Welcome to Day 22 of MOC - Make Your Own Bobblehead! Today’s challenge fits into the Art Journal category – and it will get you thinking outside the box. Many great artists from Leonardo Da Vinci to Frida Kahlo kept art journals. An art journal is a place to explore and experiment. It’s a safe place to try new techniques and media. The focus of art journaling is the creative process and the journey – rather than the destination or end product. So for today’s challenge relax, let loose, and let your creative muse and intuition guide through experimentation. Above all, have fun – and allow yourself a little giggle at the end of the creative process! Today’s challenge also involves technique. There are many techniques one can use to create a bobblehead. If uncertain how to get started, please check out the tutorials below. So, what is a bobblehead? A bobblehead is also known as a nodder or wobbler because the head can shake up or down, or move around, when touched. For today’s challenge a bobblehead is a figure in which the head is disproportionately enlarged compared to the body. For the Bobblehead challenge, you may make more than one bobblehead and you may make a domestic cat or a dog bobblehead instead of a human bobblehead. But the simple requirement is to make and use a bobblehead in your layout. Note: no other animal may be used for your bobblehead!!! Why? An elephant already has a large head. A lion already has a large head. I NEED TO SEE that YOU enlarged a head and opening this challenge up to the kingdom of animalia (which also includes insects) will be too difficult for me as judge. After you make a bobblehead, you may convert it into a sticker (e.g. adding a stroke to the figure). Challenge Requirements: 1. Make a bobblehead from a photograph or ephemera. You MAY NOT use a pre-extracted art doll, figure, or model. Your photograph can be new, old, stock, or ephemera – pretty much anything except a pre-extracted figure. Your bobblehead must be human or a domestic cat or a dog (no other animals). 2. Make the head at least the same width as the shoulders – or larger. This is subjective and I am not looking for exact measurements – but I need to SEE an enlarged head. Be sure to keep enough shoulder/body in view so that I can determine the proportions. This is not a floating head – the enlarged head must be attached to the body. 3. After you make your bobblehead, use it in any style layout. Examples include, but are not limited to, art journal style, clean and simple, or filled. You may use a template for your finished layout. Remember, Artist Trading Cards are not allowed this cycle. 4. You may run additional filters or process your bobblehead in other apps to create a cartoon look. If you do this, please include the original photo in this thread so I may have a comparison to go by. A few tips on photo selection and styling (tips, not requirements): - Hair is difficult, but not impossible to work with. It is best to choose a subject with short hair, hair pulled up, or hair that is behind the shoulders. Remember, you can use ephemera from one of our TLP designers, or a stock photo. As an art journal challenge, you may not be as concerned about printing out your result for a scrapbook. - Full body photographs are fun to work with but not required. A portrait photograph is doable. - Creating an out-of-bounds effect is very fun with bobbleheads – but not required. - I recommend a full extraction of the subject – but extraction is not required. An extracted head can be placed onto another body – think of creating an art doll or transforming yourself into a mermaid or action hero. MOC Requirements: Your page must be a new page to count for the Month of Challenges. Your page must be posted in three places: 1. Uploaded to the TLP Gallery (not an outside hosting site). 2. Posted in your page thread you created in the MOC Layouts Folder. You should have one post per completed challenge page. If you complete all 31 challenges, your thread should contain 31 posts. Please do not comment in the participants’ page threads so we can keep them clean. 3. Posted in this thread. People can comment here if they wish. Your page must contain Lilypad product (pages with photos and font only do not count). If you use product from other stores, your pages must contain at least 75% current Lilypad product (currently for sale in the store from either permanent designers or guest designers). Additional MOC Requirements are found here. Recap: Create at least one human, or domestic cat, or dog bobblehead – make the head approximately shoulder width or larger. Use the bobblehead in a layout following MOC guidelines. Inspiration from the Pollywogs (these are hilarious!!!) @weaselwatchr (Danica): @Iowan (Carol): @MiekSter (Annemieke): And original photo for comparison: ***Tutorials in new post***
