154 | Tutorial
This is a tutorial for an Under the Dome icon asked for by reebeecaa for Ask the Maker 6.0
I use CS5, so depending on which program you use, some things may not be transferable. I am going to refer to things the way that I know them so if you don't know what I am talking about or how to get to the tool I am using, please feel free to ask.
Also, I rarely go into an icon knowing what I am going to to. Therefore, there are usually a lot of steps because I don't know where I want to go til the end. So, if my 'process' seems spastic, its because it kind of is. =)
1. First we start out with this screencap: Under the Dome
2. I make a pretty standard center crop of the cap but I want him further down, which the the cap doesn't allow for, so there is blank space left above his head but that is ok since I am going to fill in the entire background with a solid color. I use a soft round brush to paint the entirety of the of the icon except him. I use a light black/dark gray color.
>>>
3. Next I merge the two layers (ctrl+alt+shift+e) in order to make the subject even smaller within his new background. Once merged make a color fill layer with the same black/gray color and then copy/or move or your merged layer over the color fill layer and resize Barbie (that is the character)
4. Then merge them all again and use the auto color feature for light and color correction.
5. Now I am going to add the copper toned Gradient Map preset within PS to add some browner tones to the icon. I use this Gradient Map twice with the first set to Soft Light at 36% opacity and the second with the same settings but set to reverse.
6. Now I am going to use one of my favorite lighting textures to add darken and lighten parts of the icon.
by vetica.
- The first is set to Soft Light at 45% opacity, which adds shadows around the bottom of the icon
- The second is rotated 45 degrees to the right and set to Screen at 34% opacity, which adds light to the right side and his face.
7. I want to make the icon not as brown now so I add a Color Balance layer with the following settings:
- Midtones: Cyan/Red +22 / Yellow/Blue -23
- Shadows: Cyan/Red -26 / Magenta/Green -5 / Yellow/Blue +2
8. This next step is going to be 3 different steps put together. Three different Gradient Maps and their settings.
- Gray and Blue Gradient set to Soft Light at 14% opacity
- Black and White Gradient set to Soft Light at 11% opacity
- Blue and Green Gradient set to Soft Light at 15% opacity and set on Reverse
9. Now for a layer that I don't think actually does a whole lot but it does add a bit of yellow to the icon. I add a Color Balance layer with these settings:
- Midtones: Cyan/Red +16 / Magenta/Green +9 / Yellow/Blue +3
- Shadows: Cyan/Red -2 / Magenta/Green -2 / Yellow/Blue -10
10. Now that I have spent all that time and energy trying to get the right coloring I naturally change everything to monotone because the coloring wasn't working for me. I use a gray and light blue Gradient Map with Normal settings.
11. Next is a texture layer. I use this TEXTURE by Tanja92 @ deviantart. I use the same Gradient Map as above to change it to the blue/gray coloring the icon is now. I use this texture twice, the first time set to Soft Light and the second set to Screen at 72% opacity, erasing the parts of the texture that overlap onto his face.
12. Now for another texture layer. I use this TEXTURE by Maeappleseed @ deviantart. Use the same Gradient Map as above to change it to the blue/gray coloring the icon is now. I also use this texture twice, both layers are set to Screen, erasing the parts of the texture that overlap onto his face.
13. The next step is another Gradient Map layer using 2 different green colors. I don't remember why I did this as it changes things very little.
14. The next two steps are to get rid of two things, the slight black line at the bottom of the icon and his shoulders at the bottom of the circle area. For the black line I just used the Smudge tool to smudge the bottom to fill in the line so that it matched up with the rest of the icon and for the shoulder area I used the Eyedropper tool to get the exact coloring of the circle and I used that color to paint over his shoulders.
15. His face is a little too dark for my tastes so I use a Gradient Fill layer with a light blue color (dbebec) set at a -171.25 angle and reduce the opacity to 8% to brighten it up a bit.
16. Now I want to darken the darker parts of his hair and give it more contrast so I use a Selective Color layer set as follows:
- Blacks: Black +16
17. The next layer is a sharpening layer which I do by using a High Pass layer at a 1.1 Radius set to Soft Light at 67% opacity.
18. Now for the text. I rarely use text because we don't get along but I felt the icon lacked something so I decided to just go for it.
- 'Under' is written using a 6 pt. Brush Strokes font in a color (586967) I am sure I used the Eyedropper for to get a color from within the icon.
Of course it didn't look right written in a straight line so I used the Warped Text tool to bend it to fit with the curves of the cirle. Bend of
45% and Vertical Distortian of -23%.
- 'the dome' part didn't look quite right with such fat brush strokes of the Brush Strokes font so I used a 5 pt. Ignite the Light font in the
same color. Using the Warped Text tool again to bend the text with a Bend of -68%.
19. Now it just needs to be brightened up a bit so I use a Brighten/Contrast layer set to Brightness +13 and Contrast +7.
