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The Mad Horror Clown

Tutorials / Photo Manipulation , October 12th, 2010

I am not afraid of the scary clowns but I know some people are. As you all know the clowns are popular characters in horror movies. So in this Photoshop tutorial, I decided to create my own scary clown. I have found the most perfect figure on the internet to do this photo manipulation. You will see that it is rather simple to create and the result looks really nice!

I hope you find this horror Photoshop tutorial interesting enough to share it with your friends. So let's start creating our scary clown and discover once more the incredible power of Photoshop!

Preview of the Final Image

Let's take a quick look at the final image of the scary clown that we are about to create. Please remember that sometimes the images used in certain photo manipulation may not be available anymore, so that doesn't mean you can not practise the tutorial using other stock images.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 1 – Find the Perfect Images

Open a new psd file 550/600 pixels. Now lets start looking on the internet for images. I found on flickr that has the label Creative Commons-licensed content for adaptation, modification or building upon a nice image. This image is just perfect except the eyes, background and clothes. For the eyes I will use this scary eyes photo. I will add the other images further on.

Lets proceed!

Call this initial layer Face layer.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 2 – Use Liquify to change the Face Expression

This smile is not scary so go to Filter – Liquify and pick Forward Warp Tool for this job. The settings for this tool are presented below but the brush size will vary from 19 to 30.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 3 – Add Scary Eyes

Copy this scary eyes photo and place it above Face layer. Resize the image until the eyes have the same size as the original eyes. Select only the left side screen eye with Eliptical Marquee Tool and than press CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Now we have a new layer. Call this layer Eye layer. Delete scary eyes photo.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

As you can see the eye is too dark so go to Image – Adjustments – Curves and lighten the image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Now go to Image – Adjustments – Color Balance and make the following settings

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Now duplicate the eye and go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal. Now we have the second eye. Move the eyes to their appropriate place.

Zoom in the image and easily delete the unnecessary skin around the eyes.

You should obtain an image like this one:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

It starts to look pretty scary, isn’t it?

Step 4 – Add wrinkles to the Face

Select the Face layer and the two Eye layers and right click , merge layers.

With the Burn Tool size 3, exposure 17 %, range Shadows burn the wrinkles. As you can see from the image below I have accentuate some of his wrinkles with burn tool I’ve created some new ones with the same tool on the forehead.

Because the wrinkles from the forehead are too colored I will use Sponge Tool, brush size 3 , desaturate .

Use the Dodge Tool near the wrinkles, to give the impression that area is bumped.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

As you can see the result is a more scary wrinkled face.

Step 5 – Crop the Man

Until we go any further crop the man image or remove the background is the same thing.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Use the Pen Tool , right click , choose Make Selection. Set the Feather Radius to 10 pixels ; if you don't do that the selection edges would be very visible and annoying .

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image With the lasso Tool selected , right click and choose Select Inverse and press delete.

The result should be something like this:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 6 – Add Background

I will now add a background. Draw a rectangle and place it below all layers. Go to the Blending Options of this layer and add Gradient Overlay:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

For the gradient I choose the following colors :

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 7 – Face Makeup

Let's start painting the man face to look more and more like a clown.

The first thing that I will do to paint with the Brush Tool the lips. Create a new layer and call it Lips. The color I've used is #b00808.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Change the blending mode of Lips Layer from Normal to Color Burn , Opacity 90%.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Place the clown on the left side of the image...this will be his final place because as you saw in the initial image I will add a background image!

With the Pen Tool draw a shape like in the image , the color is white. Call this layer Mouth. Go to blending options and add a stroke , color black:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Duplicate this layer Mouth. Merge Mouth layer and Mouth copy layer. Now with the Eraser Tool delete the part that covers the lips and teeth. Change the opacity of this layer to 78%.

Use the Eraser Tool opacity 12 % size 3-6 to show the face features and wrinkles so that the make up looks real!

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Create a new layer and with the Brush Tool , color #201005 draw an area around the eyes. To look real use Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur :

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Let's change the eyes a little bit to look like scary glass eyes. Draw a circle with the Ellipse Tool .

The circle color is white and add a stroke 2 px , color #afb9a8.

Change the Blending Mode of this layer from Normal to Darken 100%!

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Add another make up element to the eyes. With the Pen Tool draw a shape like in the image , color #1a100b.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 8 – Hair

The hardest part of this photo manipulation was adding the hair. I am not using the graphic tablet even if I had one :) .... I will learn to use it soon!

So with the Brush Tool and this color #d43a05 draw a simple hair shape like in the image. Use the other two colors to give contrast. You will have to use small size brush for creating hair wires!

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

When you draw hair you may want to use Dodge Tool to lighten parts of the hair , Burn Tool to darken the bottom areas of the hair. I also use Smudge Tool (small size 3 px, strength 85%) to create hair wires.

The result is up to you!

Step 9 – Red Nose

Draw a red circle in the nose area. Apply Gradient Overlay and Stroke to this circle like in the image:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

The colors and the settings for the gradient , lighter color #ff2400 (24%) , darker #be0707 (58%) and the darkest #8d0303 (100%):

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

The color for the stroke is #a70808:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Duplicate this layer and merge the two nose layers. With the Burn Tool and the Dodge Tool darken and lighten the nose to look like in the image:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

It is impossible to look exactly like this because I can't do it twice with an identical result. You can also adjust the intensity of the color if you think it is too saturated from Image – Adjustments – Hue/Saturation.

