Icon Guide III
Okay! Time for another icon guide. 1 Was Here. 2 Was There.
You may be thinking "God, Aviy, you did two already. What more could you possibly have to say about Photoshop?". Well, thankfully, in this case I don't really. This isn't a photoshop tutorial and I probably won't be talking about tools or such so much as just a quick and dirty "how I did that" with the various styles of icons I've done, as well as some talk about the values of color and contrast and such. Hopefully the information herein will inspire you for your own icons! Similarly if you want to steal the methods to make your own I certainly don't mind, and I'll be including the hexadecimal color codes I use for each icon type if you want to mimic it for your use. HERE WE GO.
Ticky Mikk - New Set vs Old
This change was made after an extensive conversation with my wife about how the first set was too dark! It took me a while to grasp the problem, since on my monitor at least they are in no way hard to see, though the brown is certainly MUCH DARKER than, you know, white! It's still much lighter than black. But I couldn't deny that I had been unhappy with my Ticky icon set for a while (ever since I'd started working on Allen's) and couldn't figure out why exactly it was that Ticky (who is IN MY HUMBLE OPINION the prettiest man in the manga) would have the least pretty icon set.
So there was about three hours of going through my other icon sets and locating successful and unsuccessful ones and figuring out why this works and that doesn't. In fact it comes down to almost an equation.
A) Contrast Attracts The Eye - This is why black and white is simple and yet still so pretty. Black on white is just easy to see and it gives you probably the best appreciation for simply the lines of the art. For a long time I refused to colorize my icons at ALL because WHEN YOU DO THAT you are losing definition in the linework and shifting the way you see it. BUT that doesn't really mean colorizing icons is WORSE, BECAUSE:
B) Color Attracts The Eye - So while you inherently lose contrast anytime you colorize an icon, you gain Hue! Vivid colors especially will draw attention and make something striking, so while some lines might be a bit harder to see clearly the overall picture has this COLOR an that appeals to us.
Thus, colorizing with brighter colors works better because even if it lowers the contrast on a technical level it still makes up for it by drawing the eye. This is why Devit icons, which aren't technically that much lighter than the original Ticky set work well, when Ticky's don't. They aren't LIGHTER but they are BRIGHTER. The blue is very vivid! Infact it's so vivid I have to make all of his backgrounds muted in some way, or else the bright blue/green will draw more attention than the slightly desaturated Noah up front.
Ticky's older set tho, was brown. Brown is not a very vivid or eye drawing color. Brown on Black is less so. So not only was a drastically reducing the contrast, I wasn't making up for it with anything.
The new set still isn't my absolute favorite (Allen's will probably always be so). But we make sacrifices for character. Red would fit Ticky's crazy spells well enough, but is too passionate a color for the 85% of the time where he's reasonably sane. Blue is too mellow and cool. Brown is, to me! This simple and smooth, undramatic and warm color that fits him well, and then for crazy moments? The art carries that Just Fine.
And that's it for the LECTURE PORTION of our guide, the rest of it will be pretty much images showing what layers and colors I use to achieve this effect or that.
Here is the settings of those layers:
1) Canvas!
2) Background Layer. The bits of pattern I use for the background. Set to Multiply.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Check 'Use Legacy' and then Brightness is +12 and Contrast is -8. This makes the whites sliiightly not white and the Blacks sliiightly not black. KEEP IN MIND that whenever you lighten your blacks like this the gray you create will probably not be even and I suggest going over it with the burn tool to make sure they are as dark as they will get.
4) Color Balance Layer. Check 'Preserve Luminosity'. The 'Shadows' are set to +70 Cyan/Red and -70 Yellow/Blue. Like so:
What this is doing is basically saturating most of my image but keeping the contrast because it's only effecting the darks.
5) Color Fill 1. The color being used is #BAB4A6. The layer is set to Multiply. This effects Shadows, Midtones and Highlights equally.
6) Color Fill 2. The color here is just white. The layer is set to Linear Dodge and the Fill is at 25%. Linear Dodge basically Brightens but doesn't darken (much like the Dodge Tool) but will do so with a Hue if you have a color. If you use just white it brightens the fuck out of everything (and I think sliiightly desaturates). You can get a very similar effect with another Brightness/Contrast Layer.
7) Eye Layer. I'm using a bright orange for his eyes #F26522 that looks yellow thanks to the brown of the surrounding color and the layer effects. The layer is set to Hard Light with 70% Fill.
