Gender Bending: Johnny Milano

[Pelican]

This month, we're going to do this.

This is my original chop. I am again re-doing this as I write the tut and we're going to see if I can do it even better this time.


I did this for a contest here at Photochopz.com and it did rather well. I chose it for the tutorial because its both advanced and simple at the same time. One of those where you need to trust yourself to turn what looks very difficult into a cut and paste job. The secret to this is all in the sources (Download below). Note that they are both of good size and quality and the lighting is similar. Other than that though, they don't seem to fit together very well. Thats what this is for. Download the pictures below and work along with me.

Download Alyssa Milano
Download Johnny Depp

Finally before we start, the first few steps are very repetative. I'll walk you through the first one and then other than small differences which I'll explain, its pretty much the same process for most of it.

Open the two pictures in Photoshop. In the Johnny picture get the left side of his mustache (your left) and move it into the Alyssa Pic. I used the polygon lasso, feather set to 0. Don't try to be too careful with your selection, we can mask it in later. Once you have it about in place you'll need to rotate it, so get your transform tool (Edit, Transform, Rotate). Turn it to line up the lips but placing the mustache about where it should be. Name the layer stache 1



Time to do a little masking. With your stache 1 layer selected, create a layer mask by clicking this button at the bottom of your layers palette . Make sure your foreground color is black . Get a soft brush 17px wide, opacity 100%. Take the hard edge of the layer off with that and then switch 50% opacity to start working around the mustache hairs.





Same as above, move the other side of the mustache into place. Name that layer stache 2. This one had to be re-sized a little bit. I left the width at 100% but changed it height to 88%.



Now we do the same on the goatee (I'm calling it the goatee). Bring it over and name the layer goatee. This one, I left the height at 100% and set the width to 90%, rotated the same -10.



Same with the beard. Bring it over and name the layer beard.This one we do an overall re-sizing to 80% and rotate it to -18. Next, reduce the layer Opacity to 65%. Clean it up as before using your layer mask. You may need to shift it into position as it cleans up and you can see more of what you want.

[Pelican]

Now then, its time for the scrappy looking part of Johnny Depps beard (not unlike my own..). Grab some stubble from his cheek and move it over like so. Name the layer cheek.



Change your brush to 45px/soft, 100% opacity and do the same clean up as before with a larger brush. (This you won't get perfect but we'll be fixing it later.) Click the eye icon on your cheek layer on and off a few times to note the location of the hair we just covered up. Change your brush size to 21px/soft, 50% opacity and make 2 passes across those loose hairs. (Remember that a 50% opacity passed twice does not take out 100%, it takes out 50% of what's there each time.)



Next is the last of the whiskers. Go get this and put it here. Name the layer beard 2. I reduced it to 80% and cleaned it up with a layer mask the same as all the rest.



Time for the glasses. Go get them and put then in. Name the layer glasses. As you can see, they really don't look they're going to work. It takes quite a bit of fussing with the distort and rotate tools.



Get what you think looks right and start there. Then you may have to go back to the distort tool a couple of times to get your perspective right. The first time I did this I think I adjusted the shape of those glasses a dozen times.

Special note: The resolution on this is 300dpi. You can get away with a lot of distortion adjustments. If this were a 72dpi picture I would not have even attempted it.







Do the clean up around the glasses and leave some of the shadows that were on Johnny's face. Those are the right color and there is no sense in not using them.

[Pelican]

Go to your beard 2 layer and highlight it. Create a new layer and name it shadows. Click on your foreground color to bring up the color picker and chose a very dark area in the skin tones as below.





I started with a large soft brush 200px, 10% opacity. Paint in a few swipes across the cheek and chin to where its darkening up some. Then switch a 100px brush and start getting more shadows in the lower areas along the jaw line.



Bring up the color picker again and chose a redder skin tone. I went for the shadow under the glasses. What we're doing next is filling in a little more shadow 'from' the glass.





Using the existing shadows, start painting in some fill that follows the contour of the face. Don't worry about being a little messy, you can just erase to clean it up.



Now then where you've painted in it looks flat a textureless. With your shadows layer still selected, go to the top of your layers palette and change the Blending Mode to Multiply. This will darken things up a bit and bring the skin texture back out. If it darkens things up too much you can change the opacity of the layer to suit you. I dropped this one to 85% opacity.

[Pelican]

Right here is where I almost stopped and uploaded for the contest but I kept wondering what it would look like with Johnny's lips in it too.
Select Johnny's mouth and get a good portion of his mustache with it. Bring it into the pic and name the layer lips. Reduce the opacity to 65% go to free transform and chose scale. With the constraints locked type in 105%. rotate it to -17.



If you line up the corners of the 2 mouths you'll be pretty close. Its a little too high but thats easier to change later. Set your opacity back up to 100% and with a 35px soft brush, opacity 100%, clean off the hard edges and you'll notice the bottom of her lip starts to show.



Go get his goatee again. Select a large portion of his lower lip this time. Bring it in and name the layer goatee 2. Rotate it to -17 and line it up a little lower so as to fatten his lip up a bit. Align the lines in his lip as best you can.





With a soft brush clean it up as we have been by using the layer mask.



Time to color the lips. I always just do this by making a selection within the lips and starting with a new adjustment layer (Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Levels) then working out the color I want. By using an adjustment layer, I can go back and change it any time.





I used these setting and just painted in the rest of the lips using a soft brush set to white as a color.







Lastly, since I did this for a Photochopz.com contest, I really should plunk a logo into the pic someplace.



Looks pretty good, but I don't think I did it better this time. Rats!!
Hope this has been helpful. See you on the next one!!

[joshbond]

damn smooth tutorial pelican!

[Pelican]

Thanks Man! I think I just finished editting so we should good to go!

[hunty]

That tut is deady, mite give it a go tomorrow

[Pelican]

I'm anxious to see it

[hunty]

This is my attempt at the above chop. Im 2 tired do the lips! Its just about 7am. Im going to bed, anyway, what you think of attempt haha
Its my second ever chop of person
Great tut Pelican