Two Tutorials
emmyxogast asked me to make a couple tutorials for her, so here they are! These are my first tuts ever, and I hope everything is clear. If not, please feel free to ask any questions. I had so much making these!
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I made this icon for the hero color pallet challenge at theiconquest, so when I was choosing caps, I knew I wanted one that would work well with the blue coloring I knew I'd have to include. Therefore, this is the cap I chose:
Now, I'm really lazy, but I love fake backgrounds, so when I do decide to cut a subject out of it's original background, I usually use a color found in the background and then, in a new layer, paint over the original background. I often feel this keeps the subject looking like it belongs in the background (not pasted on top of it) and it also makes it easier to manage finer details like hair. With this, I didn't have paint right up to the edge of Ginny's body. There's probably a 5 pixel margin around her that you can't even see because the background color is still the same, which allowed me keep her hair looking whispy and natural. And with my ladies, I'm all about the hair :D
After I had the background painted, I Ctrl+Alt+Cmmd+E (I have a Mac, I don't what to do on a PC) to copy everything into one layer, then changed the image size so everything was cropped where I wanted it, then got it down to 100x100 px, which is where I worked at for the rest of the icon.
I took my base (pictured above) and copied it three times, so I had four layers. The first two copies I set to screen, the third copy to soft light, all at 100% opacity. That gave me this:
It's really blah at this point, but the lighting is a lot better. Next, I painted a bright red over Ginny's hair, because I love me some red hair. I used Gaussian Blur at +5, set it to Soft Light 100% opacity, and bazaam, Ginny's hair is looking so much better!
At this point, the background was really bugging me because it was so monotonous, so I added this gradient texture (I don't remember which folder I got this from, so I can't credit the maker. I'm so so sorry! If it's you, let me know and I'll in the credit. I just never expected to be asked to make a tutorial!) set to soft light, 100% opacity, which gave me the following:
------->
Now, I'm pretty happy with the depth of the colors, so I decided now would be a good time to do my "glowy trick", which totally isn't mine but that I found in a tutorial on anon_icon and now use on just about every single icon. I copied all my layers into one layer again, then duplicated that twice. I left the first one alone, set the second layer to Gaussian Blur +5 on Screen, and set the third one to soft light. Her face was just a little bit too bright for my liking, so I masked away a little of the brightness on the screen layer, but everything else was left as is on 100% opacity, and now I had this:
Her face was still a little flat, so I painted over it with a black brush, Gaussian Blur +5 on Soft Light, at about 50% opacity, which gave it some more depth but made it really weird and red, so I next used color balance. I set the Cyan-Red level to -5, the Magenta-Green level to +39, and Yellow-Blue to +18 (so sorry if there's a more official way of describing this - I'm a bit of a noob and don't know the real names of ANYTHING). But that made the icon look like this:
The icon was almost perfect at this point, I just needed to get the blue hue closer to the color required by the challenge, so I used the eyedrop tool to get the exact color needed, which was this:
And added a color fill layer set to Color, 100% opacity. I then masked everything over Ginny completely, leaving me with (voila!) the finished icon:
----->
This is probably the icon I'm most proud of. I still can't quite believe I made it, and I'm thrilled to make a tutorial for it! This is the cap I started with:
I think I went through about seven variations in which I tried to use the original background before I gave up and painted over it. I used the eyedrop tool to choose the color of the wall behind her until I was left with just the base (pictured above). Once I'd gotten the canvas size where I wanted it and had changed the image size to 100x100, I was let with the base, picture above.
Now, I really liked her crazy hair in this and wanted to get it super glowy, so I duplicated the base twice, set the first copy to screen, the second copy to soft light, both of them at Gaussian Blur +8. That gave me this:
I then used Selective Color on Red, changing the Cyan to -56, which really pumped up the red in her hair. It made her face a little redder than I wanted, so I masked out that a little bit until it looked about right, then I pumped the vibrance all the way up to +100 and masked out the background and her face a little, so it wasn't overpowering. At that point, this is what my icon looked like:
I decided at this point that a blue background would look good against the red of her hair (kind of like the Ginny icon), only I wanted a really light blue instead of something dark, so I added a cyan fill layer set to soft light 100% opacity and masked away a little of Jessica's body. Then I painted red over her hair, Gaussian Blur +5 and Soft Light at about 50% opacity to bring out the reds some more for the contrasting colors, which left me here:
I decided this was a good time to do my glow effect, so I copied everything into one layer, then duplicated it twice, setting the middle layer to Gaussian Blur +5 and Screen 100% opacity and the top layer to Soft Light at about 100% opacity. Everything was really bright when I did this, so I lowered the Screen layer to 50% opacity and voila, everything was glowy and looking a lot better!
