Pimp my Warforged! (Iron Man as 'Forged)

Short version- I have a pic of Ironman that I'm trying to figure out how to make look chrome-polished and it seems to require more Photoshopping (actually I have Gimp and Paintshop Pro to work with) skills than I have. PLEASE HELP! Can someone either point me to or post a tutorial on how to achieve a chromed look OR (way better and for which I would be very, very grateful- not to mention in awe of both the skills and generosity involved!) is there any chance one of the artists here could shop the pic for me? Or, as the title says- Pimp my Warforged!

Either way, I'd really appreciate any help anyone can give. I'd do it myself if only I knew how. I've search for tutorials on chroming and so far all I've found were how to do text effects. Please help- the pic is attached to see what I'm trying to mod.




YOU DON"T NEED TO READ BEYOND THIS POINT IF YOU DON"T CARE ABOUT THE CRAZINESS BEHIND THIS...


And now the long version, if anyone cares. But first a disclaimer- this is munchkinny as heck and not normally how our games go, but it's been fun regardless. And heck, who doesn't like to cut loose with an 'anything goes' kind of campaign now and again.

My character (a warmage/wizard/ultimate magus) has recently been transformed into a living construct via a very generous Wish. The new form was to be based on a Warforged but my character hadn't seen too many and so was free to design it how he pleased. (He created the body his soul was to be transferred into, and has more than enough craft skills to create it quite well.) So I decided that my character's elven sensibilities would have him craft a "warforged" that looks much sleeker and more elegant than most (i.e. Eberron 'forged). So I've been researching various armored figures to find something that seems right.

I toyed briefly with the Hellgate: London Templar look- but that looks too much like a guy in armor, not a guy made out of armor! And then I smacked myself in the forehead for not thinking of Ironman straight off. (Especially with the movie trailer all over the net!) I looked through the various Ironman armor versions and really liked the one just before the Extremis mod- the pic in the attachment. It's what the movie armor is based on, but not as "tech" looking and it's at least vaguely (heavy emphasis on the vague and the italics ) medieval looking with the shoulder and arm bits. But, put this pic side by side with a warforged and they're quite similar enough to see Ironman as what I was looking for- a much sleeker, more elegant looking version.

So that's where I'm at- immortality thru living constructhood, in a body of my own design. And then we have the piles of this awesome new metal we've recently come into. It's the DM's inevitable "better than mithral and adamantine combined!" metal (I remind you now of that disclaimer). If you knew this DMs homebrew world you'd understand why I said it was inevitable- he HAD to have something like this and now we've found it. So I plated my new body with it. The "Heaven Metal" (as he calls it- there's another actual name but I don't recall it) has a highly polished chrome look when worked- hence the photoshop effect I'm looking for.

So there you have the whole story, well what matters for this post at least. If you've read all of this and have the ability to help, I hope this hasn't put you off that notion, as I still need it- help I mean. (and probably in more ways than one) Thanks for your time and any help you can give.

I've managed chrome-ish and bronze

Well in case anyone is interested, I've been playing around with GIMP and got an effect close to what I want.

Ironman 01 Chrome - First I erased the background and grayscaled it. Then by adjusting the image color curves (a process that was in one of the chrome text tutorials) I got it looking shiny. Then I fiddled with the brightness/contrast and smoothed it out with the blur filters. That's the "Chrome" pic that's attached. It's not quite chrome, but it's at least a shiny metal effect.

Ironman 01 Bronze - While that will work fine, it's kinda of plain looking. So I went back to the original cleaned up image and played around some more. By using the Hue-Saturation tools I changed the original Red and Yellow to Gold and Lt Blue respectively, then bumped the saturation down until I got Bronze and Steel. Then I used the same process as above to make it shiny.

All told I think it's turned out pretty well, though I like the Bronze version better.

One final tweak

Is there a rules limit to how often you can be the sole contributor to your own post? :\

Anyhoo, after re-looking at what I'd done I realized that my "cleaned up" version of the original pic wasn't very balanced. His whole right side was a little off compared to the left. Granted that's kinda how it is in the original AND the right side is quite dark which made erasing just the background difficult. And I see that I messed it up quite a bit. So I fixed it by mirroring his left side. Then I re-bronzed it and came up with this- my final version I think.

Unless someone else wants to post anything- improvements, suggestions or what-not.

In any case, I give you... The Impregnable Bronze Man!

I don't really have any suggestions, and your game sounds a bit more gonzo than I prefer my D&D, but I like the image! You got the bronze construct look just right.

I saw this post and immediately thought: "Wow, a warforged warlock IS Iron Man!" He can fly, has special senses and can shoot lasers from his hand. Awesome!

I like how it turned out. For a different effect, maybe try running it through a sepia filter to give it that steampunky feel.

I have a warforged warlock that I named "Canon". I am trying to build the mini from an old heroclix figure of Brainiac. Need more "greenstuff" to finish it. I built up the forearms a bit and removed the tentacles. If I could, I would show a series of pictures here depicting its progression from heroclix to canon.