Lets add a nose shadow to look more realistic. Because the initial photo did not contain the nose there is any shadow on the face. Press CTRL and click the nose layer thumbnail. You will see that a selection was made. Create a new layer below nose layer and call it shadow.

Fill the selection in the shadow layer with #190202.

Move the shadow downwards and to the right.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Now lower the opacity of the layer to 70% and to soften the edges go to Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.5 px:

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 10 – Dress the Clown

A clown in the T-shirt not so wright so I have found this really nice clown outfit

Crop only the outfit and add it to our clown.

Rotate the image a little and place it to fit to the original image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Use the Resize and Warp options to look like it is from the initial photo. Use the Eraser Tool to give a round shape in the neck area.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Step 11 – Background Circus

Now we have to make this image look good! For that I will have to add first a background. I have found this sky and this circus . Very beautiful photos that work perfect with my clown.

First add the circus image . Resize it to 50%. Duplicate this image and flip one of them horizontally.

Change the blending mode of these layers to Hard Light 100%.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Merge the two layers and erase the part from the left that is in the face area.

Now lets add the clouds. Scale it to 115% to cover the image.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Change the blending mode of Sky Layer to Hard Light 100%.

Step 12 – Simple Blending Solution

As you can see we have three different images that don't match very good one with another. So in just two simple steps the image will be completely transformed!

Ups big problem!I can't remember the link to the original image of one of the textures that I used in this image . If someone finds this image please leave me a comment with the link :).

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

So I have placed this image above all the layers except the nose layer including the nose shadow.

Change the blending mode of this Rusty Texture layer to Color Burn 95%.

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

Now simply create another layer above all the other layers and with the Brush Tool draw with dark color the areas that you want to hide. Be careful to use a Soft Round Brush to give the impression that the clown is covered of dark shadow . You can of course after completing this step to return to every layer and play with contrast, use Burn/Dodge Tool to add contrast , play with colors , saturation levels etc.

Horror Scary Clown Image

the-mad-horror-clown tutorial intermediary image

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22 comment(s) for "The Mad Horror Clown"

Photoshop Tuts
7:00 AM Tuesday, June 15, 2010
I wasn't scared of the clowns but now i think i am starting to be :) Good job, very nice tut! reply
Jane
Jane
7:00 AM Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The final result looks really nice , a complete transformation! reply
Photoshop Society
7:00 AM Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Oh Man you are great. reply
PsdDude
7:00 AM Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Thanks Dude! reply
Henry
7:00 AM Wednesday, July 07, 2010
Well that really helped me a lot with my work. Thanks a million!
reply
Photoshop Clipping Path
7:00 AM Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Thanks for sharing this wonderful post reply
raybak
7:00 AM Saturday, November 27, 2010
haha thats a perfect funny clown, not a scary one reply
PsdDude
7:00 AM Saturday, November 27, 2010
:) yap, i guess you are right! reply
average homeboi
average homeboi
7:00 AM Friday, February 11, 2011
this is pretty awesome it actually helped me for a project i had to do :) reply
PsdDude
7:00 AM Monday, March 07, 2011
Hi dude,
thanks for reading my tuts, glad u find them interesting!
Your result is really nice, I like the clown and also the floating island....as an advice try to pay more attention to the details! reply
Cory
Cory
7:00 AM Friday, May 06, 2011
Wow, did you do this without a drawing tablet? It's excellent work as it is but, if you didn't use a drawing tablet, excellent isn't the word to describe it. reply
PSDDude
7:00 AM Friday, May 06, 2011
Yap without a graphic tablet, that is the reason why the hair does not look good :)
thank you so much Cory ! reply
Eddie Fitzgerald
Eddie Fitzgerald
7:00 AM Sunday, May 15, 2011
Whoa! This was a terrific tutorial! You're way ahead of most people who do this because you manage to be entertaining without sacrificing detail. If you ever write a book, I'll buy it! reply
Psddude
7:00 AM Sunday, May 15, 2011
Hi Eddie! I am really glad you like my writing style. I always try to explain my tutorials as good as I can. From your kind words I understand that I am doing a pretty nice job :)
Thank you! reply
Fee
Fee
7:00 AM Saturday, May 21, 2011
excellent tut pity you are not a psp user !!! Tut like this for PSP would be fantastic !! reply
PSDDude
7:00 AM Monday, May 23, 2011
Thanks Fee! What do you mean by "psp user" ? :) reply
ABitMadInTheHead
ABitMadInTheHead
9:35 AM Friday, September 02, 2011
Your work has been stolen! - http://sonskushala.deviantart.com/art/Clown-of-Demise-256256087?q=gallery%3Asonskushala%2F15441231&qo=0 reply
PSDDude
9:38 AM Friday, September 02, 2011
Thank you for the warning, this is not the first time that happens :( and I already wrote to him but I don't expect too much reaction ! reply
Deep Shah
Deep Shah
11:50 PM Tuesday, September 18, 2012
I hav finished 3 tutorials
please check out my results on this link below
n tell me how r they reply
PSDDude
11:51 PM Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Nice work my friend! Thank you for practicing my tuts and sorry for the late reply :) reply
Kathy Detweiler
1:03 AM Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Here is mine from the Zombie festival in Pittsburgh

reply
PSDDude
4:10 AM Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Nice work, your clown look really scary :) reply

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