Photobash experiments & One Piece

I really should update this more often. Anyway, starting off with a couple of experiments with photo usage. Most of the time I am very cautious with this thing called "photobashing". But, since It is a well known professional practice in concept art, I though, I should at least see if I'm able to do it.

Turns out, I am! But I still feel that I have to paint over the photos a lot. For some reason it really bugs me if I can see see the difference between photo and painted parts of a picture. I also thought about creating a (first) video "tutorial" regarding my approach, where I would talk about the  implementation of photo material into a concept/illustration. We'll see.

Long story, short... here are the pictures with said photo elements:

On a different note. I recently finished yet another fan art! This time it's a character of my beloved anime One Piece. The character is the so-called Warlord of the Sea or Shichibukai (the not so beloved) Donquixote Doflamingo aka Joker. I am painting all main villains of OP along with their appearance in the anime. You can check out the previous portraits on my deviantArt gallery. I started doing these way back in 2008 so I also see it as a good indicator of my artistic progress. But for now, here's Doffy: