Shallow Lust

The piece I’m sharing today is probably the simplest one I’ve made so far, but honestly, I think it’s also one of the most visually striking.

I’ve been experimenting with a more minimalist approach, trying to use as few textures as possible when working with the human face. In this project, I actually only used one.

After spending some time browsing the library I’m subscribed to and finding several inspiring photos, I chose one and saved the rest for future projects. Once again, due to licensing restrictions, I can’t share the unedited photo—something that will always be the case when I use that library.

Once in GIMP, I loaded the image and converted it to grayscale. Then I duplicated the layer twice.

At first, I had a few textures from my pack in mind for this piece, but I remembered I had a test folder with things I had discarded at some point. I decided to take a look, and that’s when I found a photo of scraps of magazine pages from an early ’80s fashion magazine—something I had used in my piece Paper Symphony. I had initially discarded it because it was out of focus, but I figured it was worth trying.

I loaded it into GIMP and placed it underneath the three layers I was working with, keeping it in Normal blending mode for obvious reasons. Then, I applied Hard Mix to the second layer (which contained the first instance of the photo) to get those vibrant, saturated colors. On the next layer, with the first duplicate of the photo, I used Linear Burn, which brought back the shadows and restored some of the depth that was lost with the previous mode. Finally, on the layer with the second duplicate, I applied Pin Light, which added the final touch by enhancing the highlights on the face.

I was really happy with the result. After finishing the piece, I decided to test the other textures I had originally planned to use, and they actually worked incredibly well too. But in the end, I chose to save them for future projects.