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I wish to paint the image below by hand, using oil pastels. This is from period drama (Rustic India, 1800s). The background is simple, yet decorative, the lady is a natural beauty.
The only problem is that the lady is crying. I wish to replace her sad face with a happy one.

The image I wish to paint (only the lady should smile):

enter image description here

Other photos with this same lady, but here she is smiling:

the same lady, smiling the same lady, smiling
the same lady, smiling the same lady, smiling
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  • Do you want to do this painting digitally, or by hand but you don't know how to visually merge the two subjects you are modeling on?
    – Erica
    Feb 28, 2018 at 15:59
  • @Erica I wish to paint by hand
    – Artie Ladie
    Feb 28, 2018 at 17:18
  • OK -- we thought it was about taking an expression from one digital image to change another. Thank you for clarifying.
    – Erica
    Feb 28, 2018 at 17:30
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    digital manipulation might still be a good starting point. If you have film footage from each of these episodes, such that you can move frame by frame through views of her face until you find a smiling one where her face is at the same angle and elevation, you could cut that face out and roughly paste it into a copy of the sad picture. Then use that crude amalgamation as the basis of your hand painting.
    – Henry Taylor
    Feb 28, 2018 at 20:11
  • @HenryTaylor Fantastic idea!
    – Artie Ladie
    Mar 1, 2018 at 2:28

2 Answers 2

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Digital manipulation might still be a good starting point.

If you have the digital film footage from each of these episodes, and if you have good video player software, you should be able to move frame by frame through all the views of her face until you find a smiling one where her face is at the same angle and elevation as in the sad picture.

You can then capture that screen and digitally cut her face out from it. Try to place most of your cutout lines midway across zones of relatively featureless, flat skin to make the next "merging" step easier.

Once you have her happy face floating in an otherwise transparent image, paste it into a copy of the sad picture, scaling it so that it overlaps and thus replaces the unhappy facial features. You don't have to get the edges perfect. Focus instead on placing the eyes correctly and getting the scale right.

You aren't trying to produce a refined piece of digital art; just a crude template to guide your manual painting efforts.

Once you are happy with the digital results, you can print it out or paint from the screen image or even use a digital projector to cast the image onto your canvas for tracing.

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If you're painting by hand and want the first scene but with a happy face just note the subtle elements that make an expression.

Her eyebrows are furloughed an not straight and relaxed, the shape of her eyes are not turned up and you can see more of her iris because her eyes are wider than when she's happy. Obviously you'd want to make her smile instead of frown but also note that when she's happy you can see the apples of her cheeks.

I would use the expression in the fifth photo as a guide for changing the expression in the first one since it's not too different but they're all very good smiles. I also like to make the face I want to draw while I'm drawing because you feel all the little differences.

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  • This is a very good explanation!
    – Artie Ladie
    Mar 5, 2018 at 0:43

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