To start my Mental Health awareness piece, I wanted to create a piece that demonstrates the brokenness and loneliness people have felt during COVID. I thought it would be a cool idea to create a project that dealt with broken pieces. I first created a layer mask and went around the face to get rid of the original background. I then placed a picture of cracks over the face and turned the opacity down to where I could still see her face. I then duplicated that layer, went back to the cracks' original layer, and placed an "overlay" over it. Adding a layer mask to that layer, I then took a soft brush and lightly went down the middle of the face to blend the face more clearly.
In the first picture, I created a layer mask, took a soft brush, and brushed into the face to take away some of the cracks to add more depth to the picture. In the second picture, I duplicated the layer and used my lasso tool to go around random little parts that I use later on in the project to create the scattered cracks. I then merge the layer of the face with cracks together. After all the pieces that I wanted were selected with my lasso tool, I then went to edit and cut and paste the layer. I did this process three different times on three different layers.
After I was done selecting all the cracks, I then lassoed little pieces, adjusted the pieces' size, and scattered them throughout my piece. I also selected the cracks attached to the face and used my adjustment tool to bring them out to the left to create a more 3D look to enhance my piece.
To complete my project, I selected each piece and adjusted the hue and saturation to match the face's coloration and skin tone. What made me make this discussion was I wanted each piece to look as realistic as possible. The broken pieces off the face symbolize the times that people feel broken during the pandemic and lonely. During COVID, there are two sides that people show the broken and depressed side and the happy and joyful side. As it is evident in my piece, the left side demonstrates the broken side while the right side of the face represents the optimistic side.
