tutorial #02
tutorial #02 - asked by setentpet
from
to
using these caps 1, 2
this icon was made for the crossover challenge at whedon_elite.
since I didn't have the original psd I had to recreate it.
original
>>
remake
I. PREPARATION
i. First I start with picking my two caps and drag them onto a blank 100x100px canvas. I decided beforehand what kind of composition I wanted to do and prepared it.
First I prepped the Fred cap and resized it so that it was a simple center crop. Then I duplicated it once and set it on screen. The cap is still too dark so I duplicated the screen layer twice.
Of course the whole icon now turns out to be too bright so I'm duplicating the screen layer once again an blur it using gaussian blur (radius ~3,6px). I changed the layer mode to soft light.
Copy + Merge all layers so that they make your new base.
-->
ii. Onto the next cap: Since we can see Fred profile which has lots of hair I decided to put the second cap on this hair. I cropped the Kaylee cap and after that did the same basic prepping steps as I did with the other cap.
In this case I only have one layer set on screen, because the cap is already really bright.
I also have two layers set on soft light. The topmost on (2nd one) I used gaussian blur on.
-->
I always do the composition first and then focus on other things like colouring and lightning.
II. LIGHTNING/CONTRAST ADJUSTMENT No. 1
i. Lightning and contrast is a great deal for me when making icons and it's one of the things I spend most time and effort on.
Usually I look for a texture that can create some shadows and hightlights when set on soft light to make everything more interesting and less flat.
For this icon I chose this texture (by innocent_lexys) and set it to Soft Light.
+
-->
ii. This looks much better already but the Kaylee cap has more contrast than the Fred cap so I need to adjust that.
I copied the whole icon I had so far and set it to soft light. This causes the whole icon to have more contrast so that I need to erase the bits that cover Kaylee.
When I have to erase something I always paint with a black brush on a layer mask because when you make mistakes when erasing you can always go back and change it.
-->
III. COLOURING & LIGHTNING/CONTRAST ADJUSTMENT No. 2
i. I decided that I wanted to have warm and bright colours for this icon, because it fit the atmosphere and the characters.
To achieve what I wanted I picked this texture (made by fuuurs and set it to soft light.
+
-->
ii. It looks a bit flat now so I just copied the whole icon again (yes you can already see that this is one of my favourite things to do) and set it on soft light. I also used gaussian blur with the same settings as above so that it would have a rather nice glow.
-->
iii. Kaylee looks to dark and contrastful to me so I simply copied the whole icon again and set the layer to screen. I masked away everything that covered Fred in the same way I did before.
I also lowered the fill down to 43% to make it not too bright.
-->
iv. I'm still not done with the lightning so I add another texture on top of everything. this one (made by innocent_lexys again). I desatruated it because I had no use of the cool blue on the left and then set it to soft light.
This results in Freds forehead being too bright for my taste so I add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer with the following settings:
Brightness: -20
Contrast: 7
I also mask away anything that isn't Freds forehead.
+
+ brightness/contrast adjustment layer -->
The icon is almost done now, so I get on making some finishing touches
IV. FINAL TOUCHES
i. I add another texture (made by drankmywar) to make the light come more from the left side and also too add some additional colours to the icon.
+
-->
ii. I didn't like how clean and smooth everything looked right now so I decided to use a dominant texture to rough things up a bit.
this one (made by fuuurs) seemed perfect because it fits the mood and colours of the icon already. I set it on screen.
Because the parts that covered Freds face didn't look that well I erased them using a black brush on a layer mask again.
+
-->
iii. We're now damn near to the end result but I still wasn't satisfied so I copied the whole icon again and pasted it on top of everything. I desaturated it using a b&w gradient map, then I merged those two.
The now desaturated layer I set on soft light and lowered the ocupacity down to 52%.
-->
iv. Next thing I did was adding a black and white gradient with the following setting and set it to soft light.
I lowered the fill of this layer down to 63%.
-->
v. Last but not least I copied the whole icon i have again and sharpened it. I'm always using the sharpen filter and then I'm just reducing the ocupacity/[????] until I am satisfied with the result.
In this case I lowered the fill to 30%
-->
The End. :)
Thanks for reading and I hope you found it somehow helpful/inspiring or something like that!
