I’m really happy with the way this effect came out. I’m rather sold on the Photoshopping of facial expressions, too, but I suppose I should pick up more heads to simplify the process. I’ll still have to use Photoshop if the character has facial hair or glasses, though.
Follow this story from the beginning here.
Ballinabricky 
The facial expression looks very good. If I can make one suggestion, it would be to make the brightness of the eyes and smile the same as the surroundings. Had you done that, then I wouldn’t have recognized it a s photoshop at all (and probably would’ve been searching the net for that particular head 😉 )
And there’s that explosion again, and even better than the first time! It looks epic, especially with the dark contours and extended arms of O’Sharkey…. perfect panel!
I agree with your observation about the starkness of the face. I’ve figured out how to eliminate some of the white, but I also got a bunch of faces with emotions, too.
Do you use photoshop?
As little as possible. The only thing I photoshopped in this one was the surprised facial expression (I erased his real face and put that one in).
Usually, my photo editing is restricted to three things: lightness/darkness, facial expressions, and tint (I have to shoot under a funny light that can throw off reds and whites). Occasionally, I may make a minor edit to erase bit of clay used to hold something delicate in place but which was too visible in the photo.
I would try this:
Put the facial expression on a layer above the general layer. Above that put another layer and paint the parts of the new expression completely black (at least the white parts in the new expression). Then turn down the opacity and/ or fill of that last black layer until your satisfied.
The faces are just the black and white in a png with empty space (0% opacity) except for the actual lines. I made that is own layer, and size/distort/perspective to match the angle (lining up the eyes and mouth positions with the originals). Then, I erase the original face from underneath. What I need to do after work is to play with the contrast a bit so that the white is not stark white but gray and the black is not too black.
The image with the facial expression is much better defined and much sharper than face would be photographed in situ.
I figured out how to do that last step too late to have used it on the photographs in this story.
Using my technique you’d get this result: simple and quick… http://www.foolishlego.com/xtra/276-bewerkt.jpg
🙂
Excellent!
I agree with Foolish Lego last comment above. An excellent panel. Was it all shot in one go? Couldn’t have happened to a nicer chap really! (The villain that is).
Yes, all in one go. There was no editing of the explosion panel (or anything other than his face in the middle panel).
Ever create a character you just hate? For all that Wolfgang Adler is irredeemably reprehensible, I never felt about him the way I felt about O’Sharky