How to Create a Wall Graffiti of Bob Marley

We’re are going to immortalize the iconic Bob Marley on a brick wall – graffiti style. Graffiti has come a long way to the point that its argued by some to be respectable works of art for it was and still is considered as rude and destructive in the public sphere. On count, it is highly expressive and does lend to images/text powerful forms representation.Same goes for this tutorial where we’ll be applying Layer masks and Blend modes to merge a grunge-like image of Bob Marley with a brick wall.

Step 1

Start with a Bob Marley picture of your choice. Open a new transparent
document with the document size set to 1280 x 1024 px and a resolution of 140 inch/pixel.

Step 2

Go to Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation and increase the Saturation value to 100.

The reason for increasing the Saturation to the maximum was to vividly bring out the shadings of the face. I also had the picture resized to reveal potions of the transparent background.

Step 3

Head on over to Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation yet again or
hit Ctrl+U for the Hue/Saturation dialog box. This time, reduce Saturation to -90.

If I had just opted to desaturated the picture completely to gray scale, the picture would’ve appeared to have a faint bluish tint.

Step 4

We’d now fade the details of the image. Clicking on Image>Adjustment>Brightness/Contrast set the parameters below:

Step 5

We’d now apply a rough tile effect by going to Filter>Texture>Mosaic Tiles from the menu. Set Tile Size to 27, Grout Width to 4 (which determines the size of the cracks) and Lighten Grout to 7.

The result:

Step 6

We’ll now apply the Brick Filter effect over the Mosaic Tiles which
would of course blend all nicely and hence, create a more convincing rough
brick wall composition. Go to Filter>Texture>Texturizer and click
the drop-down menu for the Brick texture and set the parameters below:

The result looks better than having any one of the texture filters left out.

Step 7

Download this brick texture from www.sxu.hu
but if you do find a wall with smaller bricks, the better. I was interested in this wall because of how uneven the bricks were. Drag the brick texture picture to the main document window and place it below the “Marley” layer.

Step 8

It was delibrate to have parts of the brick wall to show through when
the Marley image was resized earlier. Also resize the brick picture by
pressing Ctrl+T to enter the Free Transform mode. Holding down the
Shift key, drag the corners of the picture to scale it down while maintaining
its original aspect ratio. Hit the Enter key when done.

Step 9

Set the “Marley” layer’s Blend mode to Hard Light and reduce its opacity to about 45%.

Step 10

With the Foreground colour set to black by hitting the D key, select
the Brush Tool (B) as a Spatter Brush. Increase its diameter to about 153
px and on the brush’s Options bar reduce its opacity to 90%.

Step 11

Click from the left, the third icon at the base of the Layers Palette to create a Layer mask for the “Marley” layer. Now paint around the edges of Marley’s head and his face, particularly around the chin areas. Don’t completely reveal the bricks (except for the edges of the image) while painting away.

Step 12

Select the Gradient Tool (G) and set the colours of Color Stops as shown below:

Step 13

On the Gradient Tool’s Options bar, set the Gradient to Radial and then
drag the tool from the center to the left side.

Step 14

Set the Graidient layer’s Blend mode to Soft Light and its opacity to 75%. And we’re through! Jah Rastefari mon.

MORE VARIATIONS:

Here, I’m playing around with Blend modes and opacities to come up with a
couple variations. The one below is a favourite of mine; the Marley image is a lot more
defined but yet it blends quite nicely with the wall. The “Marley” layer Blend type here was set to Hard Light and its opacity reduced to about 60%.

Moving on further, a Brick Texture Filter effect was applied to the brick picture to get the result shown below:

Now finally, this is another variation with the Blend mode set to Vivid Light. The details of the face here are more faded and the orange-brownish colour of the bricks shows through.Whatever your choice of the Blend modes Ive highlighted, it all comes down to your personal preference.

By David Ella Ella