How to turn yourself into a Navi Avatar Photoshop ~ Photoshop Tutorial

Home » Brushes, Expert Tutorials, TutorialsMay 15, 2011 # Brushes, Expert Tutorials, Tutorials # Make a Comment!

If you are an Avatar fun like us then you probably wondered as well how you would look like an Avatar character, the Navis (the good guys) . Get ready to Avatar-ize yourself and your friends with a bit of Cameron's magic touch. On this tutorial we will see what tools we will need to achieve a flawless Avatar photograph manipulation.

Open a front facing photo of yourself or anyone else for all that matters. The eyes and nose are the most crucial features we will be manipulating on this tutorial so make sure you have a clear view of them.

Eyes shape

First select the Elliptical marquee tool and select the eyes. Use the Feather tool with approx. 10pixels. Copy and Paste them on a new layer.
Select Edit -> Transform and the Scale to give them an elliptical shape and make them bigger. You may want to use an avatar poster for this exercise to get the right shape and scale.

Select each eye separately and use Skew to give them their final shape. You will find the Skew selection under Edit->Transform.

Eyebrows

If you have to thin out the eyebrows use the Clone Stamp Tool.
Create a new layer and lighten the eyebrows color using a soft round brush. Choose white color and opacity around 20-25%, adjust the brush size to fit the eyebrows width.

Next equally crucial step is the navi nose. We will use the Polygonal Lasso tool to select the nose. Set the feather tool with pixel set at 10pxls. Copy and paste it on a new layer.
To change its shape and size we will use Edit->Transform and then Scale and Perspective.

Eyes Color

Next you want to create the Avatar eyes. Create a new layer and choose use the Elliptical Marquee Tool to select the iris (thats the colored part of the eye) .
Next take a soft round brush and choose a grey-blue color and paint all over the iris.
On the same layer choose the elliptical marquee tool and after choosing black as a color paint the centre of the iris (thats the black bit of the eye)
Create a new layer, paint lines on the iris with a soft brush and use a color slightly lighter than the existing iris color.
Use the smudge tool to smudge over the lines you just drew. Also smudge the black part of the iris.

Use the image below to help you visualize the steps above.

Here is a very cool trick that will save you loads of time. Merge all the layers of the eye you just edited, replicate the new merged layer and use flip to apply this layer to the other eye as well.
Zoom out of the eyes area.

Skin

Now lets do some face painting! Create a new adjustment layer and choose Gradient Map. Choose the color settings as shown below.

Create a new layer and choose a soft round brush with white color and width approx. 9 pixels. And throw draw dots on your Navi face. Change the blending mode into Overlay.

Create a new layer and choose a soft round brush with a deep blue color like #002542. Draw the lines on the face to your liking. Here is where you can get really creative!
Apply a gaussian blur of 5 pixels and reduce the opacity of your new layer to around 20-30% .
Go to your blending mode drop down menu on your layer and change this to Vivid light.