The Mad Horror Clown

Scary Clown Photoshop Manipulation: Final Image

Let's take a quick look at the final image of the scary clown Photoshop manipulation that we are about to create. Please remember that sometimes the images used in certain photo manipulation may not be available anymore, so that doesn't mean you can not practise the tutorial using other stock images.


In this tutorial I will show you how to draw a clown face step by step using Phtoshop. So, we'll start with a portrait photo and draw on top of it. You can use this technique as a truely awesome clown filter in Photoshop.

Step 1 – Find the Perfect Images

So, how to make a clown?

Open a new psd file 550/600 pixels. Now lets start looking on the internet for images. I found on flickr that has the label Creative Commons-licensed content for adaptation, modification or building upon a nice image. This image is just perfect except the eyes, background and clothes. For the eyes I will use this scary eyes photo. I will add the other images further on.

Lets proceed!

Call this initial layer Face layer.

Step 2 – Use Liquify to change the Face Expression

This smile is not scary so go to Filter – Liquify and pick Forward Warp Tool for this job. The settings for this tool are presented below but the brush size will vary from 19 to 30.

Step 3 – Add Scary Eyes

Copy this scary eyes photo and place it above Face layer. Resize the image until the eyes have the same size as the original eyes. Select only the left side screen eye with Eliptical Marquee Tool and than press CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Now we have a new layer. Call this layer Eye layer. Delete scary eyes photo.



As you can see the eye is too dark so go to Image – Adjustments – Curves and lighten the image



Now go to Image – Adjustments – Color Balance and make the following settings







Now duplicate the eye and go to Edit – Transform – Flip Horizontal. Now we have the second eye. Move the eyes to their appropriate place.

Zoom in the image and easily delete the unnecessary skin around the eyes.

You should obtain an image like this one:



It starts to look pretty scary, isn’t it?

Step 4 – Add wrinkles to the Face

Select the Face layer and the two Eye layers and right click , merge layers.

With the Burn Tool size 3, exposure 17 %, range Shadows burn the wrinkles. As you can see from the image below I have accentuate some of his wrinkles with burn tool I’ve created some new ones with the same tool on the forehead.

Because the wrinkles from the forehead are too colored I will use Sponge Tool, brush size 3 , desaturate .

Use the Dodge Tool near the wrinkles, to give the impression that area is bumped.





As you can see the result is a more scary wrinkled face.

Step 5 – Crop the Man

Until we go any further crop the man image or remove the background is the same thing.





Use the Pen Tool , right click , choose Make Selection. Set the Feather Radius to 10 pixels ; if you don't do that the selection edges would be very visible and annoying .


With the lasso Tool selected , right click and choose Select Inverse and press delete.

The result should be something like this:

Step 6 – Add Background

I will now add a background. Draw a rectangle and place it below all layers. Go to the Blending Options of this layer and add Gradient Overlay:





For the gradient I choose the following colors :

Step 7 – Face Clown Makeup Photoshop

Let's start to add the clown makeup to the photo using Photoshop.

The first thing that I will do to paint with the Brush Tool the lips. Create a new layer and call it Lips. The color I've used is #b00808.





Change the blending mode of Lips Layer from Normal to Color Burn , Opacity 90%.



Place the clown on the left side of the image...this will be his final place because as you saw in the initial image I will add a background image!

With the Pen Tool draw a shape like in the image , the color is white. Call this layer Mouth. Go to blending options and add a stroke , color black:









Duplicate this layer Mouth. Merge Mouth layer and Mouth copy layer. Now with the Eraser Tool delete the part that covers the lips and teeth. Change the opacity of this layer to 78%.

Use the Eraser Tool opacity 12 % size 3-6 to show the face features and wrinkles so that the make up looks real!





Create a new layer and with the Brush Tool , color #201005 draw an area around the eyes. To look real use Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur :





Let's change the eyes a little bit to look like scary glass eyes. Draw a circle with the Ellipse Tool .

The circle color is white and add a stroke 2 px , color #afb9a8.

Change the Blending Mode of this layer from Normal to Darken 100%!





Add another make up element to the eyes. With the Pen Tool draw a shape like in the image , color #1a100b.

Step 8 – Hair

The hardest part of this photo manipulation was adding the hair. I am not using the graphic tablet even if I had one :) .... I will learn to use it soon!

So with the Brush Tool and this color #d43a05 draw a simple hair shape like in the image. Use the other two colors to give contrast. You will have to use small size brush for creating hair wires!





When you draw hair you may want to use Dodge Tool to lighten parts of the hair , Burn Tool to darken the bottom areas of the hair. I also use Smudge Tool (small size 3 px, strength 85%) to create hair wires.

The result is up to you!

Step 9 – Add A Red Clown Nose To The Picture

This is a cool technique if you want to add a clown nose to a picture. Draw a red circle in the nose area. Apply Gradient Overlay and Stroke to this circle like in the image:





The colors and the settings for the gradient , lighter color #ff2400 (24%) , darker #be0707 (58%) and the darkest #8d0303 (100%):





The color for the stroke is #a70808:





Duplicate this layer and merge the two nose layers. With the Burn Tool and the Dodge Tool darken and lighten the nose to look like in the image:





It is impossible to look exactly like this because I can't do it twice with an identical result. You can also adjust the intensity of the color if you think it is too saturated from Image – Adjustments – Hue/Saturation.

Lets add a nose shadow to look more realistic. Because the initial photo did not contain the nose there is any shadow on the face. Press CTRL and click the nose layer thumbnail. You will see that a selection was made. Create a new layer below nose layer and call it shadow.

Fill the selection in the shadow layer with #190202.

Move the shadow downwards and to the right.





Now lower the opacity of the layer to 70% and to soften the edges go to Filter – Blur – Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.5 px:

Step 10 – Dress the Clown

A clown in the T-shirt not so right so I have found this really nice clown outfit

Crop only the outfit and add it to our clown.

Rotate the image a little and place it to fit to the original image





Use the Resize and Warp options to look like it is from the initial photo. Use the Eraser Tool to give a round shape in the neck area.

Step 11 – Background Circus

Now we have to make this image look good! For that I will have to add first a background. I have found this sky and this circus . Very beautiful photos that work perfect with my clown.

First add the circus image . Resize it to 50%. Duplicate this image and flip one of them horizontally.

Change the blending mode of these layers to Hard Light 100%.





Merge the two layers and erase the part from the left that is in the face area.

Now lets add the clouds. Scale it to 115% to cover the image.





Change the blending mode of Sky Layer to Hard Light 100%.

Step 12 – Simple Blending Solution

As you can see we have three different images that don't match very good one with another. So in just two simple steps the image will be completely transformed!

Ups big problem!I can't remember the link to the original image of one of the textures that I used in this image . If someone finds this image please leave me a comment with the link :).





So I have placed this image above all the layers except the nose layer including the nose shadow.

Change the blending mode of this Rusty Texture layer to Color Burn 95%.





Now simply create another layer above all the other layers and with the Brush Tool draw with dark color the areas that you want to hide. Be careful to use a Soft Round Brush to give the impression that the clown is covered of dark shadow . You can of course after completing this step to return to every layer and play with contrast, use Burn/Dodge Tool to add contrast , play with colors , saturation levels etc.

Horror Scary Clown Photoshop Image