The Illustrations of Urdur, from

(c) 2003 Emily C. A. Snyder, All Rights Reserved
Printed by Arx Publishers

Modifying pictures is more than smudging around a single picture - it also involves variously a) repainting the picture and b) adding elements to the picture. Adding elements is best done by using the layers tool on Adobe Photoshop. Select a section from a photograph and then paste it into the picture. From there, use the layer style "ghost" visibility. This will allow you to see the picture beneath in order to see the line that needs to be erased (rather than keeping the layer visible and guessing where to erase). Once satisfied, change the layer back to visible, choose "flatten image" under Layers on the Tool Bar and voila! Oh, and it's always helpful to convince your sister to let you turn her into a several-hundred years old male Fairy.

Click on the image to enlarge it.

Painting in pixels,
a strange concept, non? From left to right: (1) The original picture - the result of my sister and I walking down to the local cemetary (really, very lovely spot) for our daily constitutional...and happening to bring a camera along. (2) I played with her face, most obviously adding the beard, but also hollowing out her cheek, changing her nose and brow, and giving her extra creases around the mouth. (3) I took a pair of wings and lightened them significantly for this section of the process. To see how to combine pictures in Adobe Photoshop, see above.

Finally, I "stamped" the picture,
a bit at a time. You can see in the first picture (1) that most of the picture I've changed over to b/w. However, most of the column, her hands and the wings are still greyscale. The pentultimate version (2) has been completely b/w'ed, however I decided to shade the left portion of Urdur's face in order to make him live up to his name, "Lord of Mysteries."

Many thanks to my sister,
for letting me play with her picture. She is my kindred spirit, my confidante, my muse and stage manager. Mmmmmwah!