Rosie
This is a whimsical image of our cat, Rosie. I painted her in Paintstorm Studio, then finished the image in iColorama. The feature I like best is the glowing white edge of the right side of her face, which lends a strong backlit feel.
I started with my iPhone photo. I wanted to capture an unusual point of view. She was sitting on top of my while I was lying in bed.
In iColorama, I applied Adjust/Levels to increase exposure, and I applied Adjust/Tonelab preset 5 at medium opacity for tonal separation. Then I used Effect/Blur Preset 2 with medium radius to blur the image, and used a brush mask to protect the cat from being blurred, resulting in a blurred background.
I opened the image in Paintstorm Studio. I reduced the opacity of the photo layer so I could use it as a guide to the painting I will do on new layers. On a new layer, I used the Draw Blend Opacity brush to paint color all over the canvas. Then on another layer I used the Simple Ink pen with black ink to paint some outlines (I modified the brush characteristics a bit), and to fill in her pupils. Still using the Simple Ink pen, I switched to white ink and painted in her whiskers, catchlights in the eyes, some texture on her nose, and some highlighted edges on the right side of her face and on the blanket edges on the right. I used the Soft Blend tool to soften the thick white edge of her face. I adjusted the layer opacities of all the layers. Then I saved to my camera roll.
I opened the image in iColorama. I used Adjust/Tonelab for tonal separation, and I applied Effect/Denoise smoothe preset a couple of times to remove some posterization, in preparation for using Effect/Raise. Then I applied Effect/Raise preset 1 at medium opacity, to give a 3D feel to the brush strokes.
I used Tone with an inverted brush mask to change the color of her eyes to closer to their actual color.
Then I used Effect/Blend to blend the original photo over the image at low opacity, to give the tiniest hint of the background, using a brush mask to protect the cat and foreground.
I used Tone to try and get more of her golden color, using an inverted brush mask to apply the effect only to the cat.
Finally, I applied Preset/Border preset 6. This has the effect of de-emphasizing the background, and lends a feeling of whimsy to the image.
