Spiritually Improved:

The goal of this piece was to create an improved version of myself. Since I couldn't think of any physical functionality improvements, I opted to represent a spiritual improvement using the physical characteristics of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi.

Using this idea as a springboard, I merged two photos of myself with my hands in different positions (using masks) and added a third eye, also using masks. The lotus flower was cut out from another picture and transformed to fit. I used a copy layer command to get the layer that would be in front of the body, and added a drop shadow to match the shadows on the body. I used a gradient in the background, two lens flare effects, and a low opacity version of the locus flower.