8) Clothing Layer. Using white I color in the clothing. The layer is set to Hard Mix at 7% Fill. Hard Mix is basically A REALLY HARD MIX. I. Don't even know what it does technically but if you use white set to Hard Mix and then have a reaaaally low Fill it's like a more dramatic Linear Dodge.In this case it basically gives me WHITE (when the lightest color in Ticky's icons is otherwise the same really soft brown as his tongue there) and then will brighten the linework too.
Rhode Camelot
Rhode's icons are made very similarly to Ticky's. Or rather, Ticky's icons were copied almost identically from Rhode's. I basically did his like I did hers (which took me AGES to figure out the first time) and changed the hues around.
1) Canvas.
2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply. In this image the Fill is at 88% to make the Background a bit lighter.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is at +22 and Contrast is at -27.
4) Color Balance. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Shadows are set to -56 Magenta/Green, +30 Yellow/Blue.
5) Color Fill 1. Using a very light purple #DBD3E0 set to Multiply.
6) Background Lighten Layer. A duplicate of the Background layer set to Screen. This makes the whites you see in the background whiter without darkening the darks.
7) Color Fill 2. White, set to Linear Dodge and 25% Fill.
Devit
I'M FOND OF DEVIT'S ICONS as I really like that shade of blue and the fact that completely saturated it's more of a sea foam green. So when I don't tone things down with grays at all it stands out that way. They're also a very successful set despite not having any blacks or whites. Since it's SO COLORFUL I used gray as the offset color, along with the usual Noah gold for the eyes.
1) Canvas.
2) Background. Set to multiply.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness +22, Contrast -27.
4) Color Balance Layer. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Highlights with Yellow/Blue at +46.
5) Color Fill 1. Using color #9EE2DE. Set to Multiply, 78% Fill.
6) Kick Layer. White used on a layer set to Hard Mix at 29% Fill. This is what is making the flash of his kick really bright.
7) Fluff Layer. A gray (#CCCCCC) used on a layer set to Saturation at 45% Fill.
8) Eye Layer. Didn't actually color in his eyes on this one, but if I had, the layer is set to Color, 90% Fill. The eye color is #E4AC19.
Allen Walker
Allen's set! By far my favorite. The gold/yellow and silver and blue just work so well together plus Allen is a VERY PRETTY BOY especially lately and. Yes. )= I love this set with all of my soul and it pains me that it makes Allen prettier than Ticky BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO. This set is the result of an epiphany I had while driving that basically went "wow gold allen icon set would be GORGEOUS" and behold it was. Uhuhuhu.
1) Canvas.
2) Color Fill 1. Set to Color. The color being used is #FFD303.
3) Hair Layer. The same gray I use with Devit #CCCCCC and the layer set to Hue and 65% Fill. This makes the hair gray but not really SILVER and if you can look you can see the bit of yellow coming through.
4) Blood Layer. For his scuffs and cuts, a dark red #5A0D0E, layer set to Vivid Light with 58% Fill. I usually just color in the scrapes wherever they are on the art and then lower the Fill until it looks the way I want it.
5) Eye and Earing Layer. Set to Color and 100% Fill. The earing is the same gray as before, only now without any lessening of the color. The eyes are a bright blue #ABEDF5.
General Cross Marian
Oh Cross. So pretty. Sob. I would let it hit me like a mack truck. I MEAN. Ahem.
Cross's icon set has a LOT OF GIVE AND TAKE involved in it and I wasn't sure I liked them until the general consensus from people I showed them to seemed to be that they were hot. The 'problem' is that the yellow/red lines give a lot of flavor and personality and vivacity! But they also lose a lot of detail! REFER TO WHAT I SAID ABOUT IT BASICALLY BEING AN EQUATION. Let's compare, shall we?
I LIKE BLACK AND WHITE. Simple, pretty, smooth lines! Hoshino's line work is sooooo pretty. In this case I would probably thicken the hair lines on the black and white piece (Duplicate the layer, set top layer to multiply, lower the fill to where you want it) but there is nothing simple or smooth about the colored version. However! the colors involved are YELLOW and RED and they really jump out at you even if they're a bit grittier. Plus, the overall composition is much more solid, because there's like this big chick of red hair and black cloak drawing your attention with little touch ups of yellow and silver. So while a part of me inside is a little )= about roughening the line work so much, I do think this set works very well for it's overall effect!
1) Canvas.
