Are you ready for some Mayhem?

[GbyP]

Wow. I'm stunned. Truly. Thank you!

My original source of inspiration:
   

I really didn't think I could pull off an image using real sheep pics; South Park gets away with liberties because it is a cartoon... same here. I wanted some sheep flying away while others still standing - dense sheep - so thought it needed a comic style.

I wanted cute uniform sheep and the cutest I recalled were the ones in Wallace and Grommit. And easy & quick to draw: a round puffball body, a head of 3 oblongs, and 2 stick legs. I created 1 sheep set of these parts and duplicated them a gajillion times which would enable me to manipulate each individual without having to create each from scratch.

I used the same comic stying to create the cow, dog, and pig: a bunch of circles and stick legs. Originally, I had the pig in the foreground, his whole body flopping in the wind except his mouth anchored to the grass eating. Then thought "When pigs fly" and put him overhead. That allowed the set-up with the 3 sheep in the foreground. My favorite part is the sheep stuck under the rafters - I imagined this ball of sheep that would bounce down when the wind stopped. I originally looked for a traditional red barn with an overhanging roof, but thought this tropical barn was better because I could accumulate more sheep in there!

I loved this picture of a lone tree in the meadow but the HDR ruined the grass and sky for me so I only used the tree. I painted one swatch of grass and cloned it a billion times, reshaping each for different parts of the pic.

Finally, I wanted the setting to be Kansas as an ode to some favorite Farkers, but only wanted the sign from this pic.

The only reason I didn't post the whole pics was because I compiled them at 3:30AM and was mostly asleep. Like the border collie slide tracks - that looks stupid now, but was funny when I was asleep.

Here is a pic of my psd showing these originals plus my original sheep (EDIT: I linked it because it's a wee big for an inline post). Lots of layers and some photoshop parlor tricks. I rarely flatten my files; if I do that I create copies of the layers 1st then flatten the duplicates. As you can see, the original cut-outs are messy but the mess is hidden by other layers & masks.
[
I credit ReggieNoble2 with this win because it was he who introduced me to the brush set he used (I'll link it when I can find it) - a brush set I've used almost exclusively since 2007 - and that photoshop could be more than pasting photos together. I've gotten good at copying other styles... now the next scary step - creating original works.

EDIT: Sorry for the 'indulgence' above but really want to post some tutorials this year and want to get into the practice of explaining process.

Thank you all. You managed to leave me speechless for over 4hrs! Good job!