Hanging Out with the Family

I decided to see if I could paint this interesting Mandrill family image a taken at the Jacksonville Zoo a few months ago. I wish I had had time to watch them for a little longer – the center monkey is a male with a female and male on the sides.

I was not sure how the fur would turn out painted, but with a little experimenting it can be done. I first separated the monkeys from their really dark busy background using Topaz (see sidebar for website link) ReMask 5 – still the best in my mind for doing this type of selection. Next a texture was added that I had created a long time ago – rather plain but with lots of texture in it. A Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer was placed above the texture to make a pleasing color to match with the monkeys. The monkey ReMask layer mask was applied to the image so painting could begin – I always duplicate this layer and then turn off the original in case something was missed and the mask needs to be redone. Ten layers of painting were used to get the effect needed  – all brushes were Fay Sirkis (it’s a shame but I do not think her Child Portrait or Pet Brushes are available anymore even from KelbyOne). Her Palette Knife Soft Blender was used to get the nice fur fluff look – moved the Shape of the brush to match the direction I was painting. Her Portrait Child Blender was used to get the detail areas for the faces. And her Portrait Children Single Hair Blender to add some individual hairs. On a stamped layer Topaz Lens Effects’s Toy Camera Awesomeness I preset with the Camera Shake set to 0 was applied. Last step was to use Nik Viveza 2 (now a free to download) to emphasize his eyes and get a soft overall vignette effect around the edges. Hope you enjoyed…..Digital Lady Syd