2) Color Fill 1. The pretty pretty yellow. The layer is simply set to Color at 100% Fill. The yellow I'm using is #F6E38A.
3) Color Fill 2. PINK bet you didn't expect to see that. Frankly I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway the color is #F68A8A and the layer is set to Color Burn at 100% Fill. This is basically giving the yellow a yellow-to-red gradient. It's not effecting the red of his hair at ALL, just the yellow/red linework.
4) Hair Layer. This is the same dark red I use for... all my dark red needs! Which is mostly blood and Cross' hair. #5A0D0E. The layer is set to Hard Light at 100% Fill. Then I just color it in.
5) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is set to +25 and Contrast is -22. This is basically just softening the contrast juuuust a tad, since White, Black, Yellow and Red all at once is like, a lot of fucking contrast. It makes it just a bit easier on the eye.
6) Eye Layer. You can't even really see it in this icon, but I use a really dark reddish brown #370505 on a layer set to Linear Light at 75% Fill to do Cross's eyes. It's mostly just to fill in the eye than anything, since there's nothing interesting to the color to contribute to the composition.
7) Mask Layer. The same gray I've used everywhere else #CCCCCC on a layer set to Color with 85% for the lines of Cross' mask.
NOW. WHILE I'M HERE, LET'S TALK HOW TO DO TWO CHARACTERS IN ONE ICON. Which I only recently got around to figuring out and frankly it's just. A new project every time I have to do it.
Okay, most of what you need to know you can figure out by looking back at the Allen and Cross icon portions. So for this one I'll be focusing on a different thing. NAMELY. How to get two different color schemes working together!
1) Canvas!
2 and 3) These are the Cross coloring layers, the yellow and the pink, remember? Now look at the black and white boxes NEXT to the pink and yellow boxes! On Color Fill Layers (and Brightness/Contrast layers and other such effect layers) you can only draw on them in blacks, whites or grays. Basically. Where it is Black that layer has no effect, where it is White it does have an effect, and where it is gray it has SOME effect depending on how dark or light the gray is. In this cause I went through with black and colored on both of those layers to block out Allen, this keeps Cross' colors from effecting Allen's lines.
4) Cross' Hair Layer.
5) Allen's Coloring Layer. The yellow I use for Allen now. Similarly I just went through with Black and blocked out where Cross is!
6) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Now here is where you START MAKING COMPROMISES. Basically, Allen's icons don't have the same softening of the Blacks and Whites I use on Cross. But if I were to make that Brightness/Contrast Layer effect ONLY Cross it would LOOK WEIRD. LET'S SEE:
Used a different icon cuz the other one doesn't have a lot of blacks for Allen in it. Anyway! OBSERVE HOW IT DRAWS ALL YOUR ATTENTION TO ALLEN. It makes it look like we're trying to wash Cross into the background. It's also overall uneven.
Now, we COULD just leave the Brightness/Contrast Layer off entirely and the overall icon would look fine! But keep in mind we're doing the same thing to ALL OF OUR ICONS for a reason, and when you drastically change the contrast for just one it also LOOKS WEIRD.
THUS. For Allen's version of this icon, the Brightness/Contrast is off, and for Cross' it is on.
And ignore the Rinali icon right NEXT to that, this is a good example of what I mean by "every time you do it it's a different situation". The purple is really blaring and backgrounding it with the yellow didn't work. I'll. Get back to it later. Thankfully Allen and Cross' colors complement each other.
Anyway! After that:
7) and 8) are Allen's Hair and Eye layers and they go on as normal.
Rinali Li
Rinali's set! I am... ambivalent about. I think they look very pretty! But there's nothing about them that really grabs me, aside from the middle one above. I wish I had more cause to use red like that in her icons )= But like Ticky I think even if the scheme isn't as mm... dramatic as Allen or Cross' it does SUIT her and it's one of those sacrifices you make for characterization. The overall effect WORKS it's just not one I'm in love with.
Rinali's set is very simple!
1) Canvas!
2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply, in this case the Fill is at 100% but I used the Levels option to lighten the darks.
3) Color Fill 1. Using a very pretty dark Blue here #160443. The layer is set to Color with 75% Fill to keep it desaturated.
4) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy' and the Brightness is +22 with the Contrast -27.
5) Eye Layer. Rinali's eyes are #310202, a dark brown, with the layer set to Hard Light at 25% Fill.
