TUTORIAL-- "innocent" (HP&PoA)
Ok, elena_spooky asked me to write a tutorial, so i’m writing one ^_^ this is for PS7 and PS4, but I’m sure it can be done on PSP too. to understand this you pretty much have to have the hang of the program you’re using, because I won’t explain how to use this or that tool. I’m just going to tell you what I did and why I did it.
Oh, and a warning: you know how I tend to speak too much usually? Well, I spoke too much as I made this, too. So the tutorial is HUGE. And image intensive. So those with slow connections will have to wait for a bit.
Also, I want to say that I learned most of these techniques from other more talented icon-makers (which you can find at ickyblue’s memories), so I ask you not to copy this step by step. My idea when making this tutorial is that you learn what I think when I make my icons so you can use these techniques and try them in different situations to create your own style.
That said, let’s get down to it. Since I loved my last batch of HP icons so much (I told you I had a thing for light/grungy icons), I decided to make one of those. And since I FINALLY saw PoA yesterday (it was freakin’ AWESOME!), I am ready to begin using teh_indy’s caps to make a ton of PoA icons. I’ll be doing one of the twins today, since they went and got hot on us but they’re still so incredibly funny. this is the original image, and this is the icon we will make:
Lovely little devils, aren’t they? *grins*
Here you have the layers for the base, so if you want to check back to this in case you get lost, feel free to do so:
The first thing I do is move the twins closer to each other so they fit in 100x100. I don’t normally like modified pics but if the modification doesn’t affect the general spirit of the original scene I’m ok with it. Like in this case. So first I rotate the pic a little so it tilts to the right, to make it a little different, like this:
Then I click on the rectangular selection tool, making sure it’s on the fixed size option, and make a 280x280 selection of george (or is it fred? I think it’s george…). Copying and pasting as a new image, I get this:
Make sure you don’t have the focus in the center of the square when you crop. It doesn’t leave space for anything else. Since I’m going to paste fred on the left side, I selected george towards the right side of the square. Now, I click on the lasso tool and set it to 20px feather and anti-aliased. Now I select fred:
I copied and pasted him but he looked a little small compared to george, so I made him a little bigger and pasted him again. Now it looked better.
I lowered fred’s opacity to 90% (it’s always do this with superimposed layers, to 90 or even less percent, as it’s easier to handle them). Now I use the lasso tool again, but this time with 10px anti-alias and I use it to erase the parts that cover george’s face:
It doesn’t matter that george’s in front of fred but in this case the fred layer is above the george layer. When resized and with the brushes it won’t be noticeable. Now that I got them to fit in the square, it’s time to merge the layers, and resize to 100x100. here you go:
The merged image layer we’ll call “twins”. To make it look better, I used the auto tools right now (that is, image>adjustments>auto levels, image>adjustments>auto contrast, and image>adjustments>auto color). Please have in mind that you can’t always use these tools. I know for a fact that auto color gives the image a sickly blue tone sometimes and I recommend being very careful with it. In this case, it turned out good, so I left it like that:
Now, the next few steps are stuff I do to EVERY SINGLE ICON I make. Seriously. I use it so much that I made it into a pre-defined action in my PS. First sharpen “twins” until you get something that looks good. Don’t oversharpen, it’ll screw up your icon.
Now duplicate “twins” twice. I’ll name the layer directly above “twins” as “twins 2” and the one on top of that to “twins 3” so you won’t be confused. The first thing to do is increase the contrast on “twins 2” with image>adjustments>brightness/contrast. I have it set to 40%, but you can play around with it until you get something you like. This is what I have:
You can change it later if you want, too. Then we desaturate “twins 3” by going to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and lowering the saturation about 50%. As always, you should just play around with it.
