Here is a little something that I did for exercise; it turned out kind of nice, so I decided to share it.

It started while I was testing a 'pose set'; and turned into a photoshop exercise.

First, the final image:

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

Then a link to the unflattened psd file:
http://www.sharecg.com/v/27231/tutorial/Toon-effect-exercise

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

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Thanks for the link Whazizname

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Two days ago, I received an email from an admin at ShareCG; he claimed that the file I'd uploaded 'crashed' his machine...

We exchanged emails, and he finally said that the problem was probably with his computer.

Now, I'm telling you all this because; I'm wondering, if anyone here has experienced any troubles with this file (or any other zipped files from me)?




Thanks!

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

I've never heard of that.   ShareCG should have a lot of servers to not make a big difference with as much stuff is loaded out there. So I think it is on his end of the line.  

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Two wrongs don't make a right.
But six left turns will get you around the block
and back in the driveway again.

Uh oh; I'm at it again...

I recently noticed that my  "Action Girl", and "Female Form" image posting have outnumbered my "Cars & Cuties" postings. I decided to remedy that...; so ...

I created this image:

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

But then I wasn't satisfied with the scene; so I saved a few Poser screen captures ("Cartoon w/ lines", "Lighted Wire", and "Flat Shaded") to use as 'adjustment layers' in photoshop, and then began playing with postwork techniques.

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

After several different combinations, I still could not decide which I liked best; but I decided to share my favorites. Here they are, in no particular order.


{If anyone would like a more 'in depth' explanation of what I did, feel free to ask, and I will do my best to answer any questions.}

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

I then decided that the scene needed to be "somewhere"; so I added a cityscape background ("Cityscape-024.jpg" from a freebie without a readme), and tried a few combinations; here is the one that I like best  (so far...)

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

That's an interesting experiment.  All three of the composites brought out various aspects of the car, but none of them did much for the girl (with the exception of her hair, which looks better in all three).  Prior to adding the background, if we were just talking about the composites as stand-alone images I like MiyukiChallenger-01a3 best.  It's extremely bright, but would look pretty good if you added a pure yellow layer for color adjustment and a grey layer for brightness adjustment.

Was there some specific objective you were aiming for (other than experimentation) in choosing the toon style to overlay onto the original image?  I'm not sure what look you were trying for here.

Since this is a discussion I hope you don't mind I took the liberty of grabbing your original image MiyukiChallenger-01 and spent about five minutes throwing some layers over it.  In this example, all the layers (settings listed in the top right corner) are simple duplicates of the original image except the multiply layer (which was just a blank yellow fill), the Hue layer (which contained only a mask of the girl) and the top layer, which was the original image desaturated to greyscale.  In the original image, the color saturation of the girl's skin is very low, which makes adjusting it difficult.  If I spent more time on it and if I knew what you were looking in particular to examine with your experiment I'm sure something much more interesting could be done here.

The last image you posted with the background added is starting to look pretty good, and regardless of where you go from there will be pretty nice in itself once you erase the smudges around the girl.

Thanks for the input Endosphere!
I had tried some of your suggestions before I decided to post this "progression" here.

I certainly do not mind your making modifications to the image; because they help illustrate your opinion; and as you said...; this is a discussion.

The day after I posted these here, I returned to the image, to try out something that I had in mind, only to discover that I'd inadvertently flattened and saved the base psd; so I had to start all over again. This turned out to not be a bad thing, since I did need to move the building, and decrease the blur on the "wires" layer (The intense blurring is what caused the "smudges" around the girl...). I also added two layers of sky, and a ground image; but the image still does not yet "feel right".

Here is a jpg of the my favorite combination created after the re-start...:
{Yes, it is a bit too "solarized"; but it is a little bit interesting, too; I'm sure that I will try out some more things with this image before "It feels right".}

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

I still haven't settled on an ideal version for this image (in fact, I didn't try any more variations since the last posting here...); but I did use the "solarized version" as a clothing texture.

This scene started as an examination of the "Bear Slippers" freebie from ChrisCox.

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It's not what you look like, when you're doing what you're doing;
It's what you're doing, when you're doing what it looks like you're doing.

T must be up to something, or she surely would have sent the younger woman on the errand.

Apart from the hair, that image is already looking pretty good.  I'll be watching to see if it ends up significantly improved, so I can then proceed to shamelessy steal your tricks.