Rabi
Rabi's icons are another set I have mixed feelings on leaning toward ambivalent. He was very difficult to figure out something that would work for him, since Red is just. Not Really It. But he has such pretty red hair and green eyes, which is a combo I love. But I couldn't color his hair like I did with Cross' because A) it tends to employ gray tones and B) it runs off into his bandanna a lot and would not really give that whole...LARGE CHUNK OF COLOR effect that Cross' hair gets. Anyway! I'm happy with how it ended up, and feel it fits the character, but it's again not a scheme I'm in love with. Wife doesn't like the green, but I hate NOT having an off set color as it might look fine on a few icons but when you have 100 they'd all sort of run together. Though I probably could have desaturated it a tad. Anyway! Rabi's icons are also simple.
1) Canvas!
2) Color Fill Layer. The red being used is #5A0D0E. The Layer is set to Linear Dodge at 100%.
3) Color Balance Layer. Color Balance, if you haven't noticed yet, is an EXCELLENT TRICKSY THING to get a gradient to kind of... skew slightly when it ranges from dark to light. Basically, without this layer Rabi's icons are actually pinkish, and the 'Darks' are much, much lighter.
Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. And then go to 'Shadows'. The Magenta/Green is at +44 and the Yellow/Blue is at -42. Basically, more green/less magenta and More yellow/less blue effectinly MOSTLY the shadows, though it will carry somewhat to the midtones and sliiightly to the lights. So you can see if you look at Rabi's icons that the lights are sort of peachy where as the darks are more brownish and red. That's what we're doing here.
I.E. These two icons:
These are the natural effects of just that layer! But you probably wouldn't guess that peach on the right came from a lighter version of the brown on the left.
4) Eye Layer. Rabi's eye color is #51C051. The layer is set to Hard Light at 70% Fill. His scarf is usually more like 20-30% Fill, but the eyes get brighter since you want more attention there.
Nagisa Kaworu, Ayanami Rei, Ikari Shinji, Edward Elric
While I really like how they look, there is nothing special about any of these sets. They are done by a simple technique that I'm quite fond of, and though it doesn't work with all art styles or characters, when it does it provides a nice fun color gradient that negates the need for backgrounds to spice things up. I'm Very Fond of Ed's set in particular, since his automail and eyes allow for a little bit of pick up without any drastic changes.
I'm getting tired so I'm only going to show you how to do this with Ed's, if you've been paying attention the others shouldn't be hard to figure out, but if you want the exact colors and layer settings I've used for the others just poke me and I'll fill you in.
1) Canvas!
2) Color Fill 1. The color is #520303, a dark red. The layer is set to Color, with 50% Fill. How high the Fill is changes with each character. Shinji's is a purple with about 20%, Kaworu's is a little higher, but the color being used is lighter, so on and so forth. I don't ever have it at 100% because then it's just over saturated.
3) Color Fill 2. The color is #2C2C4B, a dark blue! The layer is set to Lighter Color. What Lighter Color does is it will apply the colors on that layer only if they are lighter than the layers below. This is why on Ed's icons (And all of the others of this type) the blacks have been replaced with Dark blue (or Dark red or dark brown). It's still a DARK COLOR but it's lighter than BLACK which is what would be there otherwise.
4) Ed's Automail Layer. The color is a blue that is a bit more grayish and greenish than the one being used on the previous layer #394662. It's a bit more greenish because it's overlaying on red, and if I used straight up blue then his automail looks sort of purpley (Red + Blue) instead of steel blue (BlueGreen + Red = Red and Green gray each other out leaving BlueGray). The layer is set to Color at 50% Fill.
5) Eye Layer. I use the same yellow/orange I use for the Noah eyes, #E4AC19. The layer is set to Vivid Light at 48% Fill. I tend to color in his eye with it at 100% Fill and then just lower it until it's as saturated as I want it to be.
The other characters listed are pretty much done this way, with variations in color and how saturated the layers are. Though Kaworu and Shinji's eye layers are set to Color and Rey's eye layer is set to Lighter Color. Kaworu's icons sometimes have a brightness/contrast layer applied to lighten his shading a bit as he's not really a very dark character.
And that's it for now! I'm working on YET ANOTHER Ticky set for when I inevitably de-Noah him, but nothing about that is settled so I'm not showing how it works yet. Suffice to say the POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS and hopefully this gave you tips, inspiration or understanding to help you in your ICON VENTURES OF THE FUTURE.
If you have any questions, by all means, poke me.
