Hi,
I'm working on a digital art project that has a step which involves deforming a face. Specifically, blurring or smudging the image so what's left is almost a gradient effect - say "silver-surfer-esque". OR this:
: 
As you can see, almost unrecognizable and very smooth. My next step is to use the displace command to wrap a pattern over the face w/ blend tools, but getting this part right is important. The more abstract the better. any suggestions?