Toothpick Through Your Hand! (in Photoshop)

In this Instructable you will learn how to create a cool, bloody effect, using two pictures (taken of your own), photoshop and some creativeness.

Step 1: Start Like This

Download the two files to your computer. Open the two images (called hand.jpg and toothpick.jpg), the hand-image and the toothpick image, with Photoshop. I'll use Photoshop CS3.

Step 2: Erase

Select toothpick copy and press E to select Eraser. Make the brush big (somewhere about 1337 works for me) and hardness 100%. Erase everything except for the toothpick, this time it doesn't have to be perfect.

Move the toothpick layer so it seems like it is pointing out right from the hand. Not perfect! But it shall at least look like it can be a bit true, otherwise you got to capture new source images (or download at some place, but for this kinds of stuff it is almost easier to capture the photos yourself).

Step 3: Erase Again

Now start over from the erasing point, but do it all more accurate. Remember to save all the time so you can go back to an earlier state if you want to change something. If you don't like to use the eraser tool you can use the polygonal lasso tool.

Place the toothpick so it is in the right place and zoom in around the area where the wound will be.

Press [O] to activate the burn tool (watch out so you don't get the dodge or sponge tool) and choose a small brush size, 6 works for me. Change the exposure to somewhere between 5 and 20. It's often better to use low exposure and paint many times, than use high exposure a few times.

Now start to paint around the root of the toothpick so it shapes a circle around the "hole" through the hand.

Step 4: Get Brushes!

Now's the time to open Firefox (or other if you like) and go to "getbrushes.com" and download KeReN's Blood Brushes for Photoshop (cred to KeRen for the brushes) [img]

Import the brushes to photoshop. If you don't know you can watch at the FAQ on getbrushes.com there's a good explanation.

Step 5: Paint With Your Imported Brush

The brush is actually a set of brushes, and now it's in your brush-box. It's quite far down so you have to scroll a bit. The brush I use for this tutorial is called Sampled Brush #4 and is in the package named in the last step.

Create a new layer (blood) and place it between the toothpick layer and the hand layer.

Activate the imported brush and choose a good, blood-red color. Change the size (I used 862) and then paint once. One simple click, or two if the shape is to light.

Step 6: Warp the Blood! (and Make the Skin Look Weird)

Warp!

Drag in the handles until the blood seems to be a bit more realistic.

Now skin:

Now duplicate the blood-layer and hide the original blood-layer. Rename the "blood copy"-layer to "skin". Erase everything on the skin-layer without the area around the hole, so what's left is shaped almost like a circle.

Warp the skin-layer (if you like to you can use Liquify instead. Filter --> Liquify)

Warp until it looks good. Right-click on "skin" and open the Blending Options menu. Click on Bevel and Emboss and choose the options shown in the image.

Press ok.

Set the Opacity on the skin-layer on 66% and fill 40%.

Step 7: Masking

Place the skin-layer so it is the top-layer. Press the add layer mask button to add a layer mask.
Use a brush with the same diameter as the toothpick has, and paint over the toothstick. This will hide the "fakie-skin" so it looks a bit better.

Show the blood-layer again.

Step 8: Smudging

Use the smudge tool with around 55% pressure, some brush that isn't just round and try to drag the blood out a bit, so it looks like it flows down on the hand. I use long smooth motions and thinks that it gives the best results.

Open the blending options for the blood layer and use these settings:

Soon we're finished...

Step 9: Blood Spatter

If this image would have been real, the toothpick would have been put trough your hand from the other side, the side you don't see on the image. This means that it has to be blood on the toothpick.

To paint some more blood follow these steps:
Activate the toothpick-layer ctrl-click on the toothpick-layer to select it. This prevents blood to come on places you don't want it to be on.

Get a splatter brush (built in to photoshop) with low opacity and red color and start to paint a bit on the stick. Just a bit, and maybe some splashes with blood too.

Step 10: Extras and Saving

So, almost done.

If you like to you can make the hand more grey (by adjusting black & white in Image --> Adjustments --> Black & White) or paint a bit more blood, like I did (either with the new brushes, or with some of the main-brushes). If you want more blood, paint it in the blood-layer to get the same effects as you already have on the main-blood.

Just saving left:

To save the image, press: File --> Save As... --> Write a name, change psd to jpg (or png or wathever you like) in the list below the name-form.
Then press Save and choose settings for the jpeg-compression, around ten works good.

Comments

[lieuwe]

i know form experience that a toothpick through your hand doesn't look like that, it doesn't actually bleed at all, the skin at the other side is just stretched a bit(yes it went THAT far trough)

[GorillazMiko]

Agreeing with everybody, the blood doesn't look too real, but still, awesome job!

[mangenoll]

Thanks :) Have been looking around for ways to do it better but haven't found any yet. shall maybe upgrade the blood (and the instructable) a bit. We'll see...

[cry_wolf]

Good job, but there should be somesort of shadow or something on the toothpick to hand and also the contrast should be lower, it seems too bright compared to the image which is mainly in darkness.

[mangenoll]

Thanks :)

[Father Christmas]

i can do the same thing with a toothpick, ketchup and superglue.

[mangenoll]

Yeah :P, but thats not digital. Why not do a "How to create this effect (with a link to this page of course), but without a drawing program! ", but they will have to have a computer to read your tut anyway :P, and to do this in gimp isn't that much different from this method.

Cheers! :)

[Father Christmas]

could do that. besides, i guess if you dont plan on wearing it for Halloween or such there isnt much use for actually sticking it on XD

[mangenoll]

No, I suppose so... Name taken from the Kinks-song?

[Father Christmas]

not originally, but that might end up being my new excuse lol

[mangenoll]

Yeah :P

[TheDeadChemist]

I have had this happen to me for real..........

[DrWeird117]

Try this on for size: stepped on a board with a nail in it, very rusty....right through my shoe and foot. Got a tetnus shot.

[twenglish1]

you think that's bad try having a nail shot through your hand with a high power nail gun

[DrWeird117]

I saw that Criss Angel skit too. Did it happen to you?

[twenglish1]

yah i was nailing a board and i didn't realize my hand was right behind where i was nailing and the next thing i new there was a hole in my hand and there was blood everywhere and i also saw that Criss Angel skit but this happened to me before he did that

[DrWeird117]

ever sever a vein? or be pinned to a wall? not bragging, though

[mangenoll]

Ouch, did it hurt? Or bleed? I haven't seen it for real so it's a bit hard to imagine how it really looks, but fake blood is fun!

[explosivemaker]

...hey don't think this can't happen to you....I have had toothpicks stuck into my foot twice.....it hurt quite a bit.....once in the heel and the other between the big and first toe...

[DrWeird117]

Try this on for size: stepped on a board with a nail in it, very rusty....right through my shoe and foot. Got a tetnus shot.