|tutorial: bobby & sam
As requested by micmezle. She wanted a tutorial on an icon from the newest batch of icons I'm working on.
to
Made in Photoshop CS3
Translatable
I went with a simpler icon from my most recent batch, a nice shot of Bobby and Sam from 2.01 In My Time of Dying. The simplicity and complexity of this scene is just so moving, which is why I chose this cap. Onto it, I guess.
I pasted the full size cap into a 200x200 square. It's my ideal method for cropping these days. And I don't use the standard crop tool in Photoshop, I always crop with Free Transform (CTRL+T). I like the flexibility of Free Transform over the Crop Tool. It allows me to move the cap around more freely until I settle on a crop I like. After that, I resize to 100x100 for coloring. I like to crop on a larger canvas because the scope is a little wider and allows for more attention to detail. And here we have the base.
Coloring was pretty simple for this one. I duplicated the base three times and set them like so: Soft Light -> Screen -> Soft Light, which brightens the icon and adds more contrast.
I then added a blob of light between the top Soft Light layer and the Screen layer. I used a hard round brush at @ 20-30px to create the light blob. Your layers should look like: Soft Light -> light blob -> Screen -> Soft Light at this point. I then blurred the light blob using Gaussian Blur with radius set to @ 6-10px.
I decided the icon needed more contrast. I also wanted a more reddish tone, so I changed the top layer from Soft Light to Overlay and then continued with the coloring. I added two Color Balance adjustment layers, going heavy on the reds and yellows. The first Color Balance layer establishes a sort of base coloring to the image and then I add the second Color Balance layer to increase and enhance the overall 'base' coloring. Sounds kind of confusing, I guess, but that's how I roll. *G*
And then for more color and contrast, I added a Hue/Saturation layer and a Levels layer.
[HUE/SATURATION]
Hue 0 | Saturation +20 | Lightness 0
[LEVELS - INPUT SETTINGS]
16 | 1,00 | 255
Lovely, yes? :)
Aaaand, I still wanted more contrast. So I selected the layer above the light blob from the previous step and added a black and white light texture similar to this one by drankmywar and set it to Soft Light. Above the light texture I added a solid color layer in yellow. I wanted to give the icon more depth and vibrancy. A lovely tip I picked up from imaginary_lives. And we now have this.
But now I think I overdid it on the contrast and want to pull back a little. Easy enough! I added two more light textures (desaturated to black and white of course) and set them both to Screen @ 10-20%. This step varies from icon to icon though. Sometimes I use Lighten and sometimes I use Screen. I just play around with both until I settle on the one I like best. And we have this now.
Lastly, I go back down to my Overlay layer and sharpen, which completes the icon.
Please use this tutorial as a guide. I don't provide PSD's with my tutorials.
to
Made in Photoshop CS3
Translatable
I went with a simpler icon from my most recent batch, a nice shot of Bobby and Sam from 2.01 In My Time of Dying. The simplicity and complexity of this scene is just so moving, which is why I chose this cap. Onto it, I guess.
I pasted the full size cap into a 200x200 square. It's my ideal method for cropping these days. And I don't use the standard crop tool in Photoshop, I always crop with Free Transform (CTRL+T). I like the flexibility of Free Transform over the Crop Tool. It allows me to move the cap around more freely until I settle on a crop I like. After that, I resize to 100x100 for coloring. I like to crop on a larger canvas because the scope is a little wider and allows for more attention to detail. And here we have the base.
Coloring was pretty simple for this one. I duplicated the base three times and set them like so: Soft Light -> Screen -> Soft Light, which brightens the icon and adds more contrast.
I then added a blob of light between the top Soft Light layer and the Screen layer. I used a hard round brush at @ 20-30px to create the light blob. Your layers should look like: Soft Light -> light blob -> Screen -> Soft Light at this point. I then blurred the light blob using Gaussian Blur with radius set to @ 6-10px.
I decided the icon needed more contrast. I also wanted a more reddish tone, so I changed the top layer from Soft Light to Overlay and then continued with the coloring. I added two Color Balance adjustment layers, going heavy on the reds and yellows. The first Color Balance layer establishes a sort of base coloring to the image and then I add the second Color Balance layer to increase and enhance the overall 'base' coloring. Sounds kind of confusing, I guess, but that's how I roll. *G*
And then for more color and contrast, I added a Hue/Saturation layer and a Levels layer.
[HUE/SATURATION]
Hue 0 | Saturation +20 | Lightness 0
[LEVELS - INPUT SETTINGS]
16 | 1,00 | 255
Lovely, yes? :)
Aaaand, I still wanted more contrast. So I selected the layer above the light blob from the previous step and added a black and white light texture similar to this one by drankmywar and set it to Soft Light. Above the light texture I added a solid color layer in yellow. I wanted to give the icon more depth and vibrancy. A lovely tip I picked up from imaginary_lives. And we now have this.
But now I think I overdid it on the contrast and want to pull back a little. Easy enough! I added two more light textures (desaturated to black and white of course) and set them both to Screen @ 10-20%. This step varies from icon to icon though. Sometimes I use Lighten and sometimes I use Screen. I just play around with both until I settle on the one I like best. And we have this now.
Lastly, I go back down to my Overlay layer and sharpen, which completes the icon.
Please use this tutorial as a guide. I don't provide PSD's with my tutorials.