Lecture Two: Enhancing Your Reference Images

The secret of good art is Laughter,
make your friends and classmates laugh.

Use the Warp Transform Tool in GIMP,
but keep hardness and strength low.

You want to make gradual changes,
aim to revisit areas of the face multiple times, be gentle.

With a large Move Pixels Warp Transform,
move the bottom of the face up.

This creates a more youthful face,
with very little effort.

Now slightly enrage the upper head,
the effect is that the rest of the head becomes smaller.

The point is not to make the forehead bigger,
but everything else smaller.

Make the lips slightly narrower, by moving pixels,
or just use the shrink area setting.

Round off the jaw line,
make sure it curves smoothly.

And try to make the chin more pointed,
if possible.

Enlarge the eyes with grow area setting,
a litter goes a long way.

But you will easily see something is wrong,
if you go too far.

And consider enlarging the iris,
so that it fill more of the eye.

Once you get to painting it,
make sure it glows and it full of crystal clear reflections.

You may experiment with the nose,
but since we changed everything around it it may not need work.

Be sure to zoom way out, and try to see the face from a distance,
it is easier to see where you went too far.

But be careful because our minds are constantly,
over-processing this face.

Humans are really good at faces,
and our brains love gentle strangeness here.

What may seem like a big forehead,
may actually be a face that is too long...

Where you need to pull the bottom of the face up,
a little bit more.

In 1995 My stupid internship,
forced me to copy yellow pages.

But, there was a photo of Bill Clinton,
gently holding his pregnant belly.

In the many months that I worked there,
I was forbidden from going anywhere near the designers.

Those were powerful computers,
only a company could afford them.

I went to a store somewhere on Fifth Avenue,
I don't think it was the Apple store, but they had Apples.

I walked up to it to see if I could manipulate on there,
and the damn webcam that they were demoing.

Was creating a dithered video,
basically black dots on white background.

Maybe it was a filter,
maybe the camera was full color.

But, it was all slow and crushing,
I had no computer that could manipulate real color.

There is no worst feeling,
than being limited by the technology of your time.

By the way my whole photo manipulation fancy truly begun,
on a plane on my way to America.

I had a fancy magazine with me,
and the article that caught my attention was entitled:

"How To Spot Photo Manipulated Photographs",
and had some very useful photos.

This was a real breakthrough moment for me,
because until then...

The best graphics I've ever seen,
were shots of Commodore Amiga Demos in Magazines.

What I took away from the article,
is that photo manipulators always get the shadows wrong.

So all you need to do,
is check the shadow.

Or in this case,
make sure the neck is not too long when you move the lower part of head up.

Once I had a proper Pentium 90 computer,
I became aware of Kai's Power Tools, and dis some early photo manip.

But I needed to learn many programming languages,
about a year after high-school like all nerds back then, I was already making web pages.

But that is a whole different,
story.

People will be critical of photo-manipulating source images,
and then using them as direct image reference for your paintings.

They just don't understand modern art,
they want to make money and pretend they are special.

And that they will try to force you to create art,
the way we created art a hundred years ago, that is just assault.

If the critics begin make your experience toxic,
or disrupt the harmony of your community.

Immediately turn to the platform tools,
and report them - don't argue with them.

If the platform is crap,
find out which accelerator they used and their backers or investors, and send them screenshots.

Critics are only attempting to dominate, to extinguish,
to feel superior by means of hate, by the simplest means.

They are just creepy children in their heads,
they never grew up, and they many never achieve anything.

Don't argue with them, don't explain anything,
just let them self destruct.

The brilliant you,
couldn't count all your giggles due to this style of art, even if you tried.

Your whole classroom will ask you for these doodles,
know that this is true art, that giggles pave the way.

You don't have to do it,
but consider teaching a class.

Especially if you are still in High School,
help others experience a fragment of sillies of art.

Kindle their spirits,
and lead the way.

But please note: You should never feel bad that you maybe too shy to teach,
shy is beautiful, like in my case, it just means you'll do your lectures later on.