Does anyone know how to make this plastic look:

link (http://www.debutart.com/Search2.asp?INDUSTRY=Advertising&ARTIST_NAME=ArnO)

I've seen this technique a few times but I have a hard time finding some tutorial on making the plastic skin.. its not just some blur.. but if anyone can tell me how to make this style i would greatly appreciate it :)

To my eye, that first plastic look actually looks 3D rendered rather than a photoshop manipulated person.

A thread you may be interested in from a while ago is
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13164

After having a bit of a play on an image borrowed from another thread, best I could come up with was a heavy median with heavy highlights. Would be better with a more consistent tone though

Those images are airbrushed - either completely from scratch or using a photo as a guide there are plently of 'tutorials' around that cover this technique but they're usually not very insightful - when it comes down to it, its just hard graft and artistic talent.
You can kinda cheat it though. The look is basically very smooth gradients and exaggerated highlights.
If you have CS2 you can use surface blur to get a great airbrush finish - on a complete image you will probably need several layers with varied settings to get it just right. There are a number of ways to exagerate contrast, my fave (atm anyway) is to use a high pass overlay layer with a high radius - its a very versatile filter.

The other - more difficult way is to make a smudge painting of your picture with a soft airbrush changing mode between lighten, darken and normal.

Attached is a quick example of what you can do in about 5-10 minutes with high pass and surface blur. If I get bored later I might demonstrate a smudge.

i THINK THIS IS A JOB for the people behind the magzine computerarts! This is reminding much of vectoring....The idea si to get everything plastic that enhances the feeling of everything being plastic! O've seen the other pictures and look at the lighting oin face and body! it's painted in! Maybe this retoucher is more experienced withing graphic design or witihn art sketching in photoshoP!


GErry

thx for the replies ..ill look into them here in the weekend.. there might be something usefull in them..but if anymore ideas are out there i will gladly see them :D

I have heard about the airbrush thing before..but im not quite sure where to find a good tuturiol about this.. so if anyone have a good link to one just put them in too ..
thx for the help :)