How to create a goofy character
I've had a few people ask me where I found the leprechaun used in my March graphic and the invite designed for some friends (above), and the answer is that I created him. I didn't exactly draw him, although this technique could be loosely described as a form of digital illustration. What I really did is piece him together out of many different photos. I used the same process to make my weird theater illustration, as shown below.
For the characters I create, I usually start off with a sketch (or a very clear mental picture, which is more often than not the case... I'm not a big sketcher). Then, I start finding photos of the face shape and type that I want, and start from there. This part can take forever. I've gotten good at searching stock photo sites! Below is the photo that started it all. My search parameters? Irishman. No joke, honest.
To add to my characters I either use pieces of my own photos, or I purchase the lowest resolution version from iStock Photo or Fotolia. So far I have only made these characters for the web, which keeps the cost way down (and adds to my ever growing Stock Photo library for web design). The photo above was my base; I then added on a different nose, two different eyes (one shut, one open), an ear, and I distorted the original photo's mouth using the warp tool in Photoshop.
I usually use the marquee tool to loosely select around the area I want to paste into my working file, and then I play with color balance, brightness and contrast, and/or hue and saturation until the photo matches the skin tone of the face. After merging that layer onto the face, I use the paintbrush, healing brush, clone brush, and sometimes the blur tool to blend the elements together. The more exaggerated the features the better. You don't want to make a picture perfect face; you want one with a lot of character.
The hard part for me is the face and its expression. Once that's done to my liking, the costume and accessories is the easy (and most fun!) part. To complete the leprechaun character, I found a hat that would work and distorted the perspective a bit so the brim fit the angle of the head (a bit of shadowing was also needed), and I found a photo of the body, bow tie and pipe. Because of the way I chose to crop it, I didn't need hands or feet. Some more blending/erasing, and voila! A quirky looking leprechaun.
The last thing I do is pick a background or create one myself. The background for this image was just a plain red theater curtain, which I added a "spotlight" to in order to highlight the character. For the finishing touch, I always add a bit of film grain to (a) add a retro feel and (b) to help disguise the fact I am working with low res photographs.
I didn't bother going into a step by step approach for this tutorial, but if you would find detailed Photoshop steps useful, let me know and I will post a more in-depth set of instructions. And if anyone tries this on their own, I would love to see what you came up with!
