Saladscream's den

Merlin is really getting the hang of this sailor thing... ⚓🥰⚓

Still inspired by @the-pen-pot's Sigh No More AU world.

Ok, this is one of my absolute favourite manips ever. I know it doesn't seem like much, and other manips have been vastly more popular, but to me this manip stands out because it was a 100% joy to make, and it was all about the challenges.

Challenge #1 was the source picture itself,

Challenge #2 was finding the right headshot,

Challenge #3 was getting the colours and lighting to match.

And I cannot even begin to tell you how satisfying it was to overcome each and everyone of those challenges.

Left: found a really poor quality version of this picture on pinterest. It looked too good to be true, but the fact that the quality of all the versions I could find was so crappy led me to believe it was genuine and not AI - which was great news. Had to do quite a lot of detective work to finally hunt down a bigger cleaner version from a pdf. (FYI, this is the cover picture from an old issue of a niche French magazine) I felt mighty proud of myself for getting my hands on it. Challenge #1 unlocked! 🏆

Right: Took me a little while to find the exact right scene, but I knew there had to be a Kilgarrah scene where Merlin looks up at the camera, so I rummaged through the episodes until I screencaptured The Headshot. Challenge #2 = done! 🏆

So you immediately see that the camera angle and the head tilt and light angle are all a great fit... except that Merlin is a nighttime shot (or "night" filtered)!! 😅 So I had to play with the temperature, colour, lighting, painted over some layers, etc, until I got a suitable skin tone. Challenge #3 was overcome! 🏆

And I hope by now you understand why I love this manip. It was awesome to create and I loved the result. 😊

So to sum up...

Right: "vintage" source picture Left: wristwatch removed + hands smoothed a bit + equipment on the deck of the ship made less conspicuously yellow + blond windswept hair removed

Edit:

Edit:

Merlin is really getting the hang of this sailor thing... ⚓🥰⚓

Still inspired by @the-pen-pot's Sigh No More AU world.

Ok, this is one of my absolute favourite manips ever. I know it doesn't seem like much, and other manips have been vastly more popular, but to me this manip stands out because it was a 100% joy to make, and it was all about the challenges.

Challenge #1 was the source picture itself,

Challenge #2 was finding the right headshot,

Challenge #3 was getting the colours and lighting to match.

And I cannot even begin to tell you how satisfying it was to overcome each and everyone of those challenges.

Left: found a really poor quality version of this picture on pinterest. It looked too good to be true, but the fact that the quality of all the versions I could find was so crappy led me to believe it was genuine and not AI - which was great news. Had to do quite a lot of detective work to finally hunt down a bigger cleaner version from a pdf. (FYI, this is the cover picture from an old issue of a niche French magazine) I felt mighty proud of myself for getting my hands on it. Challenge #1 unlocked! 🏆

Right: Took me a little while to find the exact right scene, but I knew there had to be a Kilgarrah scene where Merlin looks up at the camera, so I rummaged through the episodes until I screencaptured The Headshot. Challenge #2 = done! 🏆

So you immediately see that the camera angle and the head tilt and light angle are all a great fit... except that Merlin is a nighttime shot (or "night" filtered)!! 😅 So I had to play with the temperature, colour, lighting, painted over some layers, etc, until I got a suitable skin tone. Challenge #3 was overcome! 🏆

And I hope by now you understand why I love this manip. It was awesome to create and I loved the result. 😊

So to sum up...

Right: "vintage" source picture Left: wristwatch removed + hands smoothed a bit + equipment on the deck of the ship made less conspicuously yellow + blond windswept hair removed

Merlin's learning the ropes... And someone gave him a pointy sabre! 😉

Still inspired by the Sigh No More AU world by @the-pen-pot. 😏⚓

Still no AI.

To celebrate, here's a little sneak peek behind the scenes at one of my manips, because some of you seemed interested in that sort of thing.

I didn't do much in terms of body modification, because long-haired guy was actually a good fit for Merlin, but I played with colours!

Left: a promoshot from Black Sails (no idea who the guy is, I haven't watched that show yet) Right: turned the top/tunic blue and the jacket brown to give a more Merlin-y feel + erased all the wind-swept blond hair + kept Merlin's neckerchief + erased the ring on the right hand

Merlin's learning the ropes... And someone gave him a pointy sabre! 😉

Still inspired by the Sigh No More AU world by @the-pen-pot. 😏⚓

Still no AI.

To celebrate, here's a little sneak peek behind the scenes at one of my manips, because some of you seemed interested in that sort of thing.

I didn't do much in terms of body modification, because long-haired guy was actually a good fit for Merlin, but I played with colours!

Left: a promoshot from Black Sails (no idea who the guy is, I haven't watched that show yet) Right: turned the top/tunic blue and the jacket brown to give a more Merlin-y feel + erased all the wind-swept blond hair + kept Merlin's neckerchief + erased the ring on the right hand