Now set “twins 2” to screen at 100% and “twins 3” to soft light at 100%. You get this:
Don’t freak out if it looks too contrasty or too bright at this point (I know I did the first time I tried it). That will change once we color it. Now we create a new layer between “twins 2” and “twins 3”, fill it with a dark blue color (I used #09104B) and set the layer to exclusion at 100%. Here’s the result:
This is a great technique because it gives you those lovely muted tones everybody loves. Now, I personally thought the image was still a little too dark, so I went over to image>adjustments>brightness/contrast and increased the brightness on “twins 2” by like 30%. I got this:
Now we add color! ^.^ color’s always fun. Created a new layer above “twins 3” (named it “gradient”) and since I was going for a yellowish/orangey look, I added one of my favorite gradients by pekeana:
To avoid any hard lines I motion-blurred it by 20px and at 45 degrees:
I left it like that for now. I selected one of the colors from the gradient (#ECC06D) and created a new layer between “twins 3” and “gradient”. I flooded It with the color and set it to color dodge at 50%.
Now I set “gradient” to color dodge at 50% too. I got this:
Definitely too bright and contrasty. So I lowered the opacity of the yellow color layer to 30%…
…which was much better. Now, we go to the brushes. Brushes are good, people. Use brushes. Use them all the time. But don’t abuse brushes. Make sure you like what you get. And make sure you use each brush in a new layer: that way you can delete it if it screws up everything you’ve done to that moment.
The first brush I used is this one:
By laurad311. I absolutely love it, I use it for almost all of my icons. Using it in black in a new layer (“brush 1”) between “gradient” and the yellow layer, and lowering the opacity to 30%, I got this:
I created a new layer directly below “brush 1” and added this brush by boulevard also in black:
Setting it to soft light at 30%, I got this:
Another layer (“brush 3”) and I used this brush by canemae:
In white, set to soft light, 70% opacity.
Another layer (“brush 4”), used this by flagrant_delire.
In white, soft light, 50%.
Fred’s eye was a little too dark, so I selected it and some of the area around it with the lasso tool at 5px anti-alias, and flooded the selection in a new layer (“eye”). Then I set it to soft light, 50% opacity.
Much better. Now, time to make what’s beneath the brushes a little less bright. I was really only worried about the right side of their faces/hats, which was WAY too bright, so I selected that area with the lasso tool at 5px anti-alias, like this:
I flood it with black in a new layer between the yellow layer and “brush 2”. Then I lower the opacity to 30% and I get this:
Which looks much, MUCH better.
it didn’t come out light at all, like my last batch. So sue me. I like this look better ^-^
Now, let’s make a border. One thing you have to know: you should NOT put a grungy border on EVERY icon you make. Sometimes just a simple border works. Like in this case… I’ll create a new layer (“border”) on top of all the other layers, and make a simple 2px border on it with the stroke tool:
And set the layer to soft light.
That looks perfect. I’ve now got my final base. Now for text… I’m a weird person, I am. I do my text with photoshop 4.0. I don’t know why, I don’t like the way text is handled by PS7 so I just use an older version I feel more comfortable with. It takes longer and I don’t have access to fancy blend styles, but I like it. Let’s check it out.
Create a new layer for each bit of text you make, for the same reason as the brushes. And remember text doesn’t ALWAYS have to be fancy, either. Sometimes simple is good.
First I write “innocent” in arial black 8pt, and add a black dropshadow to it (that’s easier to do in PS7, in PS4 I have to write the thing again in black, move it to the back and move it one pixel to the right and one to the left, but this way I’m more sure of what I’m doing). Then I do the same for “…not.” in arial 8pt. I lower the opacities to 75%, and I get this:
BUT! At parts the text is kind of hard to see. So I pick a color from the icon (#BC6B56) and with the polygonal lasso tool make a selection in a new layer below the text, like so:
Then set that layer to multiply.
