Natalie Portman, Transformed

A while ago I was experimenting with textures, trying to make a reptilian skin among other things. I found a photo of Natalie Portman that I decided would be my victim in the transformation. This was the original photo that I found online.

After I found the photo to use, I took a look at the shape of her face.  I decided to mirror one side of her face instead of using the original photo.  The top image below is the left side of the photo mirrored; the bottom image is the right side mirrored.

There wasn’t a whole lot of difference between the two, but I liked the way her chin looked in the right side mirror image.  It had more of a long, slender shape, better suited for the picture I had in my head.  Next came the shadowing and slight redefining of her facial features, especially the eyes.  I added some lighting and shadow around the eye sockets and blackened the eyeballs/pupils.

Next came the textures and more shadows.  The texture was actually a combination of two images…one of blue and green snakeskin I created in Photoshop.  The other was a dirt pattern to give the face a bit more of a rough and textured look.  I also added some red highlighting on the forehead to give the face a little more interest and depth.  Initially, the alien was female, so I added a shade of red to the lips to give it a more feminine appearance.

After watching a webisode by Bert Monroy, it gave me the idea to add some hair. There are about five layers of hair.  There’s a layer behind the blue lighting to give it a highlighted effect.  And several layers on top for the different hair colors along with more highlights and shadows.  I also added more shading in the face and gave the lips a green tint…a typical male in this alien civilization.  Click the image for a larger view.