Digital Art – Mr. Lee

Animal Photo Manipulation

In this project you will learn how to create a new species of birds. The idea came to me after watching a cat trying to catch little birds and failing every time. Find images of a cat and a dove online and let’s start.

Step 1

Open the image with the dove in Photoshop. It’s not necessary to duplicate the background because you’ll work on this image just a little, but you can do so if you want.

Open the image with the cat, take the Rectangular Marquee Tool and select the cat. Copy it and paste it over the dove.

Use the Free Transform (Edit > Free Transform or use the shortcuts Ctrl + T) and flip the image horizontal.

Step 2

You need to delete the cat’s body. If you use the Eraser Tool you wouldn’t be able to bring it back if it’s necessary. In this case you’ll not need to, but maybe you’ll use this tip in another project. Apply a mask to this layer. Do so by clicking on the little icon you see at the bottom of the Layer Palette.

Activate the layer mask by clicking on it, set the foreground color to black, take the Brush Tool and start to erase the body.

After you’ve masked the body, lower the brush diameter, set the Hardness to 50% and start to delete the area around the head. Don’t worry about the whiskers right now, delete them too, you’ll recreate them later.

Step 3

Using Free Transform to transform the cat’s head to fit the dove’s body, but make sure you keep the head realistic.

Take the Brush Tool again set the Hardness to 100%, lower opacity, activate the layer mask and start to brush over the base of the neck to make a smooth transition between the cat and the dove.

Step 4

Now you can recreate the whiskers. Go to the Layer Palette, right-click on the layer mask and choose Apply layer mask. Next go to the Smudge Tool, set the Strength to 90% and the Master Diameter to 4 pixels and click and drag over the base of the whiskers to extend them. Do the same for the eyebrows.

Now set the Master Diameter to two pixels and recreate the fur around the head. You can create some of it over the back of the dove too.

Step 5

Now let’s create the head’s reflection. Duplicate the layer with the cat and flip it vertical. Position it like you see below.

In order to make the waves go Filter > Distort > Wave and apply the following settings.

Reduce a little the opacity of this layer and you’re done!

Result

And this is your own marterpiece. Digital surrealism.