Surprise!!

Hello.

Well, I am done. Finally. I didn't take that long really. But I put it off for a while so I'm very happy to say I have completed it. Of course if I feel the need to tweak in the future, I will, but I am done for now. Yay!! I like it. It's new, it's fresh, it's original. I made the girl in the background by finding various images on the web that agreed with my vision, cut body parts, and parting them together , and editing (lots of it....)in Paint and PowerPoint. I am satisfied with my result. You wouldn't believe the amount of effort put into it, and so many different images of different people. This one woman is made up of images of Caucasian, African American, and Asian women...but you would never know cause after I spliced and joined them, I painted over it all so she would look as close to my skin color as possible :). This chica in the background is basically a representation of me, and the ambience I want to embody and exude--think of the name of the blog ;). Maybe, just maybe, I will eventually put up photos of the process of her making. Actually--I will put them up with this post. Along with a before photo of the blog.

The process of created the background, particularly the woman in the background, was very extensive, but I will narrow it down to a few steps.

This is a VERRYYYY rough digital scratch of the vision I had in my head, not including the girl's background setting.

Yes....laugh if you will. Lol. I envisioned her with some time of white skirt and sitting on a chair in a room with flowing white curtains in the background. Head thrown back, letting out a laugh of relaxation and refreshing freedom. Relaxed, refreshed, free, exhilarated and serene.
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These are the images of the women whose parts I used to create the image.

There's one more lady, but I don't feel like searching for her pic again. She is the one I got the calves from.

Now, here is an abridged--severely abridged--version of the process I used to bring it all together, with help from Paint and PowerPoint. Pay attention to see if you can spot who I used for what.

Painted a skirt on my original vision 1st then added a leg and an oddly placed foot.


Hair: I eye dropped the color from the fro and used it to paint the hair. Notice the erasing and painting of the pumps to form feet shapes, and the progressive painting of the dress and legs and shaping and restructuring of the body (making her lean back in stead of sitting straight up).

How did I get her in a chair? Well, first I found a chair that was reclined, then placed her in it. But to make it look like she was sitting in it and not on top of it, I duplicated the exposed arm of the chair and placed it in from of her to give the image depth.



From picture 9 to 10, can you spot the difference? The edit that I made was in the the right arm. I painted over the hand on the elbow. See the last woman in the list to see where I got the arms from.
Picture 11, I painted her skin to make it a shade darker. I repeated this until I came to picture 12.
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THE ROOM

Here is a short snippet of how I got the amber curtains in the room in the background. the rest of the room is one whole picture. I found another picture I liked, cropped it down to the curtains, faded it like the rest of the room, and added it to look like it was a part of the room.

Here is the picture I cropped.

I cropped it to the far left, and used that part of the curtain.

Here is the original photo of main room.

Oh yeah, I added some bubbles and a bubble wand to put in her hand.

Then I faded it out

Voila ;)

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Here is my blog from before, as most of you are familiar with, and the after is right in front of you :)

I love my beginnings. And I love my advancement even more. Yay!!

Oh, and there are more updates to come on my time in D.C. so far...some things have happened. I 'll say nothing more until I post. ;)

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Toodles! 'Til later,

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O.F.C.J.