That stupid moment
when you see the info for character20n20 has been posted and you tell yourself you absolutely want to participate: it's a special round where you can only icon Supernatural, and that's pretty great because there's a lot of things I want to icon but, somehow, I end up doing Doctor Who most of the time.
And since, I'm speaking about icons, I 'just' made a few. Can't post them on Color Bubbles yet because I don't have enough material to do so yet... Except for Doctor Who, but the number isn't round so I refuse to post them. And I can use the occasion to speak about them since I worked on these, well, mostly experimented.
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1) I've been dying to try the 'put a character in the silhouette of another character' for a while now. Chose animation to do so because it's much easier to define the border. Didn't keep the xcf (gimp's equivalent of psd), but the silhouette bit was the first thing I did. The background is just a bunch of texture whose colors were changed to reds.
2) I started with that texture (you can find it here, as well as plenty of awesome texture packs), which I used for the composition. For this one, it was mainly using layout masks to blend both caps together while keeping a layered effect like in the texture; the layout mask allows me to with a layer's transparency without touching the layer itself (as opposed to using the eraser/blending tool directly on it). Took me forever until I got something satisfying. Then, I lightened it with another texture because Vincent's face was too dark and yellow.
3) This is the one that took me the longest time (and more than a dozen layers). I'm not joking XD Original cap is here. I used absolutely no texture on this one. Neither did I use what I usually use to do modify colors in no time, so no retinex, no filter pack, curves or levels. I've done it all by hand, by painting over the pic and using lots of blending until I got a satisfying vibrant icon. Also added freckles in the same manner.
4) Took me more time than I'd like to admit until I got the correct curve on the 'witness' bit. Then, spent even more time on softening the pixelized borders, and finding the good color for the text. Also, choosing the correct font took me a little while. And, I'll probably toy a bit more with text in the future.
5) I sharpened Rocket in order to keep his fur's texture and enhanced the colors a little bit. At first, I wanted to put the text not only in the background, but also a line over him. However, I tried a few fonts, many colors but nothing satisfying enough so I settled with the small white decorative line.
And that's pretty much it. I know it's nothing near a tutorial, but I don't think I'd be able to make a understandable tutorial and 'modify until you think it looks good' isn't really much of an advice, isn't it? XD
And since, I'm speaking about icons, I 'just' made a few. Can't post them on Color Bubbles yet because I don't have enough material to do so yet... Except for Doctor Who, but the number isn't round so I refuse to post them. And I can use the occasion to speak about them since I worked on these, well, mostly experimented.
1
2
3
4
5
1) I've been dying to try the 'put a character in the silhouette of another character' for a while now. Chose animation to do so because it's much easier to define the border. Didn't keep the xcf (gimp's equivalent of psd), but the silhouette bit was the first thing I did. The background is just a bunch of texture whose colors were changed to reds.
2) I started with that texture (you can find it here, as well as plenty of awesome texture packs), which I used for the composition. For this one, it was mainly using layout masks to blend both caps together while keeping a layered effect like in the texture; the layout mask allows me to with a layer's transparency without touching the layer itself (as opposed to using the eraser/blending tool directly on it). Took me forever until I got something satisfying. Then, I lightened it with another texture because Vincent's face was too dark and yellow.
3) This is the one that took me the longest time (and more than a dozen layers). I'm not joking XD Original cap is here. I used absolutely no texture on this one. Neither did I use what I usually use to do modify colors in no time, so no retinex, no filter pack, curves or levels. I've done it all by hand, by painting over the pic and using lots of blending until I got a satisfying vibrant icon. Also added freckles in the same manner.
4) Took me more time than I'd like to admit until I got the correct curve on the 'witness' bit. Then, spent even more time on softening the pixelized borders, and finding the good color for the text. Also, choosing the correct font took me a little while. And, I'll probably toy a bit more with text in the future.
5) I sharpened Rocket in order to keep his fur's texture and enhanced the colors a little bit. At first, I wanted to put the text not only in the background, but also a line over him. However, I tried a few fonts, many colors but nothing satisfying enough so I settled with the small white decorative line.
And that's pretty much it. I know it's nothing near a tutorial, but I don't think I'd be able to make a understandable tutorial and 'modify until you think it looks good' isn't really much of an advice, isn't it? XD