Feel free to ask questions if you have any and also let me know of any typos and things like that :) Also you can still ask me questions at my thread at the current Ask the maker.
from
to
using these caps 1, 2
this icon was made for the crossover challenge at whedon_elite.
since I didn't have the original psd I had to recreate it.
original
>>
remake
I. PREPARATION
i. First I start with picking my two caps and drag them onto a blank 100x100px canvas. I decided beforehand what kind of composition I wanted to do and prepared it.
First I prepped the Fred cap and resized it so that it was a simple center crop. Then I duplicated it once and set it on screen. The cap is still too dark so I duplicated the screen layer twice.
Of course the whole icon now turns out to be too bright so I'm duplicating the screen layer once again an blur it using gaussian blur (radius ~3,6px). I changed the layer mode to soft light.
Copy + Merge all layers so that they make your new base.
-->
ii. Onto the next cap: Since we can see Fred profile which has lots of hair I decided to put the second cap on this hair. I cropped the Kaylee cap and after that did the same basic prepping steps as I did with the other cap.
In this case I only have one layer set on screen, because the cap is already really bright.
I also have two layers set on soft light. The topmost on (2nd one) I used gaussian blur on.
-->
I always do the composition first and then focus on other things like colouring and lightning.
II. LIGHTNING/CONTRAST ADJUSTMENT No. 1
i. Lightning and contrast is a great deal for me when making icons and it's one of the things I spend most time and effort on.
Usually I look for a texture that can create some shadows and hightlights when set on soft light to make everything more interesting and less flat.
For this icon I chose this texture (by innocent_lexys) and set it to Soft Light.
+
-->
ii. This looks much better already but the Kaylee cap has more contrast than the Fred cap so I need to adjust that.
I copied the whole icon I had so far and set it to soft light. This causes the whole icon to have more contrast so that I need to erase the bits that cover Kaylee.
When I have to erase something I always paint with a black brush on a layer mask because when you make mistakes when erasing you can always go back and change it.
-->
III. COLOURING & LIGHTNING/CONTRAST ADJUSTMENT No. 2
i. I decided that I wanted to have warm and bright colours for this icon, because it fit the atmosphere and the characters.
To achieve what I wanted I picked this texture (made by fuuurs and set it to soft light.
+
-->
ii. It looks a bit flat now so I just copied the whole icon again (yes you can already see that this is one of my favourite things to do) and set it on soft light. I also used gaussian blur with the same settings as above so that it would have a rather nice glow.
-->
iii. Kaylee looks to dark and contrastful to me so I simply copied the whole icon again and set the layer to screen. I masked away everything that covered Fred in the same way I did before.
I also lowered the fill down to 43% to make it not too bright.
-->
iv. I'm still not done with the lightning so I add another texture on top of everything. this one (made by innocent_lexys again). I desatruated it because I had no use of the cool blue on the left and then set it to soft light.
This results in Freds forehead being too bright for my taste so I add a brightness/contrast adjustment layer with the following settings:
Brightness: -20
Contrast: 7
I also mask away anything that isn't Freds forehead.
+
+ brightness/contrast adjustment layer -->
The icon is almost done now, so I get on making some finishing touches
IV. FINAL TOUCHES
i. I add another texture (made by drankmywar) to make the light come more from the left side and also too add some additional colours to the icon.
+
-->
ii. I didn't like how clean and smooth everything looked right now so I decided to use a dominant texture to rough things up a bit.
this one (made by fuuurs) seemed perfect because it fits the mood and colours of the icon already. I set it on screen.
Because the parts that covered Freds face didn't look that well I erased them using a black brush on a layer mask again.
+
-->
iii. We're now damn near to the end result but I still wasn't satisfied so I copied the whole icon again and pasted it on top of everything. I desaturated it using a b&w gradient map, then I merged those two.
The now desaturated layer I set on soft light and lowered the ocupacity down to 52%.
-->
iv. Next thing I did was adding a black and white gradient with the following setting and set it to soft light.
I lowered the fill of this layer down to 63%.
-->
v. Last but not least I copied the whole icon i have again and sharpened it. I'm always using the sharpen filter and then I'm just reducing the ocupacity/[????] until I am satisfied with the result.
In this case I lowered the fill to 30%
-->
The End. :)
Thanks for reading and I hope you found it somehow helpful/inspiring or something like that!
Feel free to ask questions if you have any and also let me know of any typos and things like that :) Also you can still ask me questions at my thread at the current Ask the maker.