I'd like to
outline some of them-not necessary to do, it's just the style of makeup I
want to do. In preparation for this, create a new layer named Black
Outlines. With this layer active, command+click in the layer thumbnail
of the Blue Eyes layer-this will select all pixels in that layer. (I
know a lot of you use Windows and I never remember the Windows
equivalent but it's either Control+click or Alt+click: you'll figure it
out, I have confidence in you). Notice that the selected area does not
include the eyes themselves and if I were to add a stroke, it would do
the outside edge of the blue but also the inside edge around the
eyes-not what I want so I grab the elliptical marquee tool and by
holding down the shift key and dragging the marquee over each eye one by
one, I add them to my selection.
[Edited by User on 11/17/2012 9:19:35 PM]
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
So now, let's go ahead and outline the eye makeup
in black. Got to Edit-Stroke and then another window will pop up. Set
the stoke to 6 pixels (or whatever you deem appropriate), the color to
black and the stroke to outside.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
I've done the same for the nose and have kept all
the outlines together on one layer. I've changed the blending mode to
Multiply. I've first smudged the strokes just a bit with a soft brush at
50% strength so that they don't look too perfect and Photoshopped (but
don't overdo it) and then with the dodge tool set to Shadows and 50%
exposure, dodge where the light would be hitting it hardest. Even though
it's black, the makeup is shiny and will reflect light.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Instead of outlining the mouth in black, I've
decided to outline it in red. I've created a new layer and followed the
same procedures (once you have the basic idea, it's just repetition).
This time, however, I've smudged the red outline quite a bit more into
the underlying color. I've also used that same red color to go over the
lips a bit more.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
I've been saying all along how shiny this makeup
is so it's time to add a highlight layer. On it, I've used a soft brush
at 80% opacity and using the color white painted in some highlights as
shown by my precisely drawn green arrows.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Yes, I know those highlights look lame but bear
with me-I'm trying something new. I want to add a little skin texture to
these highlights so I go to Filter-Texture-Texturizer and in the pop up
choose the sandstone texture with settings as shown.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
So how did it work? Well, it applied texture but
also dark shadows in the texture. So I changed the blend mode to screen
which dropped out the shadows and was left with just the white grainy
looking highlights. They were a bit too intense so I grabbed the blur
tool and setting it to a soft brush and 50% opacity, I softened it up a
bit. I also used a soft eraser at 20% opacity and erased a little of the
highlights. I moved on to the lips, alternately painting on white at
varying opacities and then smoothing them out with the blur tool.
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
Almost done. White is very reflective and tends
to pick up other colors that are near it. There is no real strong
colored light in this image but even so, it will add dimension if I show
a bit of that. I create a new layer set to multiply and using a light
blue color, I use a soft brush set to 20% opacity and paint a little
blue over the right side of his face. If you look closely at the clown I
did at the beginning of the tutorial, I did just this in two layers-the
left/shadow side of her face has a light purple multiplied over it
while the right/highlight side has a green color. It's so much nicer
than just stark white. The mime has just a touch of red over her face
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Todd1000 said 10 months ago
And we're done, voila!
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