Each week, two of our assignments need to, in some way, relate to the DS106 course theme. Sometimes this can be difficult, but every once in a while you find an assignment that presents you with the exact opportunity you need. Enter, Fantasy TED Talks. This assignment involved photoshopping a person into a TED Talk. Naturally, I thought the perfect person to incorporate into this project would be Bob Ross, however, I was worried that a lot of other people would have this same idea. I reviewed the course feed for my university and found no posts that attempted to take on this project, so I decided to take my shot.

One thing that came as a surprise when gathering materials for this was how few images there were of Bob Ross’s full body. Even googling “Bob Ross full body” provided very few useful results, with most of the images being either halloween costumes or action figures. I settled on this image because it was pretty much the only viable option. Unfortunately, this meant that limited the kinds of background images I could use, as the presenter would need to be in a position similar to Ross. I decided to use the first image in this article, as the presenter’s position was similar enough and he was far enough away that it wouldn’t be that Jarring if Ross didn’t fit perfectly. Finally, I had to choose an image to use to replace the projection. Obviously, I wanted to use one of Ross’s paintings, and I chose his campfire painting, which can be bound here.

Once I had all of the pieces, it was simply a matter of putting them together. I cut out the white background from the image of Bob Ross and placed him in front of the speaker. Next, I went to the layer directly behind Ross and used the brush tool to erase any trace of the original presenter and cut out one of the audience member’s head so I could place it in front of Ross’s shoe. Finally, I took the campfire painting and distorted it so that it covered the original projection. Below is the final product.