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I used Metabrush to generate a variety of textures for this beautiful girl, and then layered them in iColorama. What makes the image so striking is the side lighting, which was preserved from the original photograph, combined with the same-hued catchlights in her eyes. In the final result, she has a certain sad solemnity, like royalty, hence the name. I liked her so much that I made two versions.
I started with this gorgeous photo from the Sktchy app. I like her interesting face and serious gaze, and the beautiful lighting. Photo credit: Tamara Lara Photography
I will use this photo from Pixabay, a source of copyright-free images, to paint with in the Metabrush app.
I opened the photo of the girl in the Metabrush app. On a new layer, using Paint mode, I selected the Pixabay image as brush source (by touching the daisy icon on the upper left of the screen, then choosing it from my camera roll). I painted all over the girl with a medium-sized partially transparent hard square brush. I will use this image later, to blend with. Call this Image A.
Now, turning off visibility of the orange-painted layer in Metabrush (by clicking on its "eyeball"), I added a new layer, and painted all over the image in Shatter mode, still using the Pixabay image as brush source.
Still in Metabrush, with the above-painted layer still visible, I made a few sweeping diagonal strokes across the face of the girl, using 1color2 mode, and reducing the opacity of the layer. I will use this later for blending. Call this Image B.
Now I opened the original photo of the girl in iColorama. Using Effect/Blend, I blended Image A on top of the girl. I tried a lot of blending modes and slider settings, including the Lightness and Gray sliders under Set. Call this Image C.
Now, in iColorama, I blended Image A onto Image C, again trying many of the blending modes and slider settings, including the Gray and Lightness sliders under Set. And then onto that result, I blended the original photo of the girl, again trying many blending modes and slider settings. I saved many versions from this blend step, one of which I will use in Version 2, below.
Still in iColorama, I used Effect/Blend to blend Image B on top of the above image, again trying many blending modes and slider settings. I liked this, but I was not happy with the right side of the face.
Using Effect/Blend, I blended Image C onto the above image, using a brush mask to mask the left side of the image, including most of the chest, so that area would not be blended. Again, I tried many blending modes and slider settings as well as positions and sizes and opacities of Image C.
In Brush/Paint, using a small brush and white paint at reduced opacity, I painted in catchlights in her right eye. Then in Brush/Clone, using a small soft round brush, I cloned the right eye onto the left eye.
Finally, I used Form/Warp to warp the image in a direction consistent with the slanting brush strokes, to accentuate the face and eyes, for a more eye-catching result.
Now I will make another version. I start with one of the saved versions of a blend step from the making of Version 1, as I mentioned above. Call this Image D.
I will also use this image, which is another version of the blend step that led to Image C, above.
In iColorama, I lightened the image in Adjust/Levels, I modified the color in Tone/Enhance, I used Effect/Denoise for a bit of smoothing, and I used Effect/Sharpen to bring out the edges of the little "boxes" for more of a 3D texture to her.
In Effect/Blend, I blended Image D onto the above image.
For finishing touches, I applied Tone/Sepia to the image, to tone down the saturation, particularly in the reds. Then I used Effect/Denoise and a final Effect/Sharpen.
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