Still looks a little off. I duplicated the layer that was at multiply and set the duplicate to 50% opacity. Now it looks ok:
And there you have it! Looks nice, doesn’t it? not the best icon i've ever made, but it's good. It’s up for grabs if you want it, of course. Just remember to credit me. I hope you learned something from this long, LONG tutorial ^^ if you want me to make another tutorial on a specific style i've made, feel free to ask ^_^
Oh, and a warning: you know how I tend to speak too much usually? Well, I spoke too much as I made this, too. So the tutorial is HUGE. And image intensive. So those with slow connections will have to wait for a bit.
Also, I want to say that I learned most of these techniques from other more talented icon-makers (which you can find at ickyblue’s memories), so I ask you not to copy this step by step. My idea when making this tutorial is that you learn what I think when I make my icons so you can use these techniques and try them in different situations to create your own style.
That said, let’s get down to it. Since I loved my last batch of HP icons so much (I told you I had a thing for light/grungy icons), I decided to make one of those. And since I FINALLY saw PoA yesterday (it was freakin’ AWESOME!), I am ready to begin using teh_indy’s caps to make a ton of PoA icons. I’ll be doing one of the twins today, since they went and got hot on us but they’re still so incredibly funny. this is the original image, and this is the icon we will make:
Lovely little devils, aren’t they? *grins*
Here you have the layers for the base, so if you want to check back to this in case you get lost, feel free to do so:
The first thing I do is move the twins closer to each other so they fit in 100x100. I don’t normally like modified pics but if the modification doesn’t affect the general spirit of the original scene I’m ok with it. Like in this case. So first I rotate the pic a little so it tilts to the right, to make it a little different, like this:
Then I click on the rectangular selection tool, making sure it’s on the fixed size option, and make a 280x280 selection of george (or is it fred? I think it’s george…). Copying and pasting as a new image, I get this:
Make sure you don’t have the focus in the center of the square when you crop. It doesn’t leave space for anything else. Since I’m going to paste fred on the left side, I selected george towards the right side of the square. Now, I click on the lasso tool and set it to 20px feather and anti-aliased. Now I select fred:
I copied and pasted him but he looked a little small compared to george, so I made him a little bigger and pasted him again. Now it looked better.
I lowered fred’s opacity to 90% (it’s always do this with superimposed layers, to 90 or even less percent, as it’s easier to handle them). Now I use the lasso tool again, but this time with 10px anti-alias and I use it to erase the parts that cover george’s face:
It doesn’t matter that george’s in front of fred but in this case the fred layer is above the george layer. When resized and with the brushes it won’t be noticeable. Now that I got them to fit in the square, it’s time to merge the layers, and resize to 100x100. here you go:
The merged image layer we’ll call “twins”. To make it look better, I used the auto tools right now (that is, image>adjustments>auto levels, image>adjustments>auto contrast, and image>adjustments>auto color). Please have in mind that you can’t always use these tools. I know for a fact that auto color gives the image a sickly blue tone sometimes and I recommend being very careful with it. In this case, it turned out good, so I left it like that:
Now, the next few steps are stuff I do to EVERY SINGLE ICON I make. Seriously. I use it so much that I made it into a pre-defined action in my PS. First sharpen “twins” until you get something that looks good. Don’t oversharpen, it’ll screw up your icon.
Now duplicate “twins” twice. I’ll name the layer directly above “twins” as “twins 2” and the one on top of that to “twins 3” so you won’t be confused. The first thing to do is increase the contrast on “twins 2” with image>adjustments>brightness/contrast. I have it set to 40%, but you can play around with it until you get something you like. This is what I have:
You can change it later if you want, too. Then we desaturate “twins 3” by going to image>adjustments>hue/saturation and lowering the saturation about 50%. As always, you should just play around with it.
