Tutorial: Turning people into stone

Written by devvv (06 Jul 2007 11:49 PM)

It is a very very hard thing to turn people to stone and make it look real. Not every picture can be used and there is a lot of fine-tuning necessary. If the effect is not working well just give it a new title: "Turning people into a zombie" ;)

1. Open up an image that shows a person that you want to turn into stone.
   
   The next action is not needed if you want to print the picture: Go to Image / Scale: 1024 x 768.
   
   click to enlarge
2. The first step is to free the person/the face of the person from the background. Use the paths-tool and set points along the outline of the person. Do this as long as you have come around the whole face. Then connect the last point with the first one by holding down CTRL when clicking the first point.
   
   click to enlarge
3. Now press ENTER. You're getting a selection then. The next step is to add a layer mask. Right click the layer in the layers dialog and choose "Add layer mask". Choose "selection" from the popping dialog. The person is now masked.
   
   Now add a new layer, fill it totally black. Move this layer down to the very bottom.
   
   click to enlarge
4. My layers look like this now:
   
   click to enlarge
5. The next step is to get a selection of the face itself. Because we worked with the paths-tool (...and paths are automatically saved...) we save a bit of time using an existing path and alter it.
   
   Dialog / Paths. In the dialog duplicate the existing path, name it "Face" (= "Gesicht" on the image). Double click the path. This activates the paths-tool and shows the existing path.
   
   Switch to the layers dialog and click the layer with the body.
   
   click to enlarge
6. Click the bottom edges now and press backspace on your keyboard to delete a point. Our goal is to (in my picture) seperate the cloths from the face.
   
   Repeat the deletion of the points until you're having a line between the left and the right side of the face. See the picture to understand what i mean.
   
   Now choose "Edit" in the preferences of the paths tool.
   
   click to enlarge
7. Then click the long line and move it down so border where skin ends and is covered by the cloths. Repeat this step until you get a nice completed path.
   
   click to enlarge
8. Press ENTER when done and CTRL+c to copy, CTRL+v to paste. Click the "Add layer"-button to get the pasted onto a new layer.
   
   Press M to select the Move-tool. The path should disappear.
   
   click to enlarge
9. We are now prepared to start the stoney part.
   
   2 easy steps follow:
   
   - Activate the Body-layer
   - Colors / Colors&Saturation - the saturation option move to the left to -75.
   - Activate the Face-layer: Colors / Desaturate.
   
   click to enlarge
10. Now follows an important part for the eyes so that your stoney face gets a realistic look.
    
    Use the paths tool again. Make a nice selection around the left eye. It should be very nice detailed and then press ENTER to get a selection of it.
    
    click to enlarge
11. Choose the clone-tool now and take a soft brush (17). Hold CTRL down and set the point from which you want to start your cloning. You'll maybe want to select a part on the forehead. Release CTRL then.
    
    Leave the selection active. Now add a new empty layer. On this layer clone the skin of your front over the eye.
    
    click to enlarge
12. Let the selection active and activate the dodge/burn-tool. Set "Burn" as option and use a soft brush to paint along the border of the eye. Burn the borders of the eye until the darkness is pretty much the same as in the corner of the eye. See my image to get a feel for this.
    
    click to enlarge
13. With the selection active go to Filter / Blur / Gaussian Blur: 8px. Deactivate the selection.
    
    To get some structure/pattern we add noise now: Filter / Noise / HSV: 3 | 0 | 0 | 15
    
    Then use the Gaussian Blur again: 1px.
    
    click to enlarge
14. Repeat the steps for the eye on a new seperate layer.
    
    click to enlarge
15. My layers look like this now:
    
    click to enlarge
16. Merge the two layers with the eyes and the face-layer now: (use "Merge down" from the right click context menu of the layers dialog). Eyes and face should now be on a single layer.
    
    click to enlarge
17. Colors / Brightness & Contrast: +90/+90
    
    click to enlarge
18. Download the "Stone-Texture" from the top right of this tutorial.
    
    Click File / Open as new layer and choose the location of the texture.
    
    Desatuarte using Colors / Desaturate. The layer should be atop all other layers.
    
    click to enlarge
19. Now move the texture layer at a position where it coveres the whole face. Use the Rotate-tool to cover more of the face.
    
    click to enlarge
20. Next step is to activate the face layer. In the layers dialog click right and choose "Selection from Alpha". Activate the texture layer again and add a layer mask. Choose "Selection" from the popup-dialog. Now the stone should have the shape of the face.
    
