Materials: For my third sustained investigation, I used Adobe Photoshop with layer masking, adjustments, and filters. Adjustment layers helped make sure all the colors were blended well especially since I had to create a new animal out of multiple images. Any image that I did not want the background I cut it out with layer masking. Soft brushes were used to create shadows and refine edges.
Ideas: I changed my sustained investigation a small amount so that now it is, "How would mythical creatures live in a modern world". I took inspiration from the harry potter movies to create a three headed dog. The three headed dog is often used as a guard dog in mythology and Harry Potter. I also took inspiration fro the movie Garfield because a doberman guards a house. I wanted to put these two movies together and show how a three headed dog would become more domesticated and scare off neighborhood cats.
Process: When trying to find the best way to visualize my idea a found a few pictures and created a quick collage. I used a basic house as a background so it would look like a generic American neighborhood. I eventually scrapped the idea of using a wold all together once I figured out the basic look of a three headed dog. Because I could not find a copy right free image of a three headed dog I had to create my own. I used the body of a pitbull and three different doberman heads because I thought it would look the most intimidating. Then I used the liquify filter to change the expression of each animal face in the photo. I squished down the eyebrows of the dogs to make them look angry at the cat. On the middle head of the dog I turned up its mouth to make it look like it was growling, and I added a light image of a dogs teeth to make it look like you can see the dogs teeth. I did the same thing to the cat except, I made the cats eyes bigger and created a new layer for the cats ears to turn them down and make the cat look very scared. I added the chain connect to the dog and the tree because if the dog did not have a chain in real life It would definitely not just be standing there for long. I wanted to add the beware of dog sign too just to make it more clear that people who live in the house own that dog. I thought the best way to achieve the look I wanted was to make the sign one of the kind that sticks in the ground. Because of this, I got a door and cut out squares from it while adding a texture on top because the door was a little to perfect looking for me. I made sure to add enough shading in the right places to make sure that it looked like a whole image instead of just a sticker book.
