Animal Combo

Combine 2 animal photos - body from one, the head and neck from the other, and make them blended into one new animal. 

Check out student examples below (or see more here).


Step 1: Get Pictures

Search for pictures

The most important part is finding the right pictures:

  • Photos should be really good quality, clear, at least 600 pixels wide!
  • Combine 2 animals that have similar skin & coloring - don't try to combine a panda bear with a snake!
  • Animals should be facing the same angle (sides or slightly to the side). If they're facing different directions, no problem, just change one of the pictures by using Transform>Flip Horizontal. Facing  the front head on is not that great, because your combination will look like it has a floating head!

 

Putting them into Fireworks

Once you've found picture and gotten them checked by the teacher for quality and possibility, then do the following:

  1. Right-click on the picture of the animal you want to use for the body (we'll refer to this as Animal #1) and Copy
  2. In Fireworks, go CTRL+N (or File>New), Enter and CTRL+V (paste).
  3. Paste again - we want a copy of our original animal (in case we have to rubberstamp out parts of Animal #1 later).
  4. Then copy the other animal photo (we'll refer to this as Animal #2) and paste it in as well. 
  5. Scale down Animal #2 picture - flip it horizontally if needed so it's facing the same direction as Animal #1.

 

Putting them together

Lasso tool

Isolate the head and neck of Animal #2

  • Use the Lasso to cut out the head/neck from one animal and paste it into the other picture.
  • Make sure Lasso is set to feather just a bit (2-3 pixels). 

Rubberstamp tool

Stamp out parts of Animal #1 (if necessary - if any of its head and/or neck are showing). If you haven't already made a duplicate of Animal #1 layer, do so now!

If parts of Animal #1's head/neck are showing, we need to get rid of them carefully using the Rubberstamp tool. 

Before & After JPEGS

Make sure you've saved your working document in Z: with all your work done.

  1. Now hide the top 2 layers - Animal #2 layer & the copy of the original/bottom animal that you used for stamping stuff out)
  2. Go FILE>Save As... change file type to JPG (not default PNG) and call it "animal combo 1 - your name".
  3. Now show the top 2 layers, go to File>Save As... keep it as JPG and call it "animal combo 2 - your name".

More Examples