Now set “twins 2” to screen at 100% and “twins 3” to soft light at 100%. You get this:
Don’t freak out if it looks too contrasty or too bright at this point (I know I did the first time I tried it). That will change once we color it. Now we create a new layer between “twins 2” and “twins 3”, fill it with a dark blue color (I used #09104B) and set the layer to exclusion at 100%. Here’s the result:
This is a great technique because it gives you those lovely muted tones everybody loves. Now, I personally thought the image was still a little too dark, so I went over to image>adjustments>brightness/contrast and increased the brightness on “twins 2” by like 30%. I got this:
Now we add color! ^.^ color’s always fun. Created a new layer above “twins 3” (named it “gradient”) and since I was going for a yellowish/orangey look, I added one of my favorite gradients by pekeana:
To avoid any hard lines I motion-blurred it by 20px and at 45 degrees:
I left it like that for now. I selected one of the colors from the gradient (#ECC06D) and created a new layer between “twins 3” and “gradient”. I flooded It with the color and set it to color dodge at 50%.
Now I set “gradient” to color dodge at 50% too. I got this:
Definitely too bright and contrasty. So I lowered the opacity of the yellow color layer to 30%…
…which was much better. Now, we go to the brushes. Brushes are good, people. Use brushes. Use them all the time. But don’t abuse brushes. Make sure you like what you get. And make sure you use each brush in a new layer: that way you can delete it if it screws up everything you’ve done to that moment.
The first brush I used is this one:
By laurad311. I absolutely love it, I use it for almost all of my icons. Using it in black in a new layer (“brush 1”) between “gradient” and the yellow layer, and lowering the opacity to 30%, I got this:
I created a new layer directly below “brush 1” and added this brush by boulevard also in black:
Setting it to soft light at 30%, I got this:
Another layer (“brush 3”) and I used this brush by canemae:
In white, set to soft light, 70% opacity.
Another layer (“brush 4”), used this by flagrant_delire.
In white, soft light, 50%.
Fred’s eye was a little too dark, so I selected it and some of the area around it with the lasso tool at 5px anti-alias, and flooded the selection in a new layer (“eye”). Then I set it to soft light, 50% opacity.
Much better. Now, time to make what’s beneath the brushes a little less bright. I was really only worried about the right side of their faces/hats, which was WAY too bright, so I selected that area with the lasso tool at 5px anti-alias, like this:
I flood it with black in a new layer between the yellow layer and “brush 2”. Then I lower the opacity to 30% and I get this:
Which looks much, MUCH better.
it didn’t come out light at all, like my last batch. So sue me. I like this look better ^-^
Now, let’s make a border. One thing you have to know: you should NOT put a grungy border on EVERY icon you make. Sometimes just a simple border works. Like in this case… I’ll create a new layer (“border”) on top of all the other layers, and make a simple 2px border on it with the stroke tool:
And set the layer to soft light.
That looks perfect. I’ve now got my final base. Now for text… I’m a weird person, I am. I do my text with photoshop 4.0. I don’t know why, I don’t like the way text is handled by PS7 so I just use an older version I feel more comfortable with. It takes longer and I don’t have access to fancy blend styles, but I like it. Let’s check it out.
Create a new layer for each bit of text you make, for the same reason as the brushes. And remember text doesn’t ALWAYS have to be fancy, either. Sometimes simple is good.
First I write “innocent” in arial black 8pt, and add a black dropshadow to it (that’s easier to do in PS7, in PS4 I have to write the thing again in black, move it to the back and move it one pixel to the right and one to the left, but this way I’m more sure of what I’m doing). Then I do the same for “…not.” in arial 8pt. I lower the opacities to 75%, and I get this:
BUT! At parts the text is kind of hard to see. So I pick a color from the icon (#BC6B56) and with the polygonal lasso tool make a selection in a new layer below the text, like so:
Then set that layer to multiply.
Still looks a little off. I duplicated the layer that was at multiply and set the duplicate to 50% opacity. Now it looks ok:
And there you have it! Looks nice, doesn’t it? not the best icon i've ever made, but it's good. It’s up for grabs if you want it, of course. Just remember to credit me. I hope you learned something from this long, LONG tutorial ^^ if you want me to make another tutorial on a specific style i've made, feel free to ask ^_^