I've been working on this for a few days now and was wondering what others think of it. All thoughts and comments about any element of the image are welcome.
One of the biggest problems is trying to make the girl look as if she's soaking wet. So far I've run the burn tool on her hair to darken it down but it still looks too dry, added an embossed layer to make the jacket and boots more shiny and messed around with some water brushes adding little bits of dripping water here and there. She still looks too dry though.

Looks good Caz.

Not sure how to get the hair looking wetter, just thinking about it, it would become more flat and darker in colour. Also with the car lights the shadow of the girl I would have thought would be directly in front of her or at least a slightly lighter second shadow.

But on the whole its a good piece that looks like one image, and the scene is interesting.

When hair gets soaked it forms clumps that stick together, and darkens. Red hair looks brown when wet, and adding shadow streaks to her hair may help, as it looks combed and dry. The water also adds a bit of a gloss to soaked hair, so you would probably see some traces of specular reflection ( bright glossy reflection) her head in the direction of the light source. Make sure that there is some of the blue of the scene around her in her hair as well.

Hay Caz excellent work, my work is no where near this good.
I agree with you, the girls hair needs a little more shine on top,
and more matted on the sides.
The jacket, where the heavy creases are, needs very small streams of water
following them and running off or dripping heavy at the bottom.

Overall, I think it's great work. Only thing is, if you want the girl to look wetter, you'll have to work on the ground around her also. I notice no saturation from the rain. You can always go with the idea of that, it just started raining.

A few things:

I think if a car light was looking right at me on a wet rainy night the light would have much more glare and be trying to go through the water of the rain.

Having the rain look like it's hitting her head not just being behind it might help the image a lot.

She looks too Saturated ( as in color) for the dismal grey/black raincoat she's wearing, not sure if it came like that or you made it that way so I don't know if that can be helped or not.

Overall Nice job.

It seems to me an excellent photo manipulation. Good job!

Just for you to experience, to give it a wet look to the skin, clothes and hair you should try G'MIC "Relief Light" filter. You select the girl and try different values ​​without exceeding the luminosity, increase the darkness a bit. It would be preferable that you work with hair, clothing and skin separately to give different values to them.

Thanks everyone for all the comment, they're very much appreciated.

@ He4rty. I know what you mean about the second shadow. Most of the light, on the girl's dress and the tunnel entrance, comes from the left. Now that there's a second light source from behind I'm not really sure how the shadows would fall in the real world, plus I thought that the steps would cut off any shadow created by the headlights but I could be totally wrong there.

@ CRogers. I've toned down the hair colour and now it looks much flatter, thanks for the tip. I will also have a play around and see what I can come up with for the shine and blue light.

@ Mikechat. I've added a few drops of water to the jacket but considering how heavy the rain is I think, like you say, that the water would be running of the jacket in streams. I'll add some more and see how it looks.

@ Relllk419. I wanted to add a sheen of water to the ground but I've no real idea how to do it. For the moment there's a few little streams of water running over the kerb stones but it is an area that needs more work.

@ Mokonafan. I've toned the colour right down on the girl's face and legs now and made it so that the rain appears to be in front of her. There's three different layers for the girl and I'm trying to find the right balance so that her features are not lost behind the rain but so that they also stand out enough to be visible. It looks better now that I've made the changes you recommended.

@ Yafu. Thanks for the tip about the Relief Light. I'll have a play around with that and see what turns up.

@ conbagul. Thanks for the link to the Luse Filter, that's well cool. Certainly brightens things up.

Well conbagui light effect solve all problem about the hair
i fear will be lethal a similar "best possible target" position and posture, with the hero choosing best possible retro illumination to be well noted even by almost blind snipers ...but anyway does work as dramatic light effect

Looking forward to seeing the updated image.

That girl looks like the real life girl from some of Merraks paintings, especially the early ones (yes, I forgot her name) !

I think it's Marra. Not positive though, I'm bad with names. xD

LOL, nice one.

Here's a DeviantArt link to the updated version http://fav.me/d6k2rl3
It would be nice to know whether it looks better or worse. Cheers for any comments.

yes now is much better , before the hair were too obviously paste now merge better with the BG

PS
i was thinking to something else, totally unrelated and as a flash i imagined a sort of follow up
As i wrote that position looks very dramatic but is also the posture of the best possible target .

But would become genial if followed immediately by the opposite, the position of the most difficult target, at least most difficult from frontal attackers :
she jump down flat on the ground shooting all her bullets.
Any frontal attackers will be suddenly blinded and illuminated by the car lights, and she will become almost invisible

Almost invisible for the attackers but may be a very interesting prospective , and that may complete a story , a short story but with a sense :

first what you already did ; she fool her attacker posing as the best possible target , a easy hit even for the most incompetent gunmen,
But was a trap ,a trick to make the enemies overconfident , to confound them posing as a easy prey,
..and a heartbeat after she is flat on the ground shooting as Hell, from the position of the Worst possible target , a almost impossible hit
(the less body surface possible exposed and in the most difficult light condition for attackers )

And with the light beam above ,flat to the ground ,only her face and shooting guns raising may offer a dramatic and interesting prospective

Thanks PC for the comment, much appreciated.

I really like your idea for what happens next. I never thought of it that way before, but you're right. If she did suddenly drop down then anyone in front of her would be blinded by the headlights and they would suddenly become the easy target. I'm not sure if there's a version of the shooter in a laying down position but if there is then I'll do a 'what happened next' version. It's a great idea and would be a shame to waste it, cheers.

If you do , would look cool mounted as a diptych or as 2 pages comix
Also in the first the car lights looks strong because the darkness around but may be well dim city lights ,
but as soon she jump flat simultaneously the most dazzling lights switch on
(we may suppose she started a timer or had the car key in hand ...)

Alas no suitable images of the shooter in a crouching or laying down position. There are other stock models posed with guns but none that I have so far found that would suit the mood of the picture. Just have to keep looking and hope I stumble across something.

Close! Mara



Oh... a little. She'd need a wolfpack red tunic, though. That's the color of NC State University!