I am an Angel of the Lord

[DGMPhotography]

Okay, so I doubt any of you watch Supernatural... anyway, I'm going as the angel, Castiel, for Halloween and tried taking a picture of myself imitating an iconic moment in the series, when Castiel is first revealed, with his angel wings. I took this shot as a preliminary test with a white background just to see if I could do the post correctly, so my time taking a picture isn't wasted when I go on location (somewhere).

Here's mine:



Here's the source image:

http://putbuckt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Castiel_wings_by_liviamariap.jpg

And the original: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5tPAIcTfj..._xWoO71dnhw/s1600/Castiel_shows_his_wings.png

Now, I took a few liberties. I added the glowing white around me cause some stuff in my background (outside my backdrop) looked really stupid and didn't want that distracting me from the wings... I feel like the shape of the wings isn't bad, but I just don't know what the next step would be to make it look more realistic, outside of sprouting wings of my own. Any photo manipulators out there with some advice?

Thanks!

 

[robbins.photo]

Okay, so I doubt any of you watch Supernatural... anyway, I'm going as the angel, Castiel, for Halloween and tried taking a picture of myself imitating an iconic moment in the series, when Castiel is first revealed, with his angel wings. I took this shot as a preliminary test with a white background just to see if I could do the post correctly, so my time taking a picture isn't wasted when I go on location (somewhere).

Here's mine:

View attachment 58906

Here's the source image:

http://putbuckt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Castiel_wings_by_liviamariap.jpg

And the original: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5tPAIcTfj..._xWoO71dnhw/s1600/Castiel_shows_his_wings.png

Now, I took a few liberties. I added the glowing white around me cause some stuff in my background (outside my backdrop) looked really stupid and didn't want that distracting me from the wings... I feel like the shape of the wings isn't bad, but I just don't know what the next step would be to make it look more realistic, outside of sprouting wings of my own. Any photo manipulators out there with some advice?

Thanks!

Bite your tongue my friend. I LOVE Supernatural. In fact if I weren't large, male and completely opposed to homo-erotic fiction I could be Becky.. lol..

 

[robbins.photo]

Okay, so I doubt any of you watch Supernatural... anyway, I'm going as the angel, Castiel, for Halloween and tried taking a picture of myself imitating an iconic moment in the series, when Castiel is first revealed, with his angel wings. I took this shot as a preliminary test with a white background just to see if I could do the post correctly, so my time taking a picture isn't wasted when I go on location (somewhere).

Here's mine:

Here's the source image:

http://putbuckt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Castiel_wings_by_liviamariap.jpg

And the original: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5tPAIcTfj..._xWoO71dnhw/s1600/Castiel_shows_his_wings.png

Now, I took a few liberties. I added the glowing white around me cause some stuff in my background (outside my backdrop) looked really stupid and didn't want that distracting me from the wings... I feel like the shape of the wings isn't bad, but I just don't know what the next step would be to make it look more realistic, outside of sprouting wings of my own. Any photo manipulators out there with some advice?

Thanks!

Ok.. as to photo manipulation advice.. the wing shape is pretty good, the problem I think your run into here is two-fold. First the wings themselves have no definition - nothing in the interior to break up all that black space. The other problem I think is that the wings themselves being so black have too much contrast against the completely white background - to really get the right effect here I think you need to fill in the background - preferably with something much darker so that the black wings will still stand out, but they won't be quite so much contrast here. A good photo of a street at night would be perfect.

Then add some interior detail on the wings and you'll have something there. If I get some time this weekend I might be able to take a stab at the wings for you.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Okay, so I doubt any of you watch Supernatural... anyway, I'm going as the angel, Castiel, for Halloween and tried taking a picture of myself imitating an iconic moment in the series, when Castiel is first revealed, with his angel wings. I took this shot as a preliminary test with a white background just to see if I could do the post correctly, so my time taking a picture isn't wasted when I go on location (somewhere).

Here's mine:

Here's the source image:

http://putbuckt.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Castiel_wings_by_liviamariap.jpg

And the original: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_5tPAIcTfj..._xWoO71dnhw/s1600/Castiel_shows_his_wings.png

Now, I took a few liberties. I added the glowing white around me cause some stuff in my background (outside my backdrop) looked really stupid and didn't want that distracting me from the wings... I feel like the shape of the wings isn't bad, but I just don't know what the next step would be to make it look more realistic, outside of sprouting wings of my own. Any photo manipulators out there with some advice?

Thanks!

Ok.. as to photo manipulation advice.. the wing shape is pretty good, the problem I think your run into here is two-fold. First the wings themselves have no definition - nothing in the interior to break up all that black space. The other problem I think is that the wings themselves being so black have too much contrast against the completely white background - to really get the right effect here I think you need to fill in the background - preferably with something much darker so that the black wings will still stand out, but they won't be quite so much contrast here. A good photo of a street at night would be perfect.

Then add some interior detail on the wings and you'll have something there. If I get some time this weekend I might be able to take a stab at the wings for you.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking, thanks for the input! And if you have time, that would be wonderful, but could you keep the layers separated so I could see what you did and replicate it for when I try again?

Thanks!

 

[DGMPhotography]

Here's another version...

 

[rexbobcat]

Here's another version...

View attachment 59458

Did you apply the background blue in Photoshop?

If you did....pleeeeaaassseee don't. I mean, I guess you can if you want to, but I've never (ever(never ever) seen a photo that had shallow DoF added in post that looks good. There are small intricacies in the way the lens creates background blur that are incredibly hard to duplicate in post. It just makes the image look very flat and weird.

 

[pixmedic]

Here's another version...

View attachment 59458

to me, this says "Doctor Who" more than "Supernatural"
(im a huge doctor who fan, right from the original series)

 

[DGMPhotography]

Yes, I did add the oof in post. I did not take this picture, my friend did with her iPhone and thus the image quality and lack of dof. I did get a lot of people saying Dr. Who, but the I ended up making real wings and didn't get that as much.

Check it out.

 

[D-B-J]

Nice! But for Castiel... you need more aggressive lighting. Harsher shadows. He's basically a bada**, but your lighting doesn't convey that.

And I've watched every episode! So you assumed wrong.

Jake

 

[limr32 1]

I think you should go for a lower angle shot. The iconic scene when Castiel revealed himself to Dean (yes, I'm a fangirl) was shot at a much lower angle. Made the wings look even bigger as the shadows spread out against the wall and ceiling.

The other thing that strikes me about your wings in the first picture is that they are not symmetrical. Again, because the original scene showed the wings more as shadows, maybe it looked like they were asymmetrical, but that could have been a trick of the light. Don't know. But either way, the wings don't have to be in perfect symmetry, but perhaps a bit closer than to each other than you have right now.

 

[DGMPhotography]

Nice! But for Castiel... you need more aggressive lighting. Harsher shadows. He's basically a bada**, but your lighting doesn't convey that.

And I've watched every episode! So you assumed wrong.

Jake

Very true. I'm going to take that all into account when I take my legit picture. Thanks for the input!

And what did you think of the last episode? Do I hear spinoff?

 

[D-B-J]

Nice! But for Castiel... you need more aggressive lighting. Harsher shadows. He's basically a bada**, but your lighting doesn't convey that.

And I've watched every episode! So you assumed wrong.

Jake

Very true. I'm going to take that all into account when I take my legit picture. Thanks for the input!

And what did you think of the last episode? Do I hear spinoff?

I loved it! Definitely the chance for a spinoff.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[DGMPhotography]

I actually just masked the wings from the original in my first try. We haven't actually seen true angel wings yet so who knows what they look like! Thanks for the tips though!