Crested Serpent Eagle
I'm inspired by all the images being posted. For this I first used fractalius, then applied a PS cross-hatch texture on a Shadow House texture that I put over the fracted image. I used the multiply blend mode, reduced the opacity and erased the effect on the eagle. I kept the original eagle eye.
Here is the original. I didn't like the over-busy bkgd of lines and bright blobs of color. Now I'm not sure if I like the bit of cross-hatching I added to the "after".
This is excellent, Nancy! Love the base image pose and the sharp eye and works very well in fract. TFS.
Very nicely done, Nancy. Your composition is super -- not only in the placement of the eagle but in your choice of what elements to keep and erase from the background. I really didn't consciously see the crosshatching until I read what you did. It's not distracting, and I think it adds some nice texture and color to the background.
Even in the original, the eye is riveting. I think masking the effects off the eye was a good idea, but I'm often on the fence about eyes that are so intense that they're distracting (to me, at least). With the yellow you have in the rest of the image, my attention probably isn't drawn as much to the eye as it would be otherwise. However, I used Viveza to reduce the saturation of only the yellow in the eye and liked it better that way.
Nancy, what a beautiful bird! When I first saw him I thought he looked odd - now I realize he's not a North American birdI like the filtering (and the crosshatching). I would evict the one vertical line at the bottom edge (in the middle).
"It is only with the heart that one can see rightly" - The Little Prince
http://tuscawillaphotographycherylslechta.zenfolio.com/
Cheryl saw it first...I'd take out that one line as well. Might also think about adding just a touch of color to his breast area to help give it depth and divide it from the wings a bit.
Hi Nancy, lovely fract work for a lovely bird. I like the texture you applied also. I agree on the line at the bottom and might also consider evicting the group of lines on the right side at the half way point. Nicely done!
Nancy, Great job with the filtering and the texture. I like the composition and the subject. I might try to blend the white area of the top piece of perch so that it doesn't look like it just stops. Nice work!
I really like the illustrated look of this, Nancy, and leaving the original eye really is a nice touch. Some good suggestions above to make it even stronger, but very nice!
Thank you everyone for your comments and thoughtful suggestions. I'll get to work on them!
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