You may be thinking "God, Aviy, you did two already. What more could you possibly have to say about Photoshop?". Well, thankfully, in this case I don't really. This isn't a photoshop tutorial and I probably won't be talking about tools or such so much as just a quick and dirty "how I did that" with the various styles of icons I've done, as well as some talk about the values of color and contrast and such. Hopefully the information herein will inspire you for your own icons! Similarly if you want to steal the methods to make your own I certainly don't mind, and I'll be including the hexadecimal color codes I use for each icon type if you want to mimic it for your use. HERE WE GO.
Ticky Mikk - New Set vs Old
This change was made after an extensive conversation with my wife about how the first set was too dark! It took me a while to grasp the problem, since on my monitor at least they are in no way hard to see, though the brown is certainly MUCH DARKER than, you know, white! It's still much lighter than black. But I couldn't deny that I had been unhappy with my Ticky icon set for a while (ever since I'd started working on Allen's) and couldn't figure out why exactly it was that Ticky (who is IN MY HUMBLE OPINION the prettiest man in the manga) would have the least pretty icon set.
So there was about three hours of going through my other icon sets and locating successful and unsuccessful ones and figuring out why this works and that doesn't. In fact it comes down to almost an equation.
A) Contrast Attracts The Eye - This is why black and white is simple and yet still so pretty. Black on white is just easy to see and it gives you probably the best appreciation for simply the lines of the art. For a long time I refused to colorize my icons at ALL because WHEN YOU DO THAT you are losing definition in the linework and shifting the way you see it. BUT that doesn't really mean colorizing icons is WORSE, BECAUSE:
B) Color Attracts The Eye - So while you inherently lose contrast anytime you colorize an icon, you gain Hue! Vivid colors especially will draw attention and make something striking, so while some lines might be a bit harder to see clearly the overall picture has this COLOR an that appeals to us.
Thus, colorizing with brighter colors works better because even if it lowers the contrast on a technical level it still makes up for it by drawing the eye. This is why Devit icons, which aren't technically that much lighter than the original Ticky set work well, when Ticky's don't. They aren't LIGHTER but they are BRIGHTER. The blue is very vivid! Infact it's so vivid I have to make all of his backgrounds muted in some way, or else the bright blue/green will draw more attention than the slightly desaturated Noah up front.
Ticky's older set tho, was brown. Brown is not a very vivid or eye drawing color. Brown on Black is less so. So not only was a drastically reducing the contrast, I wasn't making up for it with anything.
The new set still isn't my absolute favorite (Allen's will probably always be so). But we make sacrifices for character. Red would fit Ticky's crazy spells well enough, but is too passionate a color for the 85% of the time where he's reasonably sane. Blue is too mellow and cool. Brown is, to me! This simple and smooth, undramatic and warm color that fits him well, and then for crazy moments? The art carries that Just Fine.
And that's it for the LECTURE PORTION of our guide, the rest of it will be pretty much images showing what layers and colors I use to achieve this effect or that.
Here is the settings of those layers:
1) Canvas!
2) Background Layer. The bits of pattern I use for the background. Set to Multiply.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Check 'Use Legacy' and then Brightness is +12 and Contrast is -8. This makes the whites sliiightly not white and the Blacks sliiightly not black. KEEP IN MIND that whenever you lighten your blacks like this the gray you create will probably not be even and I suggest going over it with the burn tool to make sure they are as dark as they will get.
4) Color Balance Layer. Check 'Preserve Luminosity'. The 'Shadows' are set to +70 Cyan/Red and -70 Yellow/Blue. Like so:
What this is doing is basically saturating most of my image but keeping the contrast because it's only effecting the darks.
5) Color Fill 1. The color being used is #BAB4A6. The layer is set to Multiply. This effects Shadows, Midtones and Highlights equally.
6) Color Fill 2. The color here is just white. The layer is set to Linear Dodge and the Fill is at 25%. Linear Dodge basically Brightens but doesn't darken (much like the Dodge Tool) but will do so with a Hue if you have a color. If you use just white it brightens the fuck out of everything (and I think sliiightly desaturates). You can get a very similar effect with another Brightness/Contrast Layer.
7) Eye Layer. I'm using a bright orange for his eyes #F26522 that looks yellow thanks to the brown of the surrounding color and the layer effects. The layer is set to Hard Light with 70% Fill.
