Don't Miss

Tributes Unite: Paint Yourself With The Mockingjay

Posted by: Crystal July 6, 2015 in Editorial 36 Comments

Unite-Tributes-Featured

It’s been an exciting day for Hunger Games fans with an epic poster dump ahead of Comic Con and to help celebrate, Jabberjays.net wants to help you join the rebellion. Jabberjay Luan has come up with a Photoshop tutorial so that you can take a photo of yourself and “paint” your face with the mockingjay.

If you don’t have Photoshop, don’t worry, there are free alternatives you can use that are pretty similar. Our suggestion is to download another image editing program called GIMP (which is free) and follow the same steps described below.

For starters, you’ll need to take a photo of yourself, preferably one taken in the dark with light on your face. Your full head should be showing (not just a super close-up of your face) to give yourself some wiggle room for editing. Then download our Template 1 and Template 2. After that, you can get started using the instructions below.

Step 1

Open up your desired image. Crop as desired.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial2

Step 2

Download our ‘Tributes Unite’ text template here. Place this over the top of your image. If the text is too big, go to Edit > Transform > Scale and resize to fit your image.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial3

Step 3

Place the Mockingjay over the top of the face of your image, and scale it appropriately. Download here.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial4

Step 6

Click Command/Control + the icon of the mockingjay layer to bring up the “marching ants” that selects the mockingjay bird. Whilst selected, go to the bottom of the layer panel and click the ‘Add Layer Mask’ icon (a circle in a rectangle). This will create a layer mask that makes it easier to remove parts of the Mockingjay without deleting the layer.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial5

Step 7

Reduce the opacity of the mockingjay layer to around 75 so you can see your face. Make sure the layer mask is selected in the layer panel, and use a black brush to remove the Mockingjay from anywhere outside of the subject’s face and on top of the eyes. This will make the war paint effect. (if you make any mistakes, use a white brush to paint the layer mask back over)

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial6

Step 8

When you have finished removing any blemishes from the Mockingjay, change the opacity of the layer back to 100%.  Go to the blending modes at the top of the layer panel and select “Soft Light”.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial7

If you think the paint is not strong enough, you can duplicate the layer to make it stronger.

Mockingjay-Paint-Tutorial8
And that’s it! You should have your Tributes Unite image to share with the world! As you can see from my image, a photo in the dark with light on your face works best, but it’s still a great look!

If you make one, please be sure to share yours with us in the comments!

Tagged with:

About Crystal

A 35 year-old mom to two living in Honolulu, Hawaii, Crystal Watanabe is co-author of Yum-Yum Bento Box: Fresh Recipes for Adorable Lunches.
  • Erin Poulin

    That’s an amazing guide!

  • Coooooolio! Does Photoshop cost anything? I’ve always made do with Microsoft Paint. xD

    They should collect fans’ photos, put the symbol on each face, and make a giant poster to hang at the Exhibition or some such.

    • Carla

      photoshop isn’t free, unfortunately, but there are free alternatives out there. you can try out GIMP, for example, which has less features than photoshop, but for the purposes of this tutorial should be more than enough:

      http://www.gimp.org/

    • Barrel Rider

      This is really impressive!

    • Jackson Brooks Sharpe

      I love the glasses. It makes it look even more legit since they aren’t painted

  • Krystal Adriana

    This was fun to make. I used Gimp 2.8.

    • Nice!! 😀

      • Krystal Adriana

        Thanks!

        • Jackson Brooks Sharpe

          So cool! Great job!

    • Urgh, everybody looks really good. >.< I downloaded Gimp, but alas I'm just hopeless when it comes to this stuff. Got to step 2, and the "Tributes unite" image covered up the photo with black; I couldn't get it so that it was just the words on top.
      Might have to just break out an old red lipstick tube…xD;

  • Ricky Alvarez

    Can anyone help me with mines? The version I downloaded doesn’t show some of the tools I need. Please? 🙁

    • Jackson Brooks Sharpe

      I’d help if I knew how, but keep asking and hopefully somebody will get you the help you need.

    • Carla

      are you using GIMP? i don’t use that one so i’m not very well-versed on it, but i can try and help. which tool are you unable to find?

      • Ricky Alvarez

        Yeah I tried downloading the program that they offered, and I can get all done except for the “marching ants’ on the mockingjay, I cant move past that step.

  • Michelle K. Connors

    This was fun to make :B

    • Carla

      wow, that looks fantastic!!

      • Michelle K. Connors

        Thanks!

    • Oh my god, that looks amazing!

      • Michelle K. Connors

        Thank you! 🙂

    • Elgad Mochamad

      amazing pict! did you use phone camera or professional camera?

      • Michelle K. Connors

        Thanks! My camera is not exactly ”professional”, but it still does a very good job… Photoshop helps a lot too 😛

        • Elgad Mochamad

          okay thank you very much.. i wish i coud make it as amazing as yours haha

  • Kimmikim08

    I went for a more…hijacked look.

    • Love it!!

    • Carla

      oh my god, with your eye color that looks AMAZING.

    • Kimmikim08

      Thanks! It was the most fun I’ve had with photoshop in a long time, and I use it everyday!

  • Paulo Henrique
  • Rachael

    Took me a few hours but I finally did it! Thanks jabberjays.net!

    • Rachael

      AHHHHH this is the wrong one. Oops lol

  • Luis Antonio Orozco

    I made it!! Thanks!! 🙂

  • 🙂

  • Steven Joshua Che

    Join The Rebellion . #TributesUnited
    Had to edit the whole template to make it more similar to the official one , worth it :))