Creative Challenge 36

Good morning,

I found a creative challenge in the book "Caffeine For The Creative Mind: 250 Exercises to Wake Up Your Brain." I also came across various versions of it online. The challenge encourages you to think of compound words, like "moon child" and "sunflower," and replace one of the words with a different word. 

 

After brainstorming some compound words to  illustrate, I decided to go with "toothbrush" and replace "tooth" with "foot." I found an image of a foot and a paintbrush and decided to revisit Photoshop since it’s been a while since I used it. I'm hoping to get some more practice.

While blending the two objects, I tried to eliminate the seam by creating a mask and using a soft round brush to blend. I've done this successfully many times before, but this time it didn't seem to work. I'm unsure what I did wrong; I even attempted dodging, burning, and using gradients. I guess it's time to play around with Photoshop a bit more. I'm not as skilled with it as I would like to be, but I love the endless possibilities it offers.

Anyway, here’s my attempt. Do you have any suggestions?