Go from
to
in PSP9.
The base looks very dull so I play around with Auto Contrast Enhancement and leave these settings: Bias - Darker, Strength - Mild and Appearance - Flat. I also wanted to reveal a nice coloring for the base by using Automatic Saturation Enchancement: Bias - More Colorful, Strength - Strong and Skintones Present - checked. I often do this a lot on my icons, especially for bases like this one.
Take this
texture by
11amgraphics and set the layer to Hard Light. If it looks too dark, try to lower the opacity in which I set mine to 66. I also erased a bit because I didn't like how the texture covered up most of Yuuko's face.
Take this
light texture by
ashke_icons and set it to Screen. Again, I erase a bit that covered some of the face.
It's too bright to my liking so I duplicated the base twice and moved the layers to the top. Both were then set to Soft Light.
Now here's where I added in those "smoke" effects to create a mysterious look for Yuuko. Use one of
bombayicons'
textures and set it to Screen. It's your decision whether you want to add another texture, in this case I used
this and flipped it, then set to Lighten.
Normally, I'd do some extra coloring at the beginning, but I noticed I didn't like how Yuuko's lips looked. I create a new layer and take the Dropper Tool to find a nice shade of red (#640700) for the lips. I use the Airbrush Tool and color around the lips. When that's done, erase any bits that don't belong. Then the layer is set to Soft Light with the opacity at 70.
I'm still not pleased with the result so I duplicate the layer and keep the settings the same. Now this is what I had in mind.
Time for text! Using the same color as I used for the lips, I add "devil red lips" in Times New Roman. Then some tiny text underneath it. Afterwards I included the border in the same color and now it's finished.