Miserable Soul

Credit:
Image manipulating:
Khanh Mai (nick Deviantart: Adamaru)

Model :
[Link]

Background :
[Link 1] [Link 2]

Texture :
[Link]

Brush :
[Link]

Roots :
winterdove in sxc.hu // [Link]

Finally finished my first photo manipulation (manips) work, I've spent 1 day to finalize the idea and another day to find stock images and 4 hours to complete the images. The original size of this image is 1375 x 2500 px, so of course I can't post it here. The small version above is the only one without water mark. You can click HERE for larger version but I've put watermark in it. I also used this image in my DA account.

I've always wanted to practice manips as it is what makes Photoshop so interesting. However, I usually lacked patience to complete the pieces ^^" I want to talk about the technical stuff used to make this image, but I'll leave it in some later post. This post will be about my inspiration for this work ^^

Let's see. I usually looked at a lot of other people's work of photo manipulation in DeviantArt and what always makes me fascinated is how they combine human body with other things like fish-tail (for mermaid), horses, spiders… I want to try something like that too. However, I’m currently unable to re-draw or paint hair and body well while combination with animals usually requires such techniques. Therefore, the first reason I choose roots and soil is because it’s easier and faster to combine them. At the beginning, I want to make something romantic or look-like fairy tales because I've read some romantic novels recently. I thought about a princess who was cursed and turned into stone/tree. I imagined her standing in a forest in winter or something... However, it seems like I’m not good with romantic stuff so the image in my mind kept missing and I cannot complete the idea.

I decided to think about sth more mysterious and dark. I remembered a story that I read some days ago about a woman whose soul is trapped in hell forever because she committed a sin, and I think if someone turn into stone/tree, it looks like a punishment too, maybe I can create someone with miserable fate or look. I just continued with the thought and go find images of roots and woman. Next, I thought about background. Sin & Punishment usually remind me of an old, mysterious, dark and somewhat holy image, so I searched for things that can be used as a temple or sth like that. When I bumped into the image "The Door to nowhere” by CausticStock, I could imagine the rest of the picture and I just began to work with it.

Some of my friends who saw me doing this work will clearly see what I planned at the beginning at the result is quite different, I can't help it ^^;;; Now, we can hardly see the roots (even though i made her turn into tree at the beginning). I also made her hair longer and darker because if not, her head becomes too bland/flat. To make her blend better with background, I made her somehow transparent and look like a soul ^^"

I'm still a very newbie in manipulating photo, so this might be so simple and crappy (I didn't draw anything either). Moreover, to be honest, I made this for the sake of practicing Photoshop skills, not expressing any concept or design principles, so they are just feeling and imaginary that makes me create something like this. But I hope you'll like it ^^