Leviathan
going from this to 
Made in PS CS3; involves some selective coloring.
You know this is the first icon I have made in a long time that has color fill layers!... I'm pretty sure I picked it up from somewhere. :')
Anyway:
one; resize, crop and do whatever else you normally do to make a base.
two; make a new layer and fill it with #4450f7(or a similar shade of blue) and set that to 'luminosity' @ 100%.
three; things are not looking that great so I duplicated the base, dragged it to the top and set it to soft light @ 100%. Still not all that pretty but I'm getting there.
four; I knew I was going to make things radioactive at one point so I made a new layer and filled it with a dark blue (#020840) and set it to 'exclusion' @ 100%. That way some of the colors will be more muted.
five; make a new layer and fill it with a light pink (#ffc9f5) and set it to 'soft light' @ 100%. For the purposes of this icon it gave it a purplish hue.
six; to add more contrast I duplicated the base, dragged to the top and set it to 'soft light' @ 100%.
seven; I added a color balance layer to enhance some colors and add even more contrast.
Midtones- 23, -13, -18
Shadows- -14, 13, 11
eight; I wanted to add some red/purple so I added a selective color layer with these values;
REDS: -85, 47, 50, 60
YELLOWS: 0, 0, 18, 0
GREENS: 100, -100, 100, 100 (that was for Rydia really)
NEUTRALS: -12, 4, 4, 4
nine; still not enough contrast so duplicate the base, drag it to the top and set at 'soft light' @ 100%
ten; needs some texture abuse. So I took
by lookslikeicons and flipped it horizontally. I set it to 'multiply' @ 100%. I added
by haudvafra and set it to 'screen' @ 100%.
eleven; needs more... clutter. So I took this rather large texture, flipped it horizontally and resized it so that the yellow splash thing would fit nicely in the lower right hand corner. Set it to 'multiply' @ 80% and I erased most of the blue parts covering Rydia.
twelve; I added some text (Imperator) and then I merged everything and sharpened. (I probably faded the sharpening a tad as well).
Ta-Da! \o/
Made in PS CS3; involves some selective coloring.
You know this is the first icon I have made in a long time that has color fill layers!... I'm pretty sure I picked it up from somewhere. :')
Anyway:
one; resize, crop and do whatever else you normally do to make a base.
two; make a new layer and fill it with #4450f7(or a similar shade of blue) and set that to 'luminosity' @ 100%.
three; things are not looking that great so I duplicated the base, dragged it to the top and set it to soft light @ 100%. Still not all that pretty but I'm getting there.
four; I knew I was going to make things radioactive at one point so I made a new layer and filled it with a dark blue (#020840) and set it to 'exclusion' @ 100%. That way some of the colors will be more muted.
five; make a new layer and fill it with a light pink (#ffc9f5) and set it to 'soft light' @ 100%. For the purposes of this icon it gave it a purplish hue.
six; to add more contrast I duplicated the base, dragged to the top and set it to 'soft light' @ 100%.
seven; I added a color balance layer to enhance some colors and add even more contrast.
Midtones- 23, -13, -18
Shadows- -14, 13, 11
eight; I wanted to add some red/purple so I added a selective color layer with these values;
REDS: -85, 47, 50, 60
YELLOWS: 0, 0, 18, 0
GREENS: 100, -100, 100, 100 (that was for Rydia really)
NEUTRALS: -12, 4, 4, 4
nine; still not enough contrast so duplicate the base, drag it to the top and set at 'soft light' @ 100%
ten; needs some texture abuse. So I took
by lookslikeicons and flipped it horizontally. I set it to 'multiply' @ 100%. I added
by haudvafra and set it to 'screen' @ 100%.
eleven; needs more... clutter. So I took this rather large texture, flipped it horizontally and resized it so that the yellow splash thing would fit nicely in the lower right hand corner. Set it to 'multiply' @ 80% and I erased most of the blue parts covering Rydia.
twelve; I added some text (Imperator) and then I merged everything and sharpened. (I probably faded the sharpening a tad as well).
Ta-Da! \o/