Chokotto Sister

[Xian Pu]

I colored Choko in from a B&W scan from the manga and was wondering something. I wanted to make a BG with like a field around her and her looking up to the sun- but my issue comes with- how. How can I do that? Well, how can I do that and make it look good if not similar in style to the way Choko looks? Help? Ideas? Etc?

EDIT: Cleaned up the png and changed my mind about making a wall out of it for now. Anyone else want to use it feel free.

[elfenstein]

I tried a bit with making a wallpaper out of your original idea anyway.

Well, it's not so easy as I thought. Below is my first result. Please keep in mind, that I stopped after applying filters to the background, inserting her in the wallpaper, adding the shadow. So no text, patterns, effects etc.

The hardest part was actually finding a good picture with a field or anything similar in it. I ended up with this picture of an alps scenery. I think I will try that again in the summer when I can go out an snap a picture myself with exactly the theme, setting and lighting that I have in mind.

At first I applied an artistic filter "cut out" with the finest settings. As I was quite content with the result, I then inserted the character.
I then applied the shadow in a series of steps which involved duplicating the character, adjusting the brightness and contrast, distortion and blurring.

The sky is not really intended. I couldn't find a picture with a clear sky, so I cut out the clouds and used a color gradient and a yellow circle to form the sky.

I think with the right picture for the background, an a little effects, text and so on this could make quite the nice wallpaper.

[Xian Pu]

Truth be told, you've got a good thing going. What I'd do to the BG is copy the original image and lay it over the cutout image, drop the opacity on the new layer down to about thirty, thirty five. That way you give it both depth and substance, cause right now, it just looks plain. The sun... Hrm, I was never any good at doing anything with suns, so hopefully someone else can help you out there; but yeah, that sun looks pretty sickly.

[elfenstein]

Good suggestion.
I added the background again with an opacity of 60%. Additionaly I applied a linear gradient as layer mask so that the mountains have high opacity, the field low.

I will definitely keep that wallpaper on my todo list.
But it is now on hold till spring, when I can grab my camera and shoot a suitable picture for the background.

As to the sky and sun, they are only placeholders as the sky in the original background wasn't fitting.

[Raven]

I would actually move the sun out of the main focus of the bg. Honestly, how often do you take a picture of the sun being right there? Eye burnage. Maybe have a small part of the "glow" of the sun on the top, instead of being right-smack-dab in the middle.
...And, that was my suggestion, good start!

[Xian Pu]

Okay, bring the opacity on the background up juuuuuuuuuuust a little, and drop the opacity on her shadow some more. Right now it takes too much focus away from Choko. And yeah the sun still needs work.