The background was really looking blah at this point, so I added the following texture by lumsx to give it some depth. I set it to Multiply, then masked quite a bit of it off of Jessica's body, which gave me the following:
---->
Now the background was looking a lot better, but the bottom of Jessica's body was getting really dark, so I painted white over the lower half, set to Gaussian Blur +5 and Soft Light, about 45% opacity to brighten her up. Then, to get her a little clearer, I copied everything into one layer again and used the Smart Sharpen tool to sharpen her up just a little. She got really sharp, so I lowered the opacity of this layer to 45% and masked a little of her hair off. Then I used Color Balance Cyan-Red at +13, I didn't move Magenta-Green, and Yellow-Blue at -23 to really make Jessica's colors pop, and this is what it looked like at this point:
By now, I wasn't really digging the color of the background but I didn't want to restart the icon, so I took Selective Color and, in the Blue menu, changed Cyan to -100. Here's what it looked like:
At this point, I was really disliking my background. When I was making this icon, there was a discussion going on at anon_icon about the wonders of brown icons, and I thought this would be a good icon to try my hand at making brown since I thought the reds in her hair would work really well with it. Rather than completely redoing my icon, I added two Gradient Map layers. The first black, the second bright yellow and on Soft Light, and I set both to about 75% opacity. Then I completely masked away Jessica's body so the coloring on her wasn't changed. That gave me this:
SO MUCH BETTER YEAH?!!? Not sure if it's brown, but I loved it. Then it was just a matter of adding some depth, so with Levels on RGB, I made the settings at the bottom 11 - 1.00 - 246 (or in other words, I just pushed the arrows on the far left and right in just a bit to make the darks darker and the brights brighter - I'm sure there's a better way to describe this but I don't know the official terms), which effectively polished off my icon into the finished product!
And that is how I made my icons! If you have any questions, just ask! Or if you want to see tutorials from any of my other questions, I'd be more than happy to make them for you :D
------->
I made this icon for the hero color pallet challenge at theiconquest, so when I was choosing caps, I knew I wanted one that would work well with the blue coloring I knew I'd have to include. Therefore, this is the cap I chose:
Now, I'm really lazy, but I love fake backgrounds, so when I do decide to cut a subject out of it's original background, I usually use a color found in the background and then, in a new layer, paint over the original background. I often feel this keeps the subject looking like it belongs in the background (not pasted on top of it) and it also makes it easier to manage finer details like hair. With this, I didn't have paint right up to the edge of Ginny's body. There's probably a 5 pixel margin around her that you can't even see because the background color is still the same, which allowed me keep her hair looking whispy and natural. And with my ladies, I'm all about the hair :D
After I had the background painted, I Ctrl+Alt+Cmmd+E (I have a Mac, I don't what to do on a PC) to copy everything into one layer, then changed the image size so everything was cropped where I wanted it, then got it down to 100x100 px, which is where I worked at for the rest of the icon.
I took my base (pictured above) and copied it three times, so I had four layers. The first two copies I set to screen, the third copy to soft light, all at 100% opacity. That gave me this:
It's really blah at this point, but the lighting is a lot better. Next, I painted a bright red over Ginny's hair, because I love me some red hair. I used Gaussian Blur at +5, set it to Soft Light 100% opacity, and bazaam, Ginny's hair is looking so much better!
