tutorial→ icon tutorial: gwen, merlin.
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Requested by twistedbones on Ask The maker activity @ icon_talk
(Before we start, fear not, this tutorial is very very easy and you will be surprised with the amount of layers. :))
Step #1:
For this icon i wanted to add huge amounts of contrast to the left side of gwen's face and add light on the other side. i started by creating a brightness/contrast layer with settings:
Brightness: 80
Contrast: 50
(might look too much for you now but it's not trust me)
so basically this is how i tried to as a beginning achieve the right light and left contrast.
Step #2:
now is the time for a color balance layer, you can see how i want a reddish/magenta coloring. but we still don't want it to ruin the colors. so i tried to bring out the yellow/cyan/green shadows a little.
Midtones: +20, 0, -19
Shadows: -38, +10, 0
Step #3:
more contrast yet to come. i merged everything in a new layer. ctrl+alt+shift+e and then applied gaussian blur 5.0p and set this layer to soft light, and erased a little over gwen's left eye because it was almost hidden. this adds both contrast and softness.
Step #4:
textures time! i added this texture by innocent_lexys and set it to softlight 40% opacity.
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Step #5:
and another color balance layer to being out the reds a little.
Midtones: +19, 0, 0
Step #6:
this step is to increase the contrast (again) and add softness but mostly decrease the vibrance a little. i merged everything in a new layer ctrl+alt+shif+e and desaturated this layer Image>adjustment>desaturate. and set it to hard light 50%.
Step #7:
Now I'm gonna add a selective color to increase the magenta in the reds and increase the reds in the yellows of the background.
Reds:
cyan, -19 / magenta, +58/ yellow, +10
Magentas:
cyan: -100 / magenta: +100/ yellow: -100
Whites:
cyan: -100 / magenta: +58/ yellow: +100/ black: -46
Step #8:
same as before decrease vibrance, more contrast, more softness. merge everything atrl+alt+shift+e and destaturate it. set this layer to soft light 30%. erase a little over gwen's left eye.
Step #9:
i wanted an orange tone in my background because i didn't like it very yellowish. i created a new layer and brushed with a soft round brush around gwen in the background. using an orange color mine was #fe8626. and set it to multiply 30%.
my layer looked like this:
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Step #10:
color balance
Midtones: +24, 0, 0
Shadows: -12, 0, 0
Step #11:
Notice how the icon is a bit vibrant right now, i did not want this. i took the straight way to decrease the vibrance because by i've had quite enough contrast. new vibrance layer.
Vibrance: -12
just enough so we can restore the natural look in the icon.
Step #12:
i wanted gwen to look a little dreamy so i used the diffuse filter which is brilliant when you're doing this. if you haven't tried it you really should.
i merged everything in a new layer
filter>stylize>diffuse> choose anistropic
set this layer to 20% opacity
you could sharpen if you think your icon is too blurry.
That's about everything if you have any wonders tell me, i hope you find it useful! :)
you could ask me/request anything! :)
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