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Tutorial: Stardust effect
As the Winter/Holiday season is the only time I get away with my love for tacky over the top stardust effects, I've made some very sparkly things lately.
And as people actually asked (*gasp*) how I made them, I couldn't resist the opportunity to spread the stardust love... heee, let it glow!
to
01 Preparing the Base
That's the starting point... as I'm only explaining the basic technique, I've chosen one of the simpler icons...
I've used an Auto-Contrast on this one.
And duplicated the layer (ctrl+j) and set it to Blending Mode Screen
02 Spiral of Glow
I took the simple Pen tool (P)
and made sure I had Paths selected
I drew a zigzag line around Buffy's weapon
then I changed the Pen tool to the Convert Point tool
I clicked on all the left Anchor Points and dragged the Curve handles a little bit upwards
then I clicked on all the right Anchor Points and dragged the handles a little bit downwards
The result is a spiral shaped Path.
Pick white as your foreground color
and select the Default Hard Round 3 pixel brush.
Make a new Layer.
Then go back to your Pen tool. Your Path should still be selected at this point.
Right-Click near the Path in the picture and choose Stroke Path...
make sure Brush is selected and Simulate Pressure is tagged
(that makes the ends of the Spiral look thinner)
the result of this step should look like that.
(if the Path is bothering you, switch to your Path Palette and deselect it)
Then I added an Outer Glow under Blending Options
and it looked like that
I made a layer mask on the Spiral layer and painted in black over all parts that should be behind the weapon.
03 Another Spiral of Death Glow
I repeated all steps of no. 02, but this time around Buffy...
the Outer Glow was slightly larger this time as the spiral was bigger
04 Yay Stardust!
Grab your Soft Round 13 Pixel brush and make some adjustments.
(In the Brushes Palette)
Set the Spacing to 200 % under Brush Tip Shape
Set the Size Jitter to 100 % under Shape Dynamics
Set the Scatter to 1000 % on both Axes under Scattering
Paint your Stardust on a new layer.
05 More Light
Grab your Soft Round 200 Pixel brush and strategically place some white dots.
06 Fine Tuning
Make a new Layer and merge-copy the whole thing in it (ctrl+alt+shift+e)
Please note that the following settings strongly depend on the pic you're using (i.e. contrasts, brightness, colors etc)
I sharpened it (Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen), and immediately faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 60 % on Multiply
the result so far...
I sharpened again (ctrl+f) and faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 30 % on Soft Light
I sharpened again (ctrl+f) and faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 30 % on Screen
I sharpened one last time (ctrl+f) without fading.
07 cropping
Crop it, if needed sharpen again.
As you can see it looks slightly different than the icon I tried to recreate.
That's because it's "hand-drawn" (I know, I know what a concept in the area of ready-made textures *g*)
credit: caps from Screencap Paradise
comments are always appreciated :)
Have fun and spread the tacky stardust love! ;D
And as people actually asked (*gasp*) how I made them, I couldn't resist the opportunity to spread the stardust love... heee, let it glow!
to
01 Preparing the Base
That's the starting point... as I'm only explaining the basic technique, I've chosen one of the simpler icons...
I've used an Auto-Contrast on this one.
And duplicated the layer (ctrl+j) and set it to Blending Mode Screen
02 Spiral of Glow
I took the simple Pen tool (P)
and made sure I had Paths selected
I drew a zigzag line around Buffy's weapon
then I changed the Pen tool to the Convert Point tool
I clicked on all the left Anchor Points and dragged the Curve handles a little bit upwards
then I clicked on all the right Anchor Points and dragged the handles a little bit downwards
The result is a spiral shaped Path.
Pick white as your foreground color
and select the Default Hard Round 3 pixel brush.
Make a new Layer.
Then go back to your Pen tool. Your Path should still be selected at this point.
Right-Click near the Path in the picture and choose Stroke Path...
make sure Brush is selected and Simulate Pressure is tagged
(that makes the ends of the Spiral look thinner)
the result of this step should look like that.
(if the Path is bothering you, switch to your Path Palette and deselect it)
Then I added an Outer Glow under Blending Options
and it looked like that
I made a layer mask on the Spiral layer and painted in black over all parts that should be behind the weapon.
03 Another Spiral of Death Glow
I repeated all steps of no. 02, but this time around Buffy...
the Outer Glow was slightly larger this time as the spiral was bigger
04 Yay Stardust!
Grab your Soft Round 13 Pixel brush and make some adjustments.
(In the Brushes Palette)
Set the Spacing to 200 % under Brush Tip Shape
Set the Size Jitter to 100 % under Shape Dynamics
Set the Scatter to 1000 % on both Axes under Scattering
Paint your Stardust on a new layer.
05 More Light
Grab your Soft Round 200 Pixel brush and strategically place some white dots.
06 Fine Tuning
Make a new Layer and merge-copy the whole thing in it (ctrl+alt+shift+e)
Please note that the following settings strongly depend on the pic you're using (i.e. contrasts, brightness, colors etc)
I sharpened it (Filter - Sharpen - Sharpen), and immediately faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 60 % on Multiply
the result so far...
I sharpened again (ctrl+f) and faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 30 % on Soft Light
I sharpened again (ctrl+f) and faded (ctrl+shift+f) the effect to 30 % on Screen
I sharpened one last time (ctrl+f) without fading.
07 cropping
Crop it, if needed sharpen again.
As you can see it looks slightly different than the icon I tried to recreate.
That's because it's "hand-drawn" (I know, I know what a concept in the area of ready-made textures *g*)
credit: caps from Screencap Paradise
comments are always appreciated :)
Have fun and spread the tacky stardust love! ;D