At this point, the background was really bugging me because it was so monotonous, so I added this gradient texture (I don't remember which folder I got this from, so I can't credit the maker. I'm so so sorry! If it's you, let me know and I'll in the credit. I just never expected to be asked to make a tutorial!) set to soft light, 100% opacity, which gave me the following:
------->
Now, I'm pretty happy with the depth of the colors, so I decided now would be a good time to do my "glowy trick", which totally isn't mine but that I found in a tutorial on anon_icon and now use on just about every single icon. I copied all my layers into one layer again, then duplicated that twice. I left the first one alone, set the second layer to Gaussian Blur +5 on Screen, and set the third one to soft light. Her face was just a little bit too bright for my liking, so I masked away a little of the brightness on the screen layer, but everything else was left as is on 100% opacity, and now I had this:
Her face was still a little flat, so I painted over it with a black brush, Gaussian Blur +5 on Soft Light, at about 50% opacity, which gave it some more depth but made it really weird and red, so I next used color balance. I set the Cyan-Red level to -5, the Magenta-Green level to +39, and Yellow-Blue to +18 (so sorry if there's a more official way of describing this - I'm a bit of a noob and don't know the real names of ANYTHING). But that made the icon look like this:
The icon was almost perfect at this point, I just needed to get the blue hue closer to the color required by the challenge, so I used the eyedrop tool to get the exact color needed, which was this:
And added a color fill layer set to Color, 100% opacity. I then masked everything over Ginny completely, leaving me with (voila!) the finished icon:
----->
This is probably the icon I'm most proud of. I still can't quite believe I made it, and I'm thrilled to make a tutorial for it! This is the cap I started with:
I think I went through about seven variations in which I tried to use the original background before I gave up and painted over it. I used the eyedrop tool to choose the color of the wall behind her until I was left with just the base (pictured above). Once I'd gotten the canvas size where I wanted it and had changed the image size to 100x100, I was let with the base, picture above.
Now, I really liked her crazy hair in this and wanted to get it super glowy, so I duplicated the base twice, set the first copy to screen, the second copy to soft light, both of them at Gaussian Blur +8. That gave me this:
I then used Selective Color on Red, changing the Cyan to -56, which really pumped up the red in her hair. It made her face a little redder than I wanted, so I masked out that a little bit until it looked about right, then I pumped the vibrance all the way up to +100 and masked out the background and her face a little, so it wasn't overpowering. At that point, this is what my icon looked like:
I decided at this point that a blue background would look good against the red of her hair (kind of like the Ginny icon), only I wanted a really light blue instead of something dark, so I added a cyan fill layer set to soft light 100% opacity and masked away a little of Jessica's body. Then I painted red over her hair, Gaussian Blur +5 and Soft Light at about 50% opacity to bring out the reds some more for the contrasting colors, which left me here:
I decided this was a good time to do my glow effect, so I copied everything into one layer, then duplicated it twice, setting the middle layer to Gaussian Blur +5 and Screen 100% opacity and the top layer to Soft Light at about 100% opacity. Everything was really bright when I did this, so I lowered the Screen layer to 50% opacity and voila, everything was glowy and looking a lot better!
The background was really looking blah at this point, so I added the following texture by lumsx to give it some depth. I set it to Multiply, then masked quite a bit of it off of Jessica's body, which gave me the following:
---->
Now the background was looking a lot better, but the bottom of Jessica's body was getting really dark, so I painted white over the lower half, set to Gaussian Blur +5 and Soft Light, about 45% opacity to brighten her up. Then, to get her a little clearer, I copied everything into one layer again and used the Smart Sharpen tool to sharpen her up just a little. She got really sharp, so I lowered the opacity of this layer to 45% and masked a little of her hair off. Then I used Color Balance Cyan-Red at +13, I didn't move Magenta-Green, and Yellow-Blue at -23 to really make Jessica's colors pop, and this is what it looked like at this point:
By now, I wasn't really digging the color of the background but I didn't want to restart the icon, so I took Selective Color and, in the Blue menu, changed Cyan to -100. Here's what it looked like:
At this point, I was really disliking my background. When I was making this icon, there was a discussion going on at anon_icon about the wonders of brown icons, and I thought this would be a good icon to try my hand at making brown since I thought the reds in her hair would work really well with it. Rather than completely redoing my icon, I added two Gradient Map layers. The first black, the second bright yellow and on Soft Light, and I set both to about 75% opacity. Then I completely masked away Jessica's body so the coloring on her wasn't changed. That gave me this:
SO MUCH BETTER YEAH?!!? Not sure if it's brown, but I loved it. Then it was just a matter of adding some depth, so with Levels on RGB, I made the settings at the bottom 11 - 1.00 - 246 (or in other words, I just pushed the arrows on the far left and right in just a bit to make the darks darker and the brights brighter - I'm sure there's a better way to describe this but I don't know the official terms), which effectively polished off my icon into the finished product!
And that is how I made my icons! If you have any questions, just ask! Or if you want to see tutorials from any of my other questions, I'd be more than happy to make them for you :D