8) Clothing Layer. Using white I color in the clothing. The layer is set to Hard Mix at 7% Fill. Hard Mix is basically A REALLY HARD MIX. I. Don't even know what it does technically but if you use white set to Hard Mix and then have a reaaaally low Fill it's like a more dramatic Linear Dodge.In this case it basically gives me WHITE (when the lightest color in Ticky's icons is otherwise the same really soft brown as his tongue there) and then will brighten the linework too.
Rhode Camelot
Rhode's icons are made very similarly to Ticky's. Or rather, Ticky's icons were copied almost identically from Rhode's. I basically did his like I did hers (which took me AGES to figure out the first time) and changed the hues around.
1) Canvas.
2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply. In this image the Fill is at 88% to make the Background a bit lighter.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is at +22 and Contrast is at -27.
4) Color Balance. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Shadows are set to -56 Magenta/Green, +30 Yellow/Blue.
5) Color Fill 1. Using a very light purple #DBD3E0 set to Multiply.
6) Background Lighten Layer. A duplicate of the Background layer set to Screen. This makes the whites you see in the background whiter without darkening the darks.
7) Color Fill 2. White, set to Linear Dodge and 25% Fill.
Devit
I'M FOND OF DEVIT'S ICONS as I really like that shade of blue and the fact that completely saturated it's more of a sea foam green. So when I don't tone things down with grays at all it stands out that way. They're also a very successful set despite not having any blacks or whites. Since it's SO COLORFUL I used gray as the offset color, along with the usual Noah gold for the eyes.
1) Canvas.
2) Background. Set to multiply.
3) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness +22, Contrast -27.
4) Color Balance Layer. Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. Highlights with Yellow/Blue at +46.
5) Color Fill 1. Using color #9EE2DE. Set to Multiply, 78% Fill.
6) Kick Layer. White used on a layer set to Hard Mix at 29% Fill. This is what is making the flash of his kick really bright.
7) Fluff Layer. A gray (#CCCCCC) used on a layer set to Saturation at 45% Fill.
8) Eye Layer. Didn't actually color in his eyes on this one, but if I had, the layer is set to Color, 90% Fill. The eye color is #E4AC19.
Allen Walker
Allen's set! By far my favorite. The gold/yellow and silver and blue just work so well together plus Allen is a VERY PRETTY BOY especially lately and. Yes. )= I love this set with all of my soul and it pains me that it makes Allen prettier than Ticky BUT WHAT CAN YOU DO. This set is the result of an epiphany I had while driving that basically went "wow gold allen icon set would be GORGEOUS" and behold it was. Uhuhuhu.
1) Canvas.
2) Color Fill 1. Set to Color. The color being used is #FFD303.
3) Hair Layer. The same gray I use with Devit #CCCCCC and the layer set to Hue and 65% Fill. This makes the hair gray but not really SILVER and if you can look you can see the bit of yellow coming through.
4) Blood Layer. For his scuffs and cuts, a dark red #5A0D0E, layer set to Vivid Light with 58% Fill. I usually just color in the scrapes wherever they are on the art and then lower the Fill until it looks the way I want it.
5) Eye and Earing Layer. Set to Color and 100% Fill. The earing is the same gray as before, only now without any lessening of the color. The eyes are a bright blue #ABEDF5.
General Cross Marian
Oh Cross. So pretty. Sob. I would let it hit me like a mack truck. I MEAN. Ahem.
Cross's icon set has a LOT OF GIVE AND TAKE involved in it and I wasn't sure I liked them until the general consensus from people I showed them to seemed to be that they were hot. The 'problem' is that the yellow/red lines give a lot of flavor and personality and vivacity! But they also lose a lot of detail! REFER TO WHAT I SAID ABOUT IT BASICALLY BEING AN EQUATION. Let's compare, shall we?
I LIKE BLACK AND WHITE. Simple, pretty, smooth lines! Hoshino's line work is sooooo pretty. In this case I would probably thicken the hair lines on the black and white piece (Duplicate the layer, set top layer to multiply, lower the fill to where you want it) but there is nothing simple or smooth about the colored version. However! the colors involved are YELLOW and RED and they really jump out at you even if they're a bit grittier. Plus, the overall composition is much more solid, because there's like this big chick of red hair and black cloak drawing your attention with little touch ups of yellow and silver. So while a part of me inside is a little )= about roughening the line work so much, I do think this set works very well for it's overall effect!
1) Canvas.
2) Color Fill 1. The pretty pretty yellow. The layer is simply set to Color at 100% Fill. The yellow I'm using is #F6E38A.
