07. tutorial #04
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asked by calrissian18
01. Deciding on Composition
Before I can start with the explaining I have to say some general things about me and tumblr graphics which is that i never have a clue what i'm doing really. It's always a lot of tinkering and luck. In this particular case I just really wanted to use some of the Allison caps I saved because that girl is just so pretty!
I opened a 500x600 blank canvas and picked a beige tone (#916e5a) for the background colour. I picked this colour because I already decided that I wanted to try using natural, brown and more reserved colours for this graphic.
Then I pasted both screencaps onto the canvas. When I do a composition I very often go for a composition where there is a contrast. In this case the contrast is one close crop and one more resized cap.
I moved them around until I was satisfied and got this:
As you can see the lower cap doesn't cover the whole canvas because I already know that I'm going to cut Allison out from the background. I'm going to do that later so I'm just leaving it like that.
Basic composition done!
02. Prepping of the Caps & A Little Work on Colouring
Onto the colouring! I applied a Gradient Map (because they're just amazing for colouring!).
#6b4003 --> #e2bc86 --> #ffefd9
I reduced the opacity of this layer to 42% beause it took too much of the caps original colour away.
After this I went to work on the upper cap first because I always do the easier part of a graphic/icon first.
I duplicated it three times and changed the layer modes to the following: screen, screen & soft light (from the lowest copy to the top most one). This brightened the cap and also added contrast.
Then I went to work on the lightning, to make it stronger. For this I used the one texture that I couldn't live without.
This one made by innocent_lexys. I resized it to fit the size of the cap and also rotated it once horizontally. Then I set it on Soft Light and reduced the opacity to 59%.
After that I copied the texture layer twice and rotated both copies vertically.
-->
Done with the first cap! Onto the lower one. First of all I made a copy of it and brought it up on top of all the other layers. I clicked on the eye next to the original layer of the cap to make it invisible.
Now I turned my attention to the copy I just created. Added a layer mask to the layer because I'm going to cut Allison from her background in the next step.
I selected the Polygon-Lasso tool and traced the outlines of Allison. Then I made sure that I had the layer mask selected and deleted my selection.
Time to prep this cap too. Same as with the other one I duplicated it three times. and set the first two copies to screen & the final one to soft light.
After this I duplicated the resized texture from earlier and pasted it on top of the layer stack. I rotated it 90° anti-clockwise (so that the dark side is on the right). For this layer to only affect the cut out from Allison I added a clipping mask to it. (Select the texture layer, press alt and click on the space between this layer and the one below. for the texture to work properly you'll have to repeat this for every one of the copies. since i might have lost you here. click to see how it should look.)
Since I'm in a painty mod lately and I wanted to add a few strands of hair to the cut out I made a new layer and picked a soft round brush, used the eye-drop tool to pick a colour from her hair and started painting (which I did rather messy but it's always so much fun!)
Finally I duplicated the Gradient Map I created before and brought it on top of everything. I didn't change opacity, just left it as it was.
03. Adding the Texture
The whole graphic looks a bit boring now so I added a texture, because textures always spice everything up good!
I picked this one (by callmebrandon@tumblr) at random because I liked it.
Then I decided to use the upper part of it, the one saying "Explication Position" and the bar at the bottom of it but not the rest. I copied the texture once and added layer masks to both layers. Have a picture to see what I did with those layer masks.
After this I simply set both layers on screen.
04. Finishing Touches
I copied the whole image I have so far and added it as a new layer on top of all. This is my new base and what I'll tinker with in the next steps.
The graphics needs more contrast so I copied it again and set the new layer on soft light with the opacity at 49%.
Again I copied everything I had an used the Sharpen filter on this new copy. Opacity is at 41% but the lines of Allison's face in the upper cap were too sharp now so I created a layer mask to the sharpened layer and used a black brush to go over everything that appeared too sharp to me.
After this I once again copied the whole graphic and picked the Smudge tool to go over every line that appeared too sharp to me. DONE!
Kudos to you if you actually made it to the end of this really long long long tutorial! I hope you found out a few new things :)
If you have any questions then please ask!
