[eccentricman]

This is something I'm quite familiar with, as most of my morphs use these techniques at some stage or another.

1. I consider the liquify tool to be a bit of a curse rather than a blessing: the amount of lumpy, crap muscle morphs seen on the net which just blast the liquify tool is depressing.

1a. The best tip for using the liquify tool is to do it gently; I tend to have the brush strength set to 10% or thereabouts and gradually add more and more distortion in small steps. Further, there are a lot of other tools which will help limit changes to other unaffected parts of the drawing.

1b. The next tip for using the liquify tool is getting the brush size right. I often find that a massive brush size, sparingly applied can add depth/size/mass to an image without distorting the pixels too much.

1c. The previous two tips help me avoid the greatest sin on liquify, which is massive pixel distortion. If you keep the pixels roughly square and roughly reasonable sizes, the morph can still retain quality (this may not apply somuch to your line drawings Gettar). If you are morphing though, and you overdo it, but like the effect, a smart blur followed by a faded out add gaussian noise (monotone) can occasionally do the job of recreating the effect of normal pixels.

2. The distort tool is an old friend and one which I still enjoy using. It can be one of the most flexible tools in photoshop.

2a. The first hint is to plan your morph or transform beforehand. On my morphs i generally cut out each muscle group on a limb and put them into a group for that limb; I can then morph each one and rearrange them freely, in easy stages. It just stands to reason that with increased mass, there might be a significant change in relationship between the three points of hand, elbow and shoulder on an arm, for example. If you have an idea of what you want to achieve, proper planning will make the work better and the result easier to get.

2b. There are occasions when the distort handles occur in locations that don't make the transform you want easy or possible. You can either chop the target apart as I tend to do, or cheat. Cheating is in transforming the part for change by rotating and then accepting the transform, when you transform it again, the bounding box will have been reset and you can use the new handles as you choose. Conversely, should you choose to rotate and distort and image simultaneously, and are happy with the locaion of the selection handles, do it in one hit: ctrl+t > right-click > select rotate > rotate to suit > right-click > select distort > distort to suit > accept changes. Try it and you might see what I mean.

3. The warp tool is awesome for photo morphs in CS2. I may be an addict and I've only really used it once. As an example of what I mean, check out the lindsay mulinazzi morph in may last thread and compare it to the annie morph: lindsay was warped, annie was distorted. Torsos are really hard to distort well, but can warp really naturally. Here's the link: http://amaz0ns.com/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=135&topic=4930.10

Anyway, as far as the warping technical stuff is concerned, Jed has it nailed. Hope some of this helps.

[eccentricman]

If there are any requests, please post them here. I don't have a set schedule, although I am busy, so instant turnarounds will be rare, but I do enjoy some of the challenges posed.

[eccentricman]

Thanks for the feedback. The lovely lady in the black is Jody May I think. Absolutely stunning bb. Here's two new morphs freshly done tonight:

Just for reference, the mulinazzi morph uses a different technique than every other set; the warp tool rather than the distort and liquify tool.

[eccentricman]

another drawing, similar to the first… not quite as successful though.

[eccentricman]

Going back to the idea of a petition for a moment, I've dug up a link to a petition hosting site:

http://www.petitiononline.com/create_petition.html

While I'd be happy to supply any advice on the text, or the aim and content, I feel that it would be best for someone more closely linked to the forum, or someone in a position of responsibility, to chair this endeavour.

I find the idea of reading more of these wonderfully illustrated comics exciting and would happily partake in this little gesture if it would build bridges with such a talented and obviously respected artist.

[eccentricman]

Thanks again for all the comments, here's another five morphs; the drawing I promised is yet to be scanned…

[eccentricman]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, here's a set of five of my other morphs. Another, very similar drawing will follow soon.

[eccentricman]

That's a bit slim 00tree, over at Saradas, I'm getting 0.6%  😉

41 comments for 6600 views… oh well.

Awesome drawing as per usual Syber.

edit: just checked… you're in the lead with 0.7 percent. Well, your stuff is probably better than mine anyway.

[eccentricman]

nice. short, but definitely sweet

[eccentricman]

here's that sketch I mentioned:

I'm not mad keen on colouring these sketches myself, but if anyone wants to they're more than welcome.

Hope this is an improvement on the previous two.

[Author]

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