|tutorial: the morrigan from lost girl
The last tutorial from the request post! :D
A Lost Girl coloring tutorial as requested by wandererjulia.
to
Made in Photoshop CS5.
Some selective coloring was used, so this may not be translatable.
OVERVIEW
This was a pretty simple icon to create. The screencap was good quality so there wasn't much that needed to be done to make this into a pretty icon. It features the lovely actress Emmanuelle Vaugier who portrays the character of The Morrigan on Lost Girl. What drew me to this cap was overall, how clear and light it was. Also, I'm a sucker for pretty people looking down and Emmanuelle is beautiful. I couldn't resist.
RESIZING & CROPPING
Image -> Image Size (resized to 500x281)
Cropped the image using my crop tool and this is the new 100x100 base:
COLORING
01. Duplicated base x2 -> Screen + Screen (Opacity: 100%)
02. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves -> RGB channel (Opacity: 100%) (my curves layer)
03. Duplicate base -> Drag to top -> set to Soft Light (Opacity: 100%)
04. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Color Balance -> Midtones channel (Opacity: 100%)
I fiddled with the sliders increasing red, green & yellow on the Midtones channel ONLY, until I came up with this:
Basically, I wanted to enhance her lips and improve the overall coloring of the background.
05. The icon needed more contrast so I added a levels layer.
Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels -> Input Levels -> RGB channel (Opacity: 100%)
0, 0.76, 2.55
06. I wanted to enhance her lips more and increase the contrast just a bit. I used Selective Color for this part, but you could easily do this with Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast.
Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Selective Color -> Reds (Opacity: 100%)
cyan; 0
magenta; 0
yellow; 0
black; +40
07. Layer -> New Layer -> Soft Light (Opacity: 60%)
I added some light blobs to the brighter parts of the icon near her head using a large soft round brush at around 60-65% opacity in the color white. I then used Gaussian Blur at around 5-6% radius to blur the blobs and blend them into the icon better. After that, I reduced the opacity of the layer to 60% because it was too intense and then set it to Soft Light to blend the blobs into the icon more. And this is the result:
08. Copy-merge -> Paste -> Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur -> Radius: 5.0 -> Set to Soft Light (Opacity: 75%)
09. Copy-merge -> Paste -> Filter -> Sharpen -> set to Normal (Opacity: 30%)
TEXT SETTINGS
font; Riot Squad
font size; 18pt
leading; Auto
tracking; +25 (this increases the space between each letter. overall, it allowed me to line up each word of the phrase 'the morrigan' perfectly!)
vertical & horizontal scale; 100%
baseline shift; 0pt
all caps
anti-alias; Sharp
I held down my control key and selected all the text layers then right-clicked with my mouse and selected Rasterize type. I right-clicked with my mouse again and selected Merge Layers. I prefer to merge all of my text layers into one layer because it is much easier to move the text around and work with it when it's all on one layer. I decided to shrink the text slightly using my Free-Transform tool so it wasn't quite so huge and overwhelming. Lastly, I blurred and sharpened the text slightly.
NOTE: You can only blur text when it's rasterized: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT STEP. DON'T EVER SKIP RASTERIZING. TRUST ME. YOUR TEXT WILL ALWAYS LOOK AWESOME WHEN IT'S RASTERIZED. :P
Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur -> Radius: 2.0 -> Fade to @ 15%
Filter -> Sharpen -> Fade to @ 15%
And that completes the icon!
compared to the original:
CREDITS
Lost Girl screencap: rawr_caps
Some tips from a tutorial by: organza
Please use this tutorial as a guide! I do not provide PSD's, sorry.
A Lost Girl coloring tutorial as requested by wandererjulia.
to
Made in Photoshop CS5.
Some selective coloring was used, so this may not be translatable.
OVERVIEW
This was a pretty simple icon to create. The screencap was good quality so there wasn't much that needed to be done to make this into a pretty icon. It features the lovely actress Emmanuelle Vaugier who portrays the character of The Morrigan on Lost Girl. What drew me to this cap was overall, how clear and light it was. Also, I'm a sucker for pretty people looking down and Emmanuelle is beautiful. I couldn't resist.
RESIZING & CROPPING
Image -> Image Size (resized to 500x281)
Cropped the image using my crop tool and this is the new 100x100 base:
COLORING
01. Duplicated base x2 -> Screen + Screen (Opacity: 100%)
02. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Curves -> RGB channel (Opacity: 100%) (my curves layer)
03. Duplicate base -> Drag to top -> set to Soft Light (Opacity: 100%)
04. Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Color Balance -> Midtones channel (Opacity: 100%)
I fiddled with the sliders increasing red, green & yellow on the Midtones channel ONLY, until I came up with this:
Basically, I wanted to enhance her lips and improve the overall coloring of the background.
05. The icon needed more contrast so I added a levels layer.
Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Levels -> Input Levels -> RGB channel (Opacity: 100%)
0, 0.76, 2.55
06. I wanted to enhance her lips more and increase the contrast just a bit. I used Selective Color for this part, but you could easily do this with Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast.
Layer -> New Adjustment Layer -> Selective Color -> Reds (Opacity: 100%)
cyan; 0
magenta; 0
yellow; 0
black; +40
07. Layer -> New Layer -> Soft Light (Opacity: 60%)
I added some light blobs to the brighter parts of the icon near her head using a large soft round brush at around 60-65% opacity in the color white. I then used Gaussian Blur at around 5-6% radius to blur the blobs and blend them into the icon better. After that, I reduced the opacity of the layer to 60% because it was too intense and then set it to Soft Light to blend the blobs into the icon more. And this is the result:
08. Copy-merge -> Paste -> Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur -> Radius: 5.0 -> Set to Soft Light (Opacity: 75%)
09. Copy-merge -> Paste -> Filter -> Sharpen -> set to Normal (Opacity: 30%)
TEXT SETTINGS
font; Riot Squad
font size; 18pt
leading; Auto
tracking; +25 (this increases the space between each letter. overall, it allowed me to line up each word of the phrase 'the morrigan' perfectly!)
vertical & horizontal scale; 100%
baseline shift; 0pt
all caps
anti-alias; Sharp
I held down my control key and selected all the text layers then right-clicked with my mouse and selected Rasterize type. I right-clicked with my mouse again and selected Merge Layers. I prefer to merge all of my text layers into one layer because it is much easier to move the text around and work with it when it's all on one layer. I decided to shrink the text slightly using my Free-Transform tool so it wasn't quite so huge and overwhelming. Lastly, I blurred and sharpened the text slightly.
NOTE: You can only blur text when it's rasterized: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT STEP. DON'T EVER SKIP RASTERIZING. TRUST ME. YOUR TEXT WILL ALWAYS LOOK AWESOME WHEN IT'S RASTERIZED. :P
Filter -> Blur -> Gaussian Blur -> Radius: 2.0 -> Fade to @ 15%
Filter -> Sharpen -> Fade to @ 15%
And that completes the icon!
compared to the original:
CREDITS
Lost Girl screencap: rawr_caps
Some tips from a tutorial by: organza
Please use this tutorial as a guide! I do not provide PSD's, sorry.