+
to
asked by calrissian18
01. Deciding on Composition
Before I can start with the explaining I have to say some general things about me and tumblr graphics which is that i never have a clue what i'm doing really. It's always a lot of tinkering and luck. In this particular case I just really wanted to use some of the Allison caps I saved because that girl is just so pretty!
I opened a 500x600 blank canvas and picked a beige tone (#916e5a) for the background colour. I picked this colour because I already decided that I wanted to try using natural, brown and more reserved colours for this graphic.
Then I pasted both screencaps onto the canvas. When I do a composition I very often go for a composition where there is a contrast. In this case the contrast is one close crop and one more resized cap.
I moved them around until I was satisfied and got this:
As you can see the lower cap doesn't cover the whole canvas because I already know that I'm going to cut Allison out from the background. I'm going to do that later so I'm just leaving it like that.
Basic composition done!
02. Prepping of the Caps & A Little Work on Colouring
Onto the colouring! I applied a Gradient Map (because they're just amazing for colouring!).
#6b4003 --> #e2bc86 --> #ffefd9
I reduced the opacity of this layer to 42% beause it took too much of the caps original colour away.
After this I went to work on the upper cap first because I always do the easier part of a graphic/icon first.
I duplicated it three times and changed the layer modes to the following: screen, screen & soft light (from the lowest copy to the top most one). This brightened the cap and also added contrast.
Then I went to work on the lightning, to make it stronger. For this I used the one texture that I couldn't live without.
This one made by innocent_lexys. I resized it to fit the size of the cap and also rotated it once horizontally. Then I set it on Soft Light and reduced the opacity to 59%.
After that I copied the texture layer twice and rotated both copies vertically.
-->
Done with the first cap! Onto the lower one. First of all I made a copy of it and brought it up on top of all the other layers. I clicked on the eye next to the original layer of the cap to make it invisible.
Now I turned my attention to the copy I just created. Added a layer mask to the layer because I'm going to cut Allison from her background in the next step.
I selected the Polygon-Lasso tool and traced the outlines of Allison. Then I made sure that I had the layer mask selected and deleted my selection.
Time to prep this cap too. Same as with the other one I duplicated it three times. and set the first two copies to screen & the final one to soft light.
After this I duplicated the resized texture from earlier and pasted it on top of the layer stack. I rotated it 90° anti-clockwise (so that the dark side is on the right). For this layer to only affect the cut out from Allison I added a clipping mask to it. (Select the texture layer, press alt and click on the space between this layer and the one below. for the texture to work properly you'll have to repeat this for every one of the copies. since i might have lost you here. click to see how it should look.)
Since I'm in a painty mod lately and I wanted to add a few strands of hair to the cut out I made a new layer and picked a soft round brush, used the eye-drop tool to pick a colour from her hair and started painting (which I did rather messy but it's always so much fun!)
Finally I duplicated the Gradient Map I created before and brought it on top of everything. I didn't change opacity, just left it as it was.
03. Adding the Texture
The whole graphic looks a bit boring now so I added a texture, because textures always spice everything up good!
I picked this one (by callmebrandon@tumblr) at random because I liked it.
Then I decided to use the upper part of it, the one saying "Explication Position" and the bar at the bottom of it but not the rest. I copied the texture once and added layer masks to both layers. Have a picture to see what I did with those layer masks.
After this I simply set both layers on screen.
04. Finishing Touches
I copied the whole image I have so far and added it as a new layer on top of all. This is my new base and what I'll tinker with in the next steps.
The graphics needs more contrast so I copied it again and set the new layer on soft light with the opacity at 49%.
Again I copied everything I had an used the Sharpen filter on this new copy. Opacity is at 41% but the lines of Allison's face in the upper cap were too sharp now so I created a layer mask to the sharpened layer and used a black brush to go over everything that appeared too sharp to me.
After this I once again copied the whole graphic and picked the Smudge tool to go over every line that appeared too sharp to me. DONE!
Kudos to you if you actually made it to the end of this really long long long tutorial! I hope you found out a few new things :)
If you have any questions then please ask!