Family | Bringing their imagination to life

Both of my young boys absolutely love Pokémon. Well, I say both, I'm not sure that little Zephyr (3) had much say in the matter. Eden (6) has made sure that his little brother knows all the names, battle moves, plot lines and rules for play in great detail

Recently, I have been experimenting a little with photo manipulation through Photoshop. It's something that I have always been interested in but I have never had much of a reason to truly develop my skills in this area.

My editing style for portrait, wedding and commercial photography is usually aimed to produce a natural looking, simplistic visual style. It's not necessarily a simple technique, but a very different one to the stylistic and heavily photoshopped images I now wanted to create.

All in all, it's never been something that any of my clients have wanted.

So, one weekend, after an intense three hour game of Pokémon trading card battling (I'm not even kidding, it does take that long!). I decided to try and take a photograph of Eden with the intention of photoshopping a Pokémon character in next to him.

Once both of the mini beasts were sound asleep, I crept downstairs, powered up my laptop and began to research the skills that would be required to do this well. It didn't look like it would be quick or easy for me to learn, but that didn't put me off.

My first attempt took me way too long. Since this one, I have got considerably better (thankfully), so I was tempted to omit this one. But, it's been part of my development and I want to share this whole sequence with you.

Here is my original vs my final edit..

Ridiculous right?

The important thing was, he loved it! This also motivated me to give it another go.

It was Zephyr's turn now.

I asked Zephyr what he wanted and he instantly told me that he wanted a 'Lickitung'. Now, with my recently acquired (and thorough) Pokémon knowledge, I was aware that this was a large pink thing with a huge slobbery tongue. In fact, here he is...

Interesting.

The next morning, I got Zephyr outside before work and told him there was a Lickitung coming to get him, his reaction was to run towards me giggling. Perfect.

Here is my final edit and a short video showing the original and my different steps through Photoshop...

Getting better.

Right, what next then? Well it seemed only fair that I should try and get something with both of them in.

I asked them both which Pokémon they wanted to be in the next shot. Zephyr told me that he wanted to be riding a 'Bulbasaur' and Eden told me that he wanted to be next to 'Mewtwo'. Here they are...

Bulbasaur

Mewtwo

On Father's Day we all decided to go for a walk around the local woods. I decided this would make for a good opportunity to shoot the photograph needed to make my latest creation. I took a Skuttlebug trike for Zephyr to sit on; this would hopefully get him into a position to make it look like he was riding on Bulbasaur. I then asked Eden to jump in the air as if he was being 'powered up' by Mewtwo.

That evening I went to work, determined to make this the best one yet and put right my previous shoddy mistakes in Photoshop.

So again, here is my final edit and a short video showing the original and my different steps through Photoshop...

SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Right? I was definitely starting to feel more confident with my Photoshop skills.

Time to step it up again then.

We recently went to see the Detective Pikachu film, which I don't mind admitting, I really enjoyed. Perhaps the boys have now completely brainwashed me, or perhaps I'm just still a big kid myself. Either way, it was going to be my next source of inspiration.

Eden loves playing Pokémon on his Nintendo 2DS. When he is allowed to, he really gets into it. Completely immersed in the world of Pokémon and perhaps slightly too emotionally involved. I knew exactly what I wanted to do though. I wanted to try and show how I think he feels whilst he is playing it.

Here we go then, my latest final edit and another video showing the original and my steps through Photoshop...

I'm very pleased with how this one came out. I also found it much easier to get everything looking right, which is either a total fluke, or proof that my photo manipulation skills have improved. Hurrah!

I'm sure that I will be adding more, but for now I really must get back to my wedding editing.

Perhaps one day there will be a niche for photo manipulated Pokémon wedding photography?

I hope that you enjoyed reading through this. Please leave a comment and tell me if you did!

As always my good friend Jake helped me by proof reading this article and pointing out all my terrible grammar. Thank you!

Whilst I was sending him bits over to look at, he sent me a photograph of himself with a drink and asked me to add a Psyduck into the glass...

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