Pictures of Daewen

How To Photograph An Elf

Some time back I decided that I'd like to have a picture of Daewen to put in the FuRPiG log pages. She's one of my favorite characters and is often a pivotal character in the plots, easily the most frequently recurring NPC. The problem is that it's notoriously hard to get a photograph of an elf, so I decided I'd have to synthesize it from a number of photos of actresses and models from our world. The result isn't entirely accurate, but it gives an acceptable approximation.

I started out with three actresses and two Playboy models. I chose Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts because although both women are beautiful, their good looks are a little quirky and their faces have a good deal of character. I especially like both of their mouths. Daewen has occasional described her mouth as "too wide" and so I wanted women with wide interesting mouths. I chose Tia Carerre for her oriental looks and especially her eyes. Daewen's eyes are often described as "almond-shaped" and so I wanted at least one pair of oriental eyes to go into the mix.

The two Playboy models, Rosangela Caetano and Christina Leardini, are both Latin beauties, chosen for their dark hair and their noses. Daewen's nose is occasionally described as aquiline, and is certainly not a cute little button as her face is long and thin. Both women, despite the stereotype of Playboy models being all alike have a lot of character in their faces. Rosangela's feature are very strong and Christina's very sharp and her eyes slant some, adding to the almond shape.

I chose two photos of each woman so I could create two different pictures of Daewen.The following table shows the shots I used:

Sandra Bullock	Julia Roberts	Tia Carerre	Rosangela Caetano	Christina Leardini

Once I had my basic source shots, I began the process of morphing them into Daewen using a program called Morpher. In both sets of pictures I mixed the same pairs so that the amount that each woman contributed to the final result was the same in both pictures. Daewen is 1/8 Julia and Tia, and 1/4 each Sandra, Rosangela and Christina.

Here's the evolution of the first picture:

Tia Carrere and Julia Roberts are morphed into "Tulia"
	"Tulia" and Rosangela Caetano are morphed into "Angela"				Sandra Bullock and Christina Leardini are morphed into "Santina"
		"Angela" and "Santina" are morphed into "Angelina"

And here's the second:

Tia Carrere and Julia Roberts are morphed into "Tulia"
	"Tulia" and Rosangela Caetano are morphed into "Angela"				Sandra Bullock and Christina Leardini are morphed into "Santina"
		"Angela" and "Santina" are morphed into "Angelina"

The resulting pictures have the basic facial characteristics I was looking for, but the hair and shoulders tend to be rather blurred since they are quite different from one source picture to the next. To remedy this, I used the same Morpher control files but rather than blending the two images, reshape one of them to be the same shape as the original output. In both cases I chose Rosangela Caetano and reshaped her picture to match "Angelina". This gave me hair that I could combine with Angelina's to create the final image.

Rosangela is morphed to the same shape as Angela					Rosangela is morphed to the same shape as Angela
And then to Angelina's shape					And then to Angelina's shape
Her face and neck are cut out, leaving the hair & shoulders					Her face is cut out,leaving the hair, neck & shoulders
Then merged with Angelina to create Daewen					Then merged with Angelina to create Daewen

One question I had was whether the results of combining different shots of the same women in the same order would produce results that are identifiably the same woman. could I reliably produce shots of Daewen? I think the answer is yes. Here are the results of the various morphs side by side:

"Tulia"	"Angela"	"Santina"	"Angelina"	"Daewen"

My next project (in progress) combines the two into a single portrait: