65. another icon tutorial for dark_x_huntress
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requested by dark_x_huntress (and scarred_loretta from THIS year's ATM)
Disclaimer: I always work on a 400x400 canvas, but I've made them smaller them for the sake of this tutorial(you can click through to see the full-size image though). I also love pictures so this is VERY picture heavy(as in, pictures for every single step).
So, this is a lot of pictures and a lot of layers and most of them are almost pointless. I'm sorry for that. This icon is a perfect example of how I started out farting around and didn't know where I was gonna go until maybe half way through. I ended up deciding that green and yellow are my favorite colors and it just so happened that her hair and shirt were good colors to start with so I decided to go there. Explanation is under the images.
So I start with my basic prep work that I do to almost every icon. Sometimes I delete what I don't need or make slight changes or add more layers depending on what I get, but this is the basics. Add a new curves layer set to screen(no changes to the curve). For this image I added another one and set that second one's fill to 15%. Another new curves layer, this one I hit the Auto button and set it to soft light to give me some contrast. Last prep layer is a vibrance layer set to color with vibrance at 100. And that gets my base ready.
I was trying to get rid of some of that red so I popped in a color balance with these settings, and then gave it another vibrance layer set to color at 100. Now I'm getting some color into it. Still not sure where I'm going, but we're getting there!
Another of my favorite techniques is a new layer, stamp all layers on it(alt+ctrl+shift+e), and throw a guassian blur on that sucker. Set it to soft light and adjust the opacity. For this one I left it at 100% because again, I had no idea what I was doing but I wanted a rich base. This always helps make your colors richer and gives you some more contrast.
I don't really know why I drew on this one, but yeah. Self explainatory; a new gradient map of these colors set to soft light at 25% fill. This is one of my favorite gradients for a lot of reasons; it will show up later in the icon. Why did I do this? I don't know!
Wasn't digging the reds through I threw this selective color layer on to give it some more of my beloved cool colors. Normally I'm not the biggest fan of cool colors but I already knew this icon had a lot of potential with cooler colors, so I knew I was headed that direction already. And then, to everyone's shock, another vibrance layer set to color. I always make sure they're set to color to try to keep it from messing up the image too much because I use so many vibrance layers.
Now for the first of my fun soft brushes. Paint softly with a light color(I think I got this from the image) around Emma to brighten her up a bit. I set it to soft light at 49% fill and it just brightened her and the background up and kinda evened it out a bit.
Hahahaha...yeah. Stamp all layers, gaussian blur, soft light. I like this process SO MUCH I made an action for it. Yeah. This one was at 20% fill.
Giving me some depth, I threw this gradient on top of it at soft light, 29% fill. Now it's light and this was where I went AHA! I want green and yellow colors! And so now I get down to refining it and making it all look like Emma and her shirt.
Ah, selective colors. How I love thee. I wasn't digging the teal as it went against my very soul(aka what I wanted for coloring) so I got rid of that sucker with some selective color in just those channels. You'll never guess what I did next! ...yeah, it's a vibrance layer. Same deal, 100, set to color.
Why didn't I do this in the selective color layer I did before? Who knows! But now I rightly realized that her lips and that flower in the back are kinda really bright and it's not my jam. so I dropped back the magenta and some of the reds.
More color balance! Pushing away the reds, and for some reson, away from the greens and yellows too. Not really sure why I did this. *shrugs* I think it made it a little darker?
....yeah. this AGAIN. This one is 25% fill.
Of course, now it's too rich and deep, so let's get on back now y'all. Get rid of those reds and some of the neon yellow with a selective color layer. And throw a vibrance layer on that, bitches love vibrance layers! Or, this one does, I guess. This one was again set to color but only at 47, so not too much.
I didn't like how the green behind her on those cabinets was so I painted over them and set it to color. I got the color from the image earlier and it's kind of my generic neutral color for this. And of course, another vibrance layer at 100 set to color.
Now for textures and brushwork! First set was brushing some dark color next to Emma and setting that to soft light at 34% fill, just to kind of draw the spotlight back to her. the next one is...something. It's a texture I found somewhere but you can kind of barely make it out because I did some kind of nonsense to it. It's also set to soft light at 46% fill, and it suddenly throws some light color into things. These peach textures are really good at, ironically enough, increasing the yellow/greens in an icon if you already have them planted as seeds.
Of course, now it looks a little too bright, so some curves to bring it back now y'all(I think I already made this joke, whoops). I upped the red and green channels a tiny bit just to be sure to keep the color.
More color balance! Bringing out that red and making the yellow less neon.
Now we enter the "fuck it" stage. I picked a yellow from her hair and painted everything around her and set it to color at 33% fill. And another vibrance layer in there at 100. Now we're really yellow/green! Woo!
But it isn't enough! I bumped the yellows up even more in the neutrals with a selective color layer.
But it was TOO bright in the background now, so now we get some more painting of my darker generic color around emma to bring that background back down some. Very rough, but whatever. I blurred and went back over some spots I wanted to be sure to get(aka the cabinets behind her). This was set to color at 58% fill.
At this point, I'm wishing I was one of those makers who could make simple icons in only four or five layers, and I'm betting you are too. Yeah. Gradient map at 55% fill.
More painting to bring back colors. Yellow because it's yellow and it's pretty. Mostly I wanted to just give the icon some unity after sucking out the color in the background now. First one was set to soft light at 100% fill and the second stuff was set to soft light as well but only at 52% fill.
Curves for brightness, and then levels fo more of the same. You see I brought up them brights to make them brighter and nudged the blacks a bit darker as well.
More painting, with a very light hand, and set to color since I'm not liking the splotchiness of some of the background colors. My attempt to balance it out.
But then I went and said naw, let's just suck all the color out with this gradient map again! Set to normal and dropped down to 23% fill gives us a much less saturated image.
You know the drill. Bringing it back now with some contrast and color.
Okay, so maybe not THAT desaturated; brighter colors! More yellow!
*insert copy + paste about soft light blurred stampped image*
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And for once again, bring back that neon yellow, since I really wasn't going for NEON anything.
A new vibrance layer and another curves layer set to auto at 40% fill round things out for this icon. I then sharpened, usually with smart sharpen, and resized to my final 100x100 size. And then there was...icon! So now it is revealed how much I waffle back and forth between things. And honestly, I've tried really hard this year to do better about how many layers I have and going back and saying wait, did I just undo this and then do it again? Why?
But yeah. I love my yellows, and once I got an idea of what I wanted I just couldn't get it fine tuned enough to make me happy without adding a lot and then taking some of it back. But here we are!
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