creating ghost's balaclava from mw2

This tutorial will show my process and "research" for creating Ghost's balaclava from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I decided to create this costume from inspiration after playing the game, my re-active status in the airsoft scene and the fact that AN is coming up (along with Fanexpo & Halloween later on this year). I guess Ghost stands out as a character because of this unique skull design on his mask. I also read that (some) US navy seals wear a similar pattern on their balaclava, however, this is from a unreliable source...aka the internet. :)

When I first made the decision on creating the costume as a whole. I asked myself if I should paint my own design or find something similar online. After searching, I found a website that had their own line of balaclavas. I ordered off them here. As you can see. The skull design is pretty good and the art style was done pretty nicely. However, my personal picky-ness made me not enjoy it as much as I anticipated. The balaclava was way too short. Here's what I noticed

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The design/style of the skull is the same but there are its flaws. As you can see, the cheek bone is not aligned as nicely as the one from the game. The nose looks retarded when I put the mask on. The chin part of the design (red) is lower than my actual chin line(blue). The game has it slightly above. With all these bothering me on a very accurate costume AND!! also finding someone else having it on cosplay.com, it was time to go to plan B: Design my own.

I found a plain black balaclava on ebay. It wasn't anything fancy...it only cost me a dollar or so. The balaclava itself measures 14" from head to neck which is pretty good but i wish it was 2 inches longer for personal preference...that or my head is too big ANYWAY!! here we go.

I took a (white) pencil crayon and marked the spots that bothered me on the one i ordered. It looked like that when I finished.

I then sketched out the outline of the skull using the concept artbook that came with the prestige edition as reference.

I bought fabric paint and mixed white and yellow together to make a...LOL a yellowish white? LOL HAHA wtf. well its just the base colour. The reason for this is because I was gonna use white more of a highlight colour rather than a main. besides...i don't think actual bone is white white anyway :P in yo face bitches!

I started applying the paint using a small paintbrush onto the mask. LOL at buckteeth ghost...and that's all i did to apply the base colour. Paint between the lines

1 week later...LOL i got lazy. Just wait for it to dry so you can start applying the detailing layer ontop. I used the 2 colours as before but included BLUE. to create a green-ish colour. I started using it as my shadows. I realized after that these werent as dark as I might have wanted it to be. As expected so I just mixed regular acrylic to the fabric colour paints I was already using. It turned out pretty nicely. I painted these with the reference help of the book.

detailing layer turned out like this. Im quite happy with it. Its not perfectly done/painted so it gives more of an edgy feel.

This is how it looks like when the glasses are on and headset. :)

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thanks for reading my first "tutorial". I know it wasn't much of one. But at least it shows some sort of process and I'm sure you can do this on your own if you felt like it + had the materials to do so. :) Let me know what you think

btw. i am aware this has nothing to do with photoshop like how the first post stated that i would be doing those tutorials. AHH :( I'll work on them...I've had a request from a friend on how to blend photographs/images so maybe I'll do that one for her :D

another beginning

I've been collecting a magazine from a UK publishing company called Imagine Publishing. They create a variety of magazines related to gaming, computers, mixed media/creative arts and of course, lifestyle. The one I've been collecting since 2006 is Advanced Photoshop.



It started with issue 21 (above). The ink splatters caught my attention, the girl was next LOL WACK!!! I just kept looking it, found out it had a CD...came with stock images, brushes, and plenty of tutorials. I used a few ideas and used some of the brushes in some of my work here & there. I found myself picking up the next issue, followed by the next issue. I've been collecting ever since.

ONLY ONE PROBLEM. I haven't really read them, nor have I done any of the tutorials. They've been just sitting there. And the pile gets bigger each month. I've spent well over a GRAND over the past 4 years collecting this magazine. What a waste.

Until now that is. One of my goals I set for myself in 2009 was to start a blog. That blog would consist of all my everyday experiences, rants, my life but the main focus would be my art (melvyart.blogspot.com). I also wanted to do a tutorial a week to build up some photoshop knowledge and share it in my blog on what I've learned. Of course, I can't plan everything perfect...so since I created that blog, I decided to keep the tutorials aspect and such in a separate blog. A blog devoted to learning and teaching on my own. To myself and see what can come out of it.

I won't be explaining tutorials with step by step instructions, unless they are ones I have developed. This blog will currently be consisting of tutorials that come with the Advanced Photoshop magazines I've purchased. If I were to explain step by step instructions with the words in the magazine, I'm sure that would be considered plagiarism in one way or another. Besides, I hate it when people would steal another's work and calling it their own. I probably will just be outlining the basis of the tutorial and then showing my finished product in the end. Using some of the images they supply or doing the effects on my own images. :) Confusing? I know, in time it'll make more sense.

I hope sometime down the road I can post step by step tutorials I've written up on my own. I also hope to include other tutorials other than photoshop and get into more types of media that I would work with. But until then, stay tuned, I will be posting up my first entry soon :) thank you for checking this out :D