Red-winged black&white bird
Thanks Dave for submitting your image for us to have fun with!
I knew what I wanted to do with this one as soon as I saw it, so here goes:
First I cloned out the spider web bits because I didn't think they would survive the rest of the process intact. Not an editorial statement! :)
I took the image into Topaz Simplify and applied the "underpainting" preset to it on a new layer. This desaturated the image quite a bit and took a lot of small details out. I then ran that layer through Simplify again, this time using the "wood carving" preset as a starting point and adjusting it for less detail. I now had three layers. I added a layer mask to the top layer (wood carving) and brushed black into the red/yellow "epaulet" areas, allowing the color to show through. I then copied that mask onto the second layer (underpainting), which knocked out some of the detail in the epaulets so they didn't look too out of place in the final image.
Last bit - flattened the image then ran the result through Topaz Simplify one more time using the "buzz sim" preset. Added a hue/saturation adjustment layer and lowered the red and yellow saturation. I used a layer mask on the top layer and brushed detail back into the eye, set the Simplify layer opacity to 66% and got the result I wanted.
Sorry, kinda long-winded, but that's what I did! ;)
