This week’s Re-Edit is cosplayed by Seleknight Cosplay, cosplaying as Anti-Gwenom.
2021 EDIT PROCESS
I started with the basic changes I always do, by adjusting the exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, HSL, and etc. Throughout this project of re-editing my older photos, I do not refer to the original edited photo so I can see if I would make the same steps or make alternative decisions.
Transferring the photo into Photoshop, I began with the liquify tool to push in the bumps on the cosplayers right wrist. I then use the Patch tool to remove as many of the seams and creases in the outfit to give a more single piece of an outfit.
I next using the dodge tool to lighten up the face on the cosplayers as it was a fair bit of shadow which I wanted to remove as much as I can without making it look fake.
I noticed the eyes the cosplayer had were red contact lenses. I did think about removing the red contacts and replacing them with pure white eyes. But spending time on removing the red and then trying to replace it with white and adding some shadow to give it the curve look, didn’t seem to work. So decided to work with the red contact lens and made sure they were colourful and bright enough to be seen.
The next step I did was to make a selection of the cosplayer’s hair and change the colour. Though the character’s hair is usually depicted as a blonde white, I wanted to make it purple to match the purple in the suit. I did this by first desaturating the hair colour and then add colour back into a colour that I felt was close to the purple colour on the suit.
Something I wanted to try was to add ‘tattoo-like’ markings on the cosplayers face giving the character more to look at. Following a tutorial online and also finding suitable markings which would suit the cosplay, I laid over the markings, erased out marking which didn’t fit on the face or covered facial features such as eyes, change the opacity, and other steps which were described in the tutorial I followed.
As the photo is very white, I thought I add a gradient filter as I remembered I did that in my original edit and felt that addition was also needed. Again to match all the other use of purple in the photo, I used that purple and covered half the photo. Any parts which were covering the cosplayer, I just simply erased out.
My last step was to apply the skin smoothening and contouring techniques I do in Photoshop.
COMPARING THE TWO PHOTOS
Comparing the two photos, I like the 2021 edited photo the most but there aspect of the 2017 photo I still like more.
The crop seems to be better in the 2017 photo as the 2021 photo doesn’t seem to follow any of the conventional rules of composition such as rules of thirds, centring the cosplayer in the photo, etc.
The shadowing in both do fit within it’s own photo but I somewhat prefer the shadowing in the 2017 photo as gives the character a more mysterious or menacing look to the character.
I do like the tattoo-like overlay added to the 2021 photo and wish to learn more of to make it more natural looking and not layered on as I have done.
Don’t forget to take a closer look between the two photos above but also a slider below to show the difference between the two photos.
Hey there! I have no idea why I am finding this now.. but I am. That’s me in the photo!!! 🙂 thanks for this amazing edit. You did a fantastic job!!