I request some advice, help or...

[derien]

or if you feel so inclined, an outright gift. 

I do want an icon that goes with my Victorian Boys stories.  I have two problems:

1) I have a lame photo manip program and I suck with photo manip (of course maybe it I got a better one I might not have such a bad time).

2) It's really freaking difficult to find pictures of Black kids in Victorian outfits.  Ethan Phipps, if it wasn't obvious from my first description of him, is supposed to look to some extent African descended.  And thinnish.

But, despite all that, I found a couple of pictures.  So I'm wondering; how difficult would this be?



The kid right in the middle (the one who's feet you can see) would be, I think, great for Tom, with no changes.


But...
The kid on the right in this picture needs his cheeks to look a little thinner (keeping the cheekbones rounded), his skin tone could be a little darker.  Of course the biggest problem is his hair.  Impossible to overcome for someone who's good with manips?


I'm considering scanning the Intarwebs for pictures of faces I think would work, in hopes one could be patched in.  Of course the real problem is that I have this image of Phipps as looking kind of like a cross between this incredibly beautiful Jamaican guy who used to cash his paycheck at the service desk I worked at and this incredibly cute Chinese guy who comes through the Checkpoint every Thursday.  *chortles*  Yeah.

It probably would be a lot easier if I just sat down and tried to draw them.


Advice? 

Comments

[soda-and-capes.livejournal.com]

Alas, the extent of my photo-editing software at present is Paint. *Headdesk*

[derien.livejournal.com]

I just have this mostly useless thing called (I think) Irfanview. I'm trying to decide whether to acquire Gimp when I know I'm going to be giving up this machine, soonish. Eor's building a new one and when it's in place then the great migration begins. I'll get his old Windows box and my machine will probably eventually go to one of my co-workers.

That's really kind of one of those psychological excuses toward laziness, though, because really it won't change anything for the cleaning off process.

[innocentsmith.livejournal.com]

There are a number of LJ comms specifically devoted to suggesting PBs ("played by"s) for icons for online RPing. character_pics has a nice collection of links to modeling agencies and whatnot on their profile page, I know. I'd try not to get too ambitious with what you need to do with 'shopping it, though - the "my hed is pasted on yey" thing is very hard to avoid sometimes unless you're an expert with great software.

[derien.livejournal.com]

the "my hed is pasted on yey" thing is very hard to avoid sometimes unless you're an expert with great software.


Yeah, exactly as I am not. :) I mean, I might be willing/able to throw myself into it as a project and install a new program just for that purpose if I had input from people who are expert who said "Yeah, it looks possible to tweak that kid a little and make him look thinner and darker." I'm definitely not doing a head paste. :)