“Respect your elders?! Don’t make me laugh.” grumbles Sam Bucus, village elder, when I bump into him on our Monday morning stroll in Illingworth Park, “Hawthorn, blackthorn, field maple . . . they’re all included in Doctor Hooper’s hedgerow dating system except, you guessed it, elder! We’re the forgotten shrubs in the hedge.”
“And did I tell you about the time I auditioned for the part of Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy? Too wooden, indeed!”
Everything in this Photoshop collage was photographed in the Park, this time on a rather dull grey morning, which actually proved useful when constructing the figure as I didn’t have any conspicuous highlights and shadows to deal with. To tie him in with the background, I added a transparent shadow layer, using greens and browns taken with the eye-dropper tool from my background photograph instead of the neutral grey that I might normally use for shadows.
I did consider toning down and blurring the background but decided I’d just stick the original so that the whole thing looked like a regular digital snapshot and didn’t look too stage managed.
I stuck with the old elder boughs growing alongside the allotment fence and I’m pleased with the sinewy anatomical look they give him.