Today I completed my Semiotics Assignment where I was to choose a celebrity and a particular theme to involve them in. Here is a list of the themes we were given to choose from:

•I am masculine

•I am feminine

•I am wealthy

•I am intelligent

•I am evil

•I am popular

 

I chose to use the medium of Photoshop to work on the assignment. I was still quite new to the  program so I felt this was the perfect opportunity to learn new skills which I did. I chose Vin Diesel as he has a bald head, as I was new to Photoshop I felt that this would be easier for me to trace and add to other images. The first theme I  completed  is the ”I am evil” one where I used a picture of Adolf Hitler who is perhaps the most recognised  figure of evil due to the atrocities caused by World War II as well as the Holocaust. The problem I had with this picture was the fact it was an oil painting, thankfully in Photoshop the posterize tool made Vin Diesel look slightly pixelated and painting like. I used to clone tool to copy the background over excess parts of Hitler’s head and changed the colour of Vin Diesel’s head to make it blend better with the picture, I achieved this by adjusting the saturation and hue.

 

First Attempt

The second theme I chose was the “I am intelligent” theme. I had trouble finding a picture to work with and searched Google images, failing to find images I then looked to the idea of a teacher or a professor where I found a picture of a video game named “Gravity” where a professor is on the cover holding an apple. I felt this was suitable to use as it represented intelligence and Newton’s theory. I hadn’t got many problems with the photoshopping of this image. Again I used the handy clone tool to edit out unwanted parts of the original layer. I had to adjust the tilt of Vin Diesel’s head and also the tone of his skin to match the professor’s hand.

 

Professor Vin Diesel

The third and final theme I chose was “I am masculine” where I already had the idea to use a wrestler or weight lifter of some kind. I used a picture of Brock Lesner which was slightly too big but after resizing it was suitable to be photoshopped. I felt the skin tone worked very well especially around his neck, this was the easiest to complete of all the themes as it fit very well. I cloned out part of the wrestler’s head and changed the colour of my subject’s skin slightly. I added some text to experiment and also to indicate which theme I was insinuating.

 

Buff Vin Diesel

 

 

 

 

 

 

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