Icon Tutorial #1

[_hoshi]

my first icon tut...

icon made with adobe photoshop 7, but it definitely translates!

we'll be going from this:
to this:

(in a pretty image heavy tut)



well, I started off with this lovely picture from kate hudson.

I cropped it and sharpened it once, so I came up with this:


I smoothed out her skin (small soft-edged brush, opacity about 40%) and sharpened her eyes and lips (but only a little) with a very small hard-edged brush set to about 20% opacity:


then I duplicated the base twice and set the first copy to screen, 25% opacity and the second copy to soft light, 100% opacity:


to give it a more "intense" look, I once again duplicated the soft light layer, but kept the settings.


I thought her lips and cheeks looked a little pale, so I picked a small hart-edged brush (about 3px) and painted, on a new layer set to soft light, 100% opacity, her lips in #AD0837.


then, on another new layer, set to soft light, 100% opacity, I painted with a pretty large, soft-eged brush set to a very low opacity, on her cheeks until she looked a little "healthier" ;)
voilà:


then I flood-filled a new layer with #04011C set to exclusion, 100%:


Now let's have some fun with gradients ;) (all by crumblingwalls)

set to lighten, 32% opacity

set to overlay, 21% opacity

set to soft light, 30% opacity

now I had this:


next step is a light texture by ashke_icons:

set to screen, 100% opacity.

I erased the parts that were covering her face and came up with:


Now I placed a base copy set to soft light, 58% opacity on top of it all, added a "K" in ChopinScript, 24pt, some senseless tiny text and a border (all in 005.F1B54) and... I'm done!

you should have this now:



I hope nothing in this tut is unclear (if so, please tell me) and I could help you at least a little bit :)