Photoshop Sunday; Stylized Self-Portrait

I saw this great Idea of taking a portrait and then adding textures around the side of the face to create a stylized image.
I took one of my mirrored self-portraits and used bark textures that I got from Deviant Art -AngelicDevil. I used one texture for the background and another  to add around the side of my face. I also used the liquify filter and the clone tool with the textures which In blended using masks and grunge brushes.
Overall work time was about 45mins to an hour.

I quite like the movement in the centre created using the liquify tool as it seems my face is emerging from vortex of some sort. The strong blacks in the centre contrast well with the lighter background. The background has lost its bark feeling and seems to be more like concrete.

I never really thought of using different brushes with the clone tool before. By using the grunge brushes like this added an extra layer of blending to the image, something to remember for next time.
A highlight spot was created somehow but in all attempts to tone it down left the image feeing unbalanced.

Let me know in the comment section what you think.

Let me know in the comment section what you think.

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