In this tutorial I will teach you how you can bring life into a manican. Sometimes dolls or manicans may have the exact pose you need for a project, so I will show you how you can get a usable image to use.
We will start with her hair by creating a new layer, and changing the blending mode to Linear Light. Once we're using that blending mode, let's use the Brush tool with a brownish red color to paint her hair. Be careful not to go too far out of her scalp. I zoomed in several times to try and get things as accurate as possible. Of course, it is hair, so it doesn't have to be perfect.
Next, let's create a new layer above our other layers. We'll want to switch our brush color to a bit of a lighter color to add highlights. When we're finished with that, use the Smudge tool to blend the highlights into her hair.
Now let's create another new layer, set the blending mode to Color, and use a skin tone appropriate color to color in her skin. We'll add 2 more layers for her lips and her eyes as well, both using the Color blending mode.
Now that we basically have her all nice and colored in, let's merge everything into a Smart Object, rasterize that layer, and then duplicate it. On the new layer, we'll use Filter > Artistic > Post Edges eight the Edge Thickness set to 6, the Edge Intensity set to 4, and the Posterization set to 0.
Now let's use the Magic Wand tool to delete the background of this layer.
Using the Smudge tool, we'll want to smooth out the dots created from our filter. Now at this point I have the layer's Blend Mode set to Linear Burn, but in the end result, we'll change it to Overlay. Linear Burn makes it easier to see the dots while we use the Smudge Tool.
We'll also want to delete the filter's effect on her shirt.
As I mentioned, we'll switch the Blend Mode over to Overlay, which will give us our final image:
