Ten years ago today I made my favorite ever Photoshop creation, the shouty Barbie head. I originally made "Shriek.jpg" for a Photoshop contest over at Fark back when that was a novel activity. The contest was, basically, "Here's a photo of my kid; have at it," and it always kind of blows my mind that some parents will do that. But the picture, showing the submitter's Halloween costume-clad son (It's not me, and it's not a girl!) was too good to resist. I handily won the contest with my vision of a deranged fashion doll, but I also submitted this alternative version:
Not quite as jarring as the Barbie image, I suppose.
Photoshopping "Shriek" wasn't that difficult. I found the excellent photo of the vintage doll on a website run by a person who sold wigs for dolls, thus the fantastic hairdo. Both pictures had similar tonalities and almost identical light sources, making them easy to blend with a minimum of fuss. I could probably redo it a little more carefully (left side of the face still bugs me), but I don't think it would significantly improve the image's impact.
Midway through making the picture, I thought, "This would be a perfect cover design for Philip K. Dick's The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch."
So anyway, happy 10, Yelling Doll Thing! Here's to many more.
6 comments:
The first time I saw this, I think I laughed for about three days. As a confirmed child-disliking sometime fashion-doll collector, it just hit every note. That this blog was such a delight...well, that was just icing on the cake. And here are, all these years later.
I love Yelling Doll Thing. I had a very similar reactionto Muscato's when I first saw it. I thought it was a perfect kid portrait (said as someone who loves kids.)
And now we know. Love it!
I thought that was some sort of real doll. Excellent photoshop.
Always loved it, always.
Happy birthday! Took me years to be less-shocked by that picture. It still occasionally hypnotizes me in its red-eyed evil scream.
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