THE END! Hope it made some sort of sense and thanks for asking for the tutorial. =)
I use CS5, so depending on which program you use, some things may not be transferable. I am going to refer to things the way that I know them so if you don't know what I am talking about or how to get to the tool I am using, please feel free to ask.
Also, I rarely go into an icon knowing what I am going to to. Therefore, there are usually a lot of steps because I don't know where I want to go til the end. So, if my 'process' seems spastic, its because it kind of is. =)
1. First we start out with this screencap: Under the Dome
2. I make a pretty standard center crop of the cap but I want him further down, which the the cap doesn't allow for, so there is blank space left above his head but that is ok since I am going to fill in the entire background with a solid color. I use a soft round brush to paint the entirety of the of the icon except him. I use a light black/dark gray color.
>>>
3. Next I merge the two layers (ctrl+alt+shift+e) in order to make the subject even smaller within his new background. Once merged make a color fill layer with the same black/gray color and then copy/or move or your merged layer over the color fill layer and resize Barbie (that is the character)
4. Then merge them all again and use the auto color feature for light and color correction.
5. Now I am going to add the copper toned Gradient Map preset within PS to add some browner tones to the icon. I use this Gradient Map twice with the first set to Soft Light at 36% opacity and the second with the same settings but set to reverse.
6. Now I am going to use one of my favorite lighting textures to add darken and lighten parts of the icon.
by vetica.
- The first is set to Soft Light at 45% opacity, which adds shadows around the bottom of the icon
- The second is rotated 45 degrees to the right and set to Screen at 34% opacity, which adds light to the right side and his face.
7. I want to make the icon not as brown now so I add a Color Balance layer with the following settings:
- Midtones: Cyan/Red +22 / Yellow/Blue -23
- Shadows: Cyan/Red -26 / Magenta/Green -5 / Yellow/Blue +2
8. This next step is going to be 3 different steps put together. Three different Gradient Maps and their settings.
- Gray and Blue Gradient set to Soft Light at 14% opacity
- Black and White Gradient set to Soft Light at 11% opacity
- Blue and Green Gradient set to Soft Light at 15% opacity and set on Reverse
9. Now for a layer that I don't think actually does a whole lot but it does add a bit of yellow to the icon. I add a Color Balance layer with these settings:
- Midtones: Cyan/Red +16 / Magenta/Green +9 / Yellow/Blue +3
- Shadows: Cyan/Red -2 / Magenta/Green -2 / Yellow/Blue -10
10. Now that I have spent all that time and energy trying to get the right coloring I naturally change everything to monotone because the coloring wasn't working for me. I use a gray and light blue Gradient Map with Normal settings.
11. Next is a texture layer. I use this TEXTURE by Tanja92 @ deviantart. I use the same Gradient Map as above to change it to the blue/gray coloring the icon is now. I use this texture twice, the first time set to Soft Light and the second set to Screen at 72% opacity, erasing the parts of the texture that overlap onto his face.
12. Now for another texture layer. I use this TEXTURE by Maeappleseed @ deviantart. Use the same Gradient Map as above to change it to the blue/gray coloring the icon is now. I also use this texture twice, both layers are set to Screen, erasing the parts of the texture that overlap onto his face.
13. The next step is another Gradient Map layer using 2 different green colors. I don't remember why I did this as it changes things very little.
14. The next two steps are to get rid of two things, the slight black line at the bottom of the icon and his shoulders at the bottom of the circle area. For the black line I just used the Smudge tool to smudge the bottom to fill in the line so that it matched up with the rest of the icon and for the shoulder area I used the Eyedropper tool to get the exact coloring of the circle and I used that color to paint over his shoulders.
15. His face is a little too dark for my tastes so I use a Gradient Fill layer with a light blue color (dbebec) set at a -171.25 angle and reduce the opacity to 8% to brighten it up a bit.
16. Now I want to darken the darker parts of his hair and give it more contrast so I use a Selective Color layer set as follows:
- Blacks: Black +16
17. The next layer is a sharpening layer which I do by using a High Pass layer at a 1.1 Radius set to Soft Light at 67% opacity.
18. Now for the text. I rarely use text because we don't get along but I felt the icon lacked something so I decided to just go for it.
- 'Under' is written using a 6 pt. Brush Strokes font in a color (586967) I am sure I used the Eyedropper for to get a color from within the icon.
Of course it didn't look right written in a straight line so I used the Warped Text tool to bend it to fit with the curves of the cirle. Bend of
45% and Vertical Distortian of -23%.
- 'the dome' part didn't look quite right with such fat brush strokes of the Brush Strokes font so I used a 5 pt. Ignite the Light font in the
same color. Using the Warped Text tool again to bend the text with a Bend of -68%.
19. Now it just needs to be brightened up a bit so I use a Brighten/Contrast layer set to Brightness +13 and Contrast +7.
THE END! Hope it made some sort of sense and thanks for asking for the tutorial. =)