************************Break*****************************Break************ You are not required to use these techniques or tutorials. These are simply examples of what you can do. A. A Guide to Extractions – Summer School Week 1 This thread has video tutorials for Photoshop Elements and Craft Artist Professional. B. Erase-away technique using a layer mask (Photoshop). 1. Import your photo into your photo-editing or scrapbooking software. 2. Duplicate the photo; then increase its size. The enlarged photo stays on top. Decrease the opacity of the enlarged photo so that the original, bottom photo shows through. This will help you “see” where to erase. Example: I marked the original shoulders in blue, and the enlarged head in red. The original shoulders are my guide. On the enlarged photo, I will erase away everything outside of the red circle. 3. If your software allows, add a layer mask to the enlarged photo. This will help you erase away the unwanted portions of the photo. Otherwise, use your software’s eraser tool. Erase away all but the head (and hair and hats, etc.). Play with brush opacity and hardness. If you are using a layer mask, you can’t go wrong. Toggle back and forth between a black brush (to erase) and a white brush (to bring back hair for example). Play with hardness – around a jaw line you will want a “hard” brush at or near 100% opacity. With hair – you will want a softer brush with 50% or less opacity. You may also want to decrease the brush size to bring back fine strands of hair. Example of a Photoshop layer mask (white – reveal; black – conceal) and brush settings: 4. Increase the opacity of the enlarged head. Verify your “lines” match and you have a cohesive bobblehead. Toggle back and forth between the original photo and the bobblehead. Continue to erase away and bring back portions of the enlarged head until you are happy with the results. 5. Fine tune your bobblehead. Consider adding in additional hair strokes with a brush tool or add a shadow under the chin for added depth. Feel free to play with filters or additional apps. 6. Once your bobblehead is complete, make a layout with the bobblehead as your star. C. Extraction technique (Photoshop) There are many tools that extract. Magnetic Lasso is my favorite because my hands are unsteady, and I twitch while extracting. The Magnetic Lasso drops anchor points at regular intervals set by the user (mine is set to 5). I set contrast to a low percentage to pick up subtle differences in pixel color. 1. Import your photo into Photoshop. 2. Select Magnetic Lasso. Using the Magnetic Lasso, trace around the edge of the figure you wish to extract. The result is a rough outline that can be perfected using the Lasso tool. Note: If you need to start over, use CNTRL D (PC) or Command D (Mac) to deselect. If you accidentally deselect your selection, select “Edit” followed by “undo deselect” in the menu bar. 3. Select the Lasso tool. Hold the “shift” key to add pixels to the selection. A “+” sign will pop up. Hold the “option” key on a Mac or “Alt” on a PC to remove pixels from the section (good if you need to remove pixels between legs or hair). A (-) sign will pop up. Continue to toggle between “shift” to add and “option/alt” to remove pixels. In the snapshot below, I removed pixels in the red circles; I added pixels in the blue circles. 4. Once you are happy with the outline, you may do one of two things—immediately “layer via copy” or continue to fine tune within the “select and mask” feature. To immediately copy, hover your cursor over your figure. Right click; then select “layer via copy.” Your figure is now extracted. 5. I prefer to use the “select and mask” feature. Within “select and mask” I typically smooth out my marching ants, increase the contrast (no feathering), and shift the edge in the negative direction to make the overarching selection decrease in size. Once happy, select “OK.” Hover your cursor over the figure, then right click, “layer via copy.” Your figure is extracted. 6. You may use this technique to extract a full body, or just the head. If extracting a full body, remember to chop off the head, grow it, then reattach it. You may want to use additional tools such as “clone” or make use of layer masks to make edges meet. 7. After you create a bobblehead, use it in a layout.
***Reserved for Questions*** Q: Can we have more than 1 photo? I have a set of about 4 of the same person and was thinking of doing the bobble head to just one of the photos. I could make that photo the "star" of the photos. A: Yes - you can have more than photo, and more than one person (animal) in the photo (or the same person/animal more than once). Just make sure the bobblehead is the star! As a reminder - designers' pre-extracted art dolls (including stickers), where all you have to do is chop off its head, is not allowed for this challenge. The goal is to learn new techniques or revisit old ones in this art journal challenge. Exception: you may extract "your" head and attach it to a pre-extracted art doll to create something new. The "new" needs to be obvious. Thanks!
Oh my what a unique challenge!! I hope I have the time to play this week!! If not I will be doing this in my near future!
Can we have more than 1 photo? I have a set of about 4 of the same person and was thinking of doing the bobble head to just one of the photos. I could make that photo the "star" of the photos.
Original pic - I enlarged baby Koda's head..this was taken last fall at one of our local parks... I used Baby Koda as my bobblehead cause well he's a whole lot cuter and less hair to worry about but got lucky with one of him wearing a hat! Credits: APennington: Dear '21