3) Color Fill 2. PINK bet you didn't expect to see that. Frankly I'm not sure how it happened either. Anyway the color is #F68A8A and the layer is set to Color Burn at 100% Fill. This is basically giving the yellow a yellow-to-red gradient. It's not effecting the red of his hair at ALL, just the yellow/red linework.
4) Hair Layer. This is the same dark red I use for... all my dark red needs! Which is mostly blood and Cross' hair. #5A0D0E. The layer is set to Hard Light at 100% Fill. Then I just color it in.
5) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy'. Brightness is set to +25 and Contrast is -22. This is basically just softening the contrast juuuust a tad, since White, Black, Yellow and Red all at once is like, a lot of fucking contrast. It makes it just a bit easier on the eye.
6) Eye Layer. You can't even really see it in this icon, but I use a really dark reddish brown #370505 on a layer set to Linear Light at 75% Fill to do Cross's eyes. It's mostly just to fill in the eye than anything, since there's nothing interesting to the color to contribute to the composition.
7) Mask Layer. The same gray I've used everywhere else #CCCCCC on a layer set to Color with 85% for the lines of Cross' mask.
NOW. WHILE I'M HERE, LET'S TALK HOW TO DO TWO CHARACTERS IN ONE ICON. Which I only recently got around to figuring out and frankly it's just. A new project every time I have to do it.
Okay, most of what you need to know you can figure out by looking back at the Allen and Cross icon portions. So for this one I'll be focusing on a different thing. NAMELY. How to get two different color schemes working together!
1) Canvas!
2 and 3) These are the Cross coloring layers, the yellow and the pink, remember? Now look at the black and white boxes NEXT to the pink and yellow boxes! On Color Fill Layers (and Brightness/Contrast layers and other such effect layers) you can only draw on them in blacks, whites or grays. Basically. Where it is Black that layer has no effect, where it is White it does have an effect, and where it is gray it has SOME effect depending on how dark or light the gray is. In this cause I went through with black and colored on both of those layers to block out Allen, this keeps Cross' colors from effecting Allen's lines.
4) Cross' Hair Layer.
5) Allen's Coloring Layer. The yellow I use for Allen now. Similarly I just went through with Black and blocked out where Cross is!
6) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Now here is where you START MAKING COMPROMISES. Basically, Allen's icons don't have the same softening of the Blacks and Whites I use on Cross. But if I were to make that Brightness/Contrast Layer effect ONLY Cross it would LOOK WEIRD. LET'S SEE:
Used a different icon cuz the other one doesn't have a lot of blacks for Allen in it. Anyway! OBSERVE HOW IT DRAWS ALL YOUR ATTENTION TO ALLEN. It makes it look like we're trying to wash Cross into the background. It's also overall uneven.
Now, we COULD just leave the Brightness/Contrast Layer off entirely and the overall icon would look fine! But keep in mind we're doing the same thing to ALL OF OUR ICONS for a reason, and when you drastically change the contrast for just one it also LOOKS WEIRD.
THUS. For Allen's version of this icon, the Brightness/Contrast is off, and for Cross' it is on.
And ignore the Rinali icon right NEXT to that, this is a good example of what I mean by "every time you do it it's a different situation". The purple is really blaring and backgrounding it with the yellow didn't work. I'll. Get back to it later. Thankfully Allen and Cross' colors complement each other.
Anyway! After that:
7) and 8) are Allen's Hair and Eye layers and they go on as normal.
Rinali Li
Rinali's set! I am... ambivalent about. I think they look very pretty! But there's nothing about them that really grabs me, aside from the middle one above. I wish I had more cause to use red like that in her icons )= But like Ticky I think even if the scheme isn't as mm... dramatic as Allen or Cross' it does SUIT her and it's one of those sacrifices you make for characterization. The overall effect WORKS it's just not one I'm in love with.
Rinali's set is very simple!
1) Canvas!
2) Background Layer. Set to Multiply, in this case the Fill is at 100% but I used the Levels option to lighten the darks.
3) Color Fill 1. Using a very pretty dark Blue here #160443. The layer is set to Color with 75% Fill to keep it desaturated.
4) Brightness/Contrast Layer. Select 'Use Legacy' and the Brightness is +22 with the Contrast -27.
5) Eye Layer. Rinali's eyes are #310202, a dark brown, with the layer set to Hard Light at 25% Fill.
