First Icon Tutorial
We're making a Zelda icon today, soon to be a future addition to a Zelda post I'm planning. Nine steps, this one, but I consider it to be fairly easy. And remember: branch out a little. Unless your resources are dried up - like mine - try not to follow this tutorial to the letter. And have fun; I love to see results of your own. ^^
Turning this into
1. Crop from the original image your desired icon. It can be any angle, and with any pic. I randomly chose this one.
2. Now, in my mind's eye I wanted to keep to a dark theme. But first, we needed to color him up. I wanted a sort of blueish color scheme to start, so I chose this texture by (???), set to darken/multiply [by preference], 100%.
Tip: Not all pictures are the same. As we go, feel free to change the opacities.
3. This wasn't quite dark enough for me. And in the future, wanted other colors besides blue and green. So I chose a pinker texture by that same mysterious maker, set to darken/multiply, 100%.
4. The next three textures or so are applied in the same manner. So I'm going to spare you the daunting task of reading twin steps by posting the textures used and their blend modes.
All three were set to either darken/multiply, 100%.
Maker: ???
5. Maker (for both):
wonderland__
6. Alrighty. With me so far? Good. I then applied a texture by
colorfilter, and thought about setting it to soft light...before using that good 'ol darken/multiply again. 100% opacity.
7. I was liking where this was heading, but it seemed a little bland and predictable. So I decided to do a bit of shading for some pizzazz, and added a gradient (made by myself). I chose a light purple from the top of his mask for the foreground, and a dark purple from the bottom of his mask for the background. Since gradients are easy to make, you beginners out there might want to try it out (layer+new fill layer+gradient). I set it to darken/multiply, 100% (again).
8. I was enjoying the angst here, but now the upper left-hand corner seemed blank and needy. Though I wasn't sure how it'd turn out, I chose a light texture here, made by a-maker-I-knew-the-name-of-but-never-wrote-down-forgot. I was satisfied when I set it to soft light, 50%.
9. Last step everyone. I knew that it probably should have taken text, but I couldn't think of what to write. But hey - that's what brushes are for! I took this brush by
_joni, using the light purple foreground from the gradient earlier, and placed it in the upper left-hand corner with the light brush. It would have looked good on normal, but I dare to be different. So I set it to overlay, 100%
And you're finished! Don't forget that this was a dark tutorial. If you want to use this in a bright way, switch the darken/multiply with a lighten/screen.
Turning this into
1. Crop from the original image your desired icon. It can be any angle, and with any pic. I randomly chose this one.
2. Now, in my mind's eye I wanted to keep to a dark theme. But first, we needed to color him up. I wanted a sort of blueish color scheme to start, so I chose this texture by (???), set to darken/multiply [by preference], 100%.
Tip: Not all pictures are the same. As we go, feel free to change the opacities.
3. This wasn't quite dark enough for me. And in the future, wanted other colors besides blue and green. So I chose a pinker texture by that same mysterious maker, set to darken/multiply, 100%.
4. The next three textures or so are applied in the same manner. So I'm going to spare you the daunting task of reading twin steps by posting the textures used and their blend modes.
All three were set to either darken/multiply, 100%.
Maker: ???
5. Maker (for both):
wonderland__
6. Alrighty. With me so far? Good. I then applied a texture by
colorfilter, and thought about setting it to soft light...before using that good 'ol darken/multiply again. 100% opacity.
7. I was liking where this was heading, but it seemed a little bland and predictable. So I decided to do a bit of shading for some pizzazz, and added a gradient (made by myself). I chose a light purple from the top of his mask for the foreground, and a dark purple from the bottom of his mask for the background. Since gradients are easy to make, you beginners out there might want to try it out (layer+new fill layer+gradient). I set it to darken/multiply, 100% (again).
8. I was enjoying the angst here, but now the upper left-hand corner seemed blank and needy. Though I wasn't sure how it'd turn out, I chose a light texture here, made by a-maker-I-knew-the-name-of-but-never-wrote-down-forgot. I was satisfied when I set it to soft light, 50%.
9. Last step everyone. I knew that it probably should have taken text, but I couldn't think of what to write. But hey - that's what brushes are for! I took this brush by
_joni, using the light purple foreground from the gradient earlier, and placed it in the upper left-hand corner with the light brush. It would have looked good on normal, but I dare to be different. So I set it to overlay, 100%
And you're finished! Don't forget that this was a dark tutorial. If you want to use this in a bright way, switch the darken/multiply with a lighten/screen.