Kimono Kokeshi

Ahhh.. what to do on a sick day when you don't feel like staying in bed. Sit on the sofa and play on your computer of course!

I've had a lot of fun playing more with my kokeshi design. I'm pretty pleased with how she's going. I've got a few plans for her later down the track as well. But for now, I've put her into my Café Press store. I have to confess, I haven't done much with my Cafe Press store, so it was about time there was a new design.



It could just be the whole nesting thing I'm going through, but I think she looks particularly cute on the maternity shirt.
This time, I did two versions. One with her cut out and on a white background....


.... and another on a kimono background.

Leni & Rose commented on the first version of her and asked how I got the background to fade out. On Photoshop, it's actually quite simple;

Make sure you've flattened your layers first. I now always try to save the photoshop document before I flatten the layers (which I'll later save as a jpeg or png depending on what I'm using it for), as so many times I've done work and then wished I could go back and tweak a layer but couldn't. Use the lasso tool to go around the edge of the object (in this case, the kokeshi) and once it's all selected, go to the "Select" tab at the top and choose "Inverse". Then use your eraser on the largest size possible, dial down the opacity (I used 40%), rub over the image and all done! To get out of it, just go back to "Select" and choose "Deselect".

Happy photoshopping!