Violently Manipulated

[William b. Hand]

This is my first post here, and I dunno if this pic's an appropriate way to start, but tell me your thoughts.
This is from an ongoing series of violently manipulated turn-of-the-century portrait pictures that I sporadically add to, and hope to one day publish as a small weird coffee table book.
It started off as an old photo, and was made unrecognizeable through a combination of acrylic paint and Adobe Photoshop.
There's this whole loosely knit history that joins this image to the others, and ends up giving a peek into a strange cold war, over a sortuv transdimensional technology, between two houses in a semi-fictitious South American country, circa 1880-1903.
This is TRISTAN.
So... Impressions, anyone?

http://homepage.mac.com/wmbhand/.Pictures/TdF-tristan%20%20.jpg

[Payback]

Omg that is f***ing nasty! :barf:

Looks cool though. :D

[davi]

hahahha i fell off my freaking bed

omg that's the best
great job

[Happeh]

do you have a lot of time on your hands? You might draw your own guy to smear up. Then you would really have something!

[William b. Hand]

Huh. Well, Happeh, I'm not sure how to take your comments... Are you saying that this image isn't impressive to you because I used an old photo as it's base? ok. It is photo manipulation.
Well, thanks for taking the time to express yer thoughts.

[krayz]

Not normally keen on photo manips, but this is weird enough to be cool.

[William b. Hand]

Payback, davi and krayz Thanks for the upbeat feedback!:chug:

[platypusStar]

Never thought about photo manipulation. It's kind of creepy, but I have to say it's a good job. My quick and short first thought was that he looked like he had gears in him, like an some sort of old antique clock.

It would be interesting to see what the photo was before the manipulation.

[michael see]

whoa~~~:eek: this is awefully creepy and yet astounding:)
keep it going

[BC1967]

very cool idea. Sounds like Lovecraft meets Crichton.
Could you give us some more background on the story?

[William b. Hand]

platypusStar, michael see, and BC1967 Thank you all for your comments! Sorry it took me forever to respond, but better late than never??
platypusStar, I'm afraid I can't show you the completely original pic. That's due to the fact that I had painted directly on the photo before Photoshopping it up. However, I'll see if I can find a pic pre-PS...
BC1967, Yeah... Although I haven't read any of Lovecraft's stuff, any time I see imagery or movies based on it I've always dug it. My "story" is so piecemeal, though, that I can't really give any explanation further than the work itself. I just hope it gels together enough to intrigue people, but there will always be gaps... open ends... things left very much unexplained.

Thanks again for the responses everyone! :D

[William b. Hand]

Well... I said I would try to dig up older versions of this fella, so that's just what I've done. Unfortunately, I began this before I had a computer so the leftmost pic is as close to the original as exists.

That first pic shows what I did with acrylic paint...
The middle pic shows some Photoshop highlights and detailing...
The right is obviously the final face, where I went nuts with the rubber-stamping and made things pretty grim.

http://homepage.mac.com/whand/.Pictures/progression%20of%20Tristan.jpg

[Solidarnosi]

I definately like the middle one best - it seems that he has been diseased by something (which I ~think~ is what you are getting at with the storyline). The last photo, well to be honest the squiggles around the mouth looks like he fingerpainted himself, not like a process of natural manipulation.

Great stuff tho I really hope you can make this coffee-table book a reality! I'll buy it!:)

[Wetterschneider]

I'm digging it. I like the eyes in the original photo, the hue of them stands out and the wetness is attractive. I'm sorry to see them both go in the final version. Still, it's effective and creepy, and I can't wait to see more. Please keep posting the high-rez close ups.

S

[Schwoassamoasda]

hey, this is just exatly the art I'm digging. really, really cool, I love it!

[Adam]

i'd have to cast my vote for the middle one as well - the last one looks too artificial, imo, and that middle one has this kind of Tim-Roth-y sort of vibe to it - it's very cool!

btw checked out clara and larva, liked clara pretty well, but the larva ROCKS - very very cool!

[Pencil Soldier]

The middle version is also recognizable as a person, meaning you could recgnize him if you saw him.

Hope that came out right. :o

[ulithiarid]

mate that is so good its making me sick . . l love it! :D

[Atmospheria]

Man this is sick...i'm going to throw up now.....!!!
Nicely done....

[Chromo48]

"THEY LIVE"

Nice work! You're stuff gives me all sorts of ideas. I don't care how you go about getting it done (I mean that in a good way), just as long as you get it done.

[Monkeyburger]

I am completely blown away by the first pic. That is such a cool concept man! Someone above mentioned Lovecraft, I have to agree, this is total Lovecraft meets Lynch and I love it. You could make this project of yours VERY messed up in the head. I pray to god you keep the story in the scribbles loose and mysterious so you have a really eerie disturbing feel to the whole thing. As for the actual Pic it is Ace but it would be so much more disturbing if you could have both the altered mouth of the first pic and the normal eyes from the set of three on the same pic. That would be cool.

I am now a fan, I need to see more.