AW illustrations / photo manipulation

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AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« on: July 25, 2010, 04:36:50 PM »

So I have been trawling Flickr for potentially awesome Apocalypse World portraits to use in an upcoming game -- but while I've found a bunch of awesome stuff, using actual photographs for NPCs always seems a little too specific, compared to more abstract line art or illustrations.

Ideally, I'd like to convert the photos I have into something like the AW interior art -- my impression is that these are mostly photos that Vincent has photoshopped into a particular style.

So the question is: Vincent, how did you do it? What filters, layer effects, etc. were used? Non-Vincent people who know what they are doing can also feel free to answer -- or post their own awesome AW NPC art.

(The beginning of my NPC portrait gallery can be found on flickr, here.)

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lumpley

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Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #1 on: July 25, 2010, 05:06:54 PM »
I did them like this.

Great pictures you've got there!

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #2 on: July 25, 2010, 09:40:26 PM »
Awesome photos, Daniel. I will be stealing.

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #3 on: July 25, 2010, 10:54:41 PM »
Yeah, it's a real shame some of those aren't public domain.

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #4 on: July 25, 2010, 11:00:25 PM »
You can also use the Artistic > Cutout filter for a similar effect.

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #5 on: July 25, 2010, 11:37:35 PM »
Many of the pictures I used in our last game had that AW two-colour feel to them.

I made them all back in the 90s like this: I take a picture and photocopy it. Then I put another piece of paper over top and a light under my glass table, and I trace out sections of black. Then I colour them in. And done.

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #6 on: July 26, 2010, 12:30:43 AM »
That's some old-school style right there, Johnstone. I'll go you one further: in the '80s, we'd tape a pic to a window, tape paper over it, trace and color.

(I think I like this computer-thing better though!)

Re: AW illustrations / photo manipulation
« Reply #7 on: July 26, 2010, 02:05:48 AM »
Yeah, it's a real shame some of those aren't public domain.

Indeed. The gallery is mostly those that I couldn't download, but wanted to have around in any case.