Turn skin into white plastic?

[lnetzel]

Hi, I was looking though the forum for tutorials and and thread about making plastic looking skin. The only thing I could find was making a model shot have more "plastic" skin. I'm after something mroe extreme and can't find any good resources for this.

I want to turn a picture of a persons face into white plastic. Sort of like the look of Star Wars Stormtroopers or the robots from the music Video "All is Full of Love" by Björk.

Here's my two failed tries:

1. I've tried using a completely white layer and different blending modes and that turned out more like clown paint.

2. Tried taking a desaturated version of the image and put on top of a white layer and mask away eyes and other importand features and keep the original for that but it just did not turn out like anything good at all.

Any ideas on how to achieve this? I don't have knowledge or access to any 3D applications. Only PS CS3.

Maybe this is covered in some thread but I cant find it?

Thank you!

[pellepiano]

Plastic reflects in another way than skin does. Reflections and specular highlights are among the things makes us see difference between different materials. So you need to redraw the highlights to look like plastic highlights ( sharp edges if its a clean smooth reflective surface ). And smooth the skin to get rid of all pores.

[lnetzel]

Thank you for your tips.

First of all I'm not a pro and second I'm not much of a freehand painter and will definately fail big time atempting to draw sharp new highlights.

This is what I have so far:

http://www.mymessedupmind.com/images/porslin.jpg

I got this by blurring a desaturated layer of the face, copied it to a new layer and added the plastic wrap filter and used pin light as layerblending. I think the plastic wrap gave me highlights that are in the right direction and blurring the skin definately gave a less human look but this is still not in any way towards plastic... this looks more like porcelain.

Any pointers on how to go about from here?

[Ziaphra]

Perhaps this tut will help and you could lighten the skin...?

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161136

[Benny Profane]

Use mesh in Illustrator.

[lnetzel]

Did I say I'm not a pro

Mesh in illustrator... is that somekind of manual semi 3d way of working? How does that help me get the right "surface look"?

[Benny Profane]

Originally Posted by lnetzel

Did I say I'm not a pro

Mesh in illustrator... is that somekind of manual semi 3d way of working? How does that help me get the right "surface look"?

No, it's mesh in Illustrator, which is, sort of, a 3D-but-flat vignette. All I can say is, get a recent copy of Illustrator, sit down with a good book, and practice. It's difficult to work with. I've only used it a few times, and I should go there more for highlight work.

[Mining Art]

A 3D mesh is one way to go. There are free and inexpensive 3D tools out there on the net. Search for Accutrans 3D, it is a good program to start out on and comes with good docs. You can just extrude the face to 3D and than apply a plastic mesh as you need. Than save in a raster format to put back into your coat and fine tune. One advantage to having the face in 3D is that you can easily contort or skew the face and add shadows or light.

[luqingcc]

hello.I am a Chinese. I hope to make friend with you. My English is very pool.

[superkoax]

Originally Posted by luqingcc

hello.I am a Chinese. I hope to make friend with you. My English is very pool.

What? ............

[ruud92]

Originally Posted by superkoax

What? ............

In China they cant say the 'R' so thats why he probably said Pool instate of poor. they speak for a R, a L out.

[luqingcc]

I am sorry, I made a mistake. Should be poor, rather than pool .i am a retoucher. I hope I can improve my English.

[lnetzel]

Hi,

First of all... welcome luqingcc!

So basically you are all saying, if I don't want to freehand the highlights I have to go 3d? That's alright, a bit more timeconsuming than I would have hoped for but if that's the way to go then it's as it is and I thank you for the tips.

I'm surpriced though there's no tips on how do do this with filters in CS3 though.

[cricket1961]

Originally Posted by lnetzel

Hi,

First of all... welcome luqingcc!

So basically you are all saying, if I don't want to freehand the highlights I have to go 3d? That's alright, a bit more timeconsuming than I would have hoped for but if that's the way to go then it's as it is and I thank you for the tips.

I'm surpriced though there's no tips on how do do this with filters in CS3 though.

I'm sure there is, and if I get a spare moment I can look into it. Is the look you are after represented somewhere that I can see an example? Is it more of a matte finish you are after, a semi-gloss or highly polished?

Chris

[smoothfluid]

lnetzel, I think your china doll is brilliantly spooky. I don't have any solutions to your plastic problem but might try following your method for porceliening people!