    - Selection / None
    
    click to enlarge
21. Set the layers mode to "Multiply", lower the opacity to 60% and apply Filter / Enhance / Sharpen: 45px.
    
    click to enlarge
22. To get more depth we duplicate the layer with the face. Move the duplicate to the very top of all layers.
    
    Colors / Brightness & Contrast: -90/+50 and set the layers mode to Overlay. Opacity to 60% again.
    
    click to enlarge
23. Because stone is never totally grey we need to colorize it a little bit. A soft yellow-green or yellow-red would be nice: Colors / Color Balance:
    
    Mids: 45/45/-45
    
    click to enlarge
24. And because we masked our body at the beginning we can now easily put our stoney face to a more attractive background (I tried google image search for "graveyard"). Open the picture as new layer and put it above the black background layer like i did here:
    
    click to enlarge
25. Here you'll see my final layers:
    
    click to enlarge
26. And this is just another version i played with. It reminds me of Warcraft 3 (The undead cd cover ;))
    
    click to enlarge

This work is licensed under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Austria.

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From: adivawoman (20 Aug 2008 10:47 PM)

Of all the tutorial I have seen this is the best. Your attention to detail and showing what your layers look like were a big help. Thank you so much.

From: Poopmix (20 Jun 2008 02:37 PM)

Every time i make a path (fully conneted)i cant apply the mask layer... why?

From: timmy332621 (14 Jun 2008 12:20 PM) – Send a private message

Nice!

From: timmy332621 (14 Jun 2008 10:39 AM) – Send a private message

I see it, thanks!

From: devvv (09 Jun 2008 05:02 PM) – Send a private message

it is called hue/saturation (1st entry in the colors menu)

From: timmy332621 (09 Jun 2008 04:56 PM) – Send a private message

I'm on step 9 but i cant find colors&saturation

From: devvv (02 Mar 2008 11:40 AM) – Send a private message

look on my picture to see what i mean ;)

From: devvv (02 Mar 2008 11:39 AM) – Send a private message

look on my picture - thats what i mean ;)

From: Liane (02 Mar 2008 04:24 AM) – Send a private message

I'm on step 6 and I've looked all over GIMP and I can't find anywhere " 'Edit' in the preferences of the paths tool."
I even looked in FILE, PREFERENCES. Can't find any paths preferences...

Help?

From: devvv (29 Feb 2008 12:39 PM) – Send a private message

some days ago i've written a tutorial for it in German, you can take a look at it here.

http://www.gimpusers.de/tutorials/affe-des-todes.html

i will translate this of course in the future ;) but don't know when i have time!

From: Arch (29 Feb 2008 11:39 AM)

hey nice tutorial i wanna try the eyes with that glowing thing.. i wanna do it so badly :( try to remember d steps and make a tut its gooD!

From: coche (28 Jan 2008 04:52 PM) – Send a private message

very funny and creative

From: devvv (28 Jul 2007 10:20 PM) – Send a private message

Brandon, it was more like a "playing around" - and I'm not too satisfied with it so i never tried to write a tutorial for it... I used lots of bluring, layer modes and noise on the blue thing. I don't remember the steps, sorry :-(

From: Brandon (28 Jul 2007 05:47 PM)

How did you do the warcraft III undead blue eye effect?

From: f4n (23 Jul 2007 09:01 PM)

great

From: tarun (17 Jul 2007 06:37 PM)

greeeeeeeeeet...........

From: Ali (11 Jul 2007 09:17 PM)

Turning people into a zombie :D:D

From: devvv (10 Jul 2007 11:16 PM) – Send a private message

You can use the scissorcs tool, yes. but you should save the selectcion then as a path so you don't lose it for the later steps.

From: snek01 (10 Jul 2007 03:14 PM) – Send a private message

May I use "Scissors Tool" including of "Path Tool" in step 2? And how?

From: devvv (10 Jul 2007 01:07 PM) – Send a private message

It's available to the right of the tutorial. Sorry for the delay

From: snek01 (10 Jul 2007 12:57 PM) – Send a private message

Where is the "Stone-Texture" available?

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