Get Inspired with these 63 Creative Character Photos

From Ariel to Scooby Doo, use these tips to help create your next composite!

Creating Photoshop composites is one of my absolute most favorite things to do. A composite is when you combine multiple images and elements into one finished piece.

Usually these photos are taken in just a few minutes time, with the majority of the time spent setting up the shoot and creating the composite. In addition to having my daughters or other clients dress up in fun costumes, I get to create all kinds of magic behind the scenes during the editing process.

In some of the composites I create, I have to spend more time finding and editing a background than I do actually editing the subject of the photo. Check out this example:

It's also not uncommon for the subject to look VERY different than they do in the straight out of camera picture. In the example below, more time was spent on making Vivian look like Elsa than was spent worrying about the background.

And then of course you get a combination of both...where equal time is spent on the subject as well as the background, as you see in the pictures below with Olivia as Maleficent.

So what happens when I have more than one subject? In that case I determine if those posing are cooperative enough to work together for a group shot. If not, I will pose each subject separately and combine them during the editing process. My girls have had a camera in their face since they were born, so when I say pose, they turn it on lol! Below you'll see how I posed two subjects for one final photo.

I wasn't as lucky for Toy Story, so we had to pose the four kids separately...

Check out the example of this Scooby Doo picture below. I was able to get the kids to all pose together, however I still ended up moving Olivia (Daphne) from the right to the left in the final picture.

Posing is another very important part of this whole process. If you don't have an end composite image in mind, it's hard to know how to pose your subject from the start. Planning ahead will make the editing process a million times easier.

In the image below, I knew I wanted the Cat Lady to be sitting in a rocking chair. I took that into account when I posed Olivia, and used a chair. I also made sure to get a picture of her holding our fatty boy, Sylvester. So the final image uses parts of both images.

Below you'll see I had Olivia pose so that I could place a frog on her hand, like Tiana from the Princess and the Frog.

The last concept I want to cover is when your subject is behind something, such as glass. If you know that you want the subject of your final composite to be standing in something or behind something, consider that when you're posing. I knew I wanted my girls to be in a snow globe for this last example, so I had them stand outside of our sliding door, so I could get a realistic version of their hands and face up to glass. It would have been near impossible to replicate this in Photoshop alone.

Those expressions are priceless! Lol!

These are just a few of the many many Photoshop composites I've created over the years. Check out the video below to get even more inspiration!

Many of these photos contain different Photoshop Actions, Brushes and Overlays, which are all available to purchase in our Etsy Store.

For the background images and other stock photos, I frequently download stock photos from Dreamstime, my go to site for creating composites.

*After you select play, please make you hit the gear button at the bottom right of the video and choose 1080pHD to view the video in the best possibly quality.

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About the Content Creator:

Tonya Cruser is the founder of the Urban Rhino Brand. She is a certified high school jewelry and glass teacher, having studied Fashion Design for her undergrad and Education for her Masters.