Lil' bug

Found this little bug while weeding my garden today.

Photo manipulation practice continues, and I'm certain my methods leave a lot to be desired, and a class would be awesome, but who has the time.  So I'll continue to practice, and surf the net for information, and practice more. I'm betting the model, my daughter Drew, will become exhausted with me long before I've mastered the manipulating technique. (After all, the shrink ray really takes a lot out of you!)  Until then...

This piece is actually three separate shots combined. The first shot being of my daughter pretending to sleep with a stuffed toy.  We set up on a white sheet spread out for staging in her bedroom.  The second shot was of the shell which measures approximately 1 inch in legnth.  I took many shots of many shells, some placed on a black background, others on white.  The third and final shot is the nature shot.  This came from the garden in my front yard.  There were several areas and several angles but the rock and greenery in this shot is from one take, although while working on this I had to duplicated this layer.  I don't believe I added any textures to this, so any appearrance that I did is "accidental".  In the end, I really need to be more learned on better shading techniques.