Rabi
Rabi's icons are another set I have mixed feelings on leaning toward ambivalent. He was very difficult to figure out something that would work for him, since Red is just. Not Really It. But he has such pretty red hair and green eyes, which is a combo I love. But I couldn't color his hair like I did with Cross' because A) it tends to employ gray tones and B) it runs off into his bandanna a lot and would not really give that whole...LARGE CHUNK OF COLOR effect that Cross' hair gets. Anyway! I'm happy with how it ended up, and feel it fits the character, but it's again not a scheme I'm in love with. Wife doesn't like the green, but I hate NOT having an off set color as it might look fine on a few icons but when you have 100 they'd all sort of run together. Though I probably could have desaturated it a tad. Anyway! Rabi's icons are also simple.
1) Canvas!
2) Color Fill Layer. The red being used is #5A0D0E. The Layer is set to Linear Dodge at 100%.
3) Color Balance Layer. Color Balance, if you haven't noticed yet, is an EXCELLENT TRICKSY THING to get a gradient to kind of... skew slightly when it ranges from dark to light. Basically, without this layer Rabi's icons are actually pinkish, and the 'Darks' are much, much lighter.
Select 'Preserve Luminosity'. And then go to 'Shadows'. The Magenta/Green is at +44 and the Yellow/Blue is at -42. Basically, more green/less magenta and More yellow/less blue effectinly MOSTLY the shadows, though it will carry somewhat to the midtones and sliiightly to the lights. So you can see if you look at Rabi's icons that the lights are sort of peachy where as the darks are more brownish and red. That's what we're doing here.
I.E. These two icons:
These are the natural effects of just that layer! But you probably wouldn't guess that peach on the right came from a lighter version of the brown on the left.
4) Eye Layer. Rabi's eye color is #51C051. The layer is set to Hard Light at 70% Fill. His scarf is usually more like 20-30% Fill, but the eyes get brighter since you want more attention there.
Nagisa Kaworu, Ayanami Rei, Ikari Shinji, Edward Elric
While I really like how they look, there is nothing special about any of these sets. They are done by a simple technique that I'm quite fond of, and though it doesn't work with all art styles or characters, when it does it provides a nice fun color gradient that negates the need for backgrounds to spice things up. I'm Very Fond of Ed's set in particular, since his automail and eyes allow for a little bit of pick up without any drastic changes.
I'm getting tired so I'm only going to show you how to do this with Ed's, if you've been paying attention the others shouldn't be hard to figure out, but if you want the exact colors and layer settings I've used for the others just poke me and I'll fill you in.
1) Canvas!
2) Color Fill 1. The color is #520303, a dark red. The layer is set to Color, with 50% Fill. How high the Fill is changes with each character. Shinji's is a purple with about 20%, Kaworu's is a little higher, but the color being used is lighter, so on and so forth. I don't ever have it at 100% because then it's just over saturated.
3) Color Fill 2. The color is #2C2C4B, a dark blue! The layer is set to Lighter Color. What Lighter Color does is it will apply the colors on that layer only if they are lighter than the layers below. This is why on Ed's icons (And all of the others of this type) the blacks have been replaced with Dark blue (or Dark red or dark brown). It's still a DARK COLOR but it's lighter than BLACK which is what would be there otherwise.
4) Ed's Automail Layer. The color is a blue that is a bit more grayish and greenish than the one being used on the previous layer #394662. It's a bit more greenish because it's overlaying on red, and if I used straight up blue then his automail looks sort of purpley (Red + Blue) instead of steel blue (BlueGreen + Red = Red and Green gray each other out leaving BlueGray). The layer is set to Color at 50% Fill.
5) Eye Layer. I use the same yellow/orange I use for the Noah eyes, #E4AC19. The layer is set to Vivid Light at 48% Fill. I tend to color in his eye with it at 100% Fill and then just lower it until it's as saturated as I want it to be.
The other characters listed are pretty much done this way, with variations in color and how saturated the layers are. Though Kaworu and Shinji's eye layers are set to Color and Rey's eye layer is set to Lighter Color. Kaworu's icons sometimes have a brightness/contrast layer applied to lighten his shading a bit as he's not really a very dark character.
And that's it for now! I'm working on YET ANOTHER Ticky set for when I inevitably de-Noah him, but nothing about that is settled so I'm not showing how it works yet. Suffice to say the POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS and hopefully this gave you tips, inspiration or understanding to help you in your ICON VENTURES OF THE FUTURE.
If you have any questions, by all means, poke me.