I suck at explaining things!
Okay. I really, really tried to make this understandable. The thing is that I made this a while ago and frankly I can't remember WHY half the layers are there. I've said it many, many times before but I'll say it again: I'm very new to making wallpapers and half of my "technique" (notice the quotes) is basically Fuck Around Until Stuff Looks Good.
Please don't laugh at my amateurness. :)
The completed wallpaper is here
(bolded text = picture links)
Layer One is a bucket fill of a nice soothing blue color. (829EA9)
Layer Two is a cap from Die Me, Dichotomy. I wanted the background image of the wallpaper to be of the frozen lake with the mountains in the background. The cap is blown up from its original size and set at hard light 67%.
Layer Three is a bucket fill of light blue to make the whole wallpaper lighter. I *really* wanted a frosty feeling for this one. Hard light 63%
Layer Four is some brushes to give texture to the upper half of the wallpaper. Light blue in color, screen 100%.
Layer Five is a light blue bar in the middle of the image to divide it into two distinct parts. Screen 100%.
Layers Six and Seven are of the same cap. I've motion blurred parts, erased parts and used the smudge tool, all in a vain attempt to get the damn thing to blend in more with the background. Soft light and screen blends.
Layers eight and nine are brushes covering my shitty blending skills. Go me! (I think I've gotten a lot better at actually blending things, if that counts for anything.)
Layers ten and eleven are both the strip pictures of spacecraft. I'd cropped and colorized these in a separate file. Both layers are set on multipluy 100%.
Layers twelve to fourteen are text. Various blends and fonts and sizes. Ocean ripple filter was used on one layer of text.
Layers fifteen and sixteen are line tracings of a cap of Aeryn's profile. Blurred a lot and still looking ooky because I can't trace. (And this idea was SO totally stolen from puppetoflove. Soft and hard light blends, both at 83%.
Layers seventeen to nineteen are text. You may wonder why the text is scattered and on different layers. Sometimes I just fooled around until I found a place where I thought it looked best. Sometimes it just happened to go above the layer I was currently working on. I'm wacky that way.
Layers twenty to twenty-two are the small pictures of Aeryn in the center. Are are normal blend, though one's only at 83%. Again, I did all the colorizing of these on different files, and added the borders on different files as well.
Layers twenty-three to twenty-four are text again.
Layers twenty-five to twenty-seven are the cap of the J/A almost-kiss. Blurred and smudged and erased to try to blend. I'm still not happy with the way I did this because I think it's too obvious where the cap ends. But hey, whatever. Normal and soft light blends at different opacities.
Layer twenty-eight is another of my lame ass attempts to hide my blending skills. Brush in the center of the bottom half, screen blend.
Layers twenty-nine to thirty-two la la la text.
Layer thirty-three is another texture brush over the J/A kiss. Why is it here and not beneath the text layers? The world may never know.
Layer thirty-four is a rectangle bucket filled with a pattern. It's there to hide the bottom of the J/A screencap. Gosh, I'm soooo clever. Soft light 100%.
Layers thirty-five and thirty-six are duplicate layers of slanty lines. Basically to give a feel of dimension. And cause it looks cool. Screen 100% on both of them, one layer blurred.
Layers thirty-seven and thirty-eight are the picture strip. Again, the coloring and borders were done on a separate file. Soft light and then normal blend.
Layers thirty-nine and forty are duplicates of the soft light blend picture strip. I used the filter pixelate -> fragment and then moved the results up and to the left. Overlay and hard light blends, both at 100%.
Layers forty-one to forty-four are different dotted line brushes. Added to give more interest and dimension around the picture strip. Different layers are blurred because I thought it looked too harsh.
Layer forty-five is a rectangle bucket filled with the same pattern used on the bottom. Gives the wallpaper a bit of symmetry. Soft light 100%.
Layers forty-six and forty-seven are both fragmented copies of the spacecraft strip. Frankly, I have NO idea why they're on layers so far removed from the original picture strip. It's probably just because I'm really disorganized.
Layer forty-eight is just another brush layer. Multiply blend this time to give more color.
And the rest... is just text at different blends.
The finished product again, full size.
PS: a shameless plug of my latest wallpaper. Crais wants looooove dammit!
PPS: a shameless plug of Tissa's gorgeous IP:IA wallpaper.
So, um, hopefully that was a little bit helpful? Again, the best way you're going to learn how to make a wallpaper is to just start fooling around with stuff. (And again please don't mock my ineptness. *g*)
ETA I'm going through and deleting some of the older icons I now HATE. Felicity, Chocolat and Shakespeare in Love are gone. I'll probably delete some of the oldest Buffy icons, too.
Please don't laugh at my amateurness. :)
The completed wallpaper is here
(bolded text = picture links)
Layer One is a bucket fill of a nice soothing blue color. (829EA9)
Layer Two is a cap from Die Me, Dichotomy. I wanted the background image of the wallpaper to be of the frozen lake with the mountains in the background. The cap is blown up from its original size and set at hard light 67%.
Layer Three is a bucket fill of light blue to make the whole wallpaper lighter. I *really* wanted a frosty feeling for this one. Hard light 63%
Layer Four is some brushes to give texture to the upper half of the wallpaper. Light blue in color, screen 100%.
Layer Five is a light blue bar in the middle of the image to divide it into two distinct parts. Screen 100%.
Layers Six and Seven are of the same cap. I've motion blurred parts, erased parts and used the smudge tool, all in a vain attempt to get the damn thing to blend in more with the background. Soft light and screen blends.
Layers eight and nine are brushes covering my shitty blending skills. Go me! (I think I've gotten a lot better at actually blending things, if that counts for anything.)
Layers ten and eleven are both the strip pictures of spacecraft. I'd cropped and colorized these in a separate file. Both layers are set on multipluy 100%.
Layers twelve to fourteen are text. Various blends and fonts and sizes. Ocean ripple filter was used on one layer of text.
Layers fifteen and sixteen are line tracings of a cap of Aeryn's profile. Blurred a lot and still looking ooky because I can't trace. (And this idea was SO totally stolen from puppetoflove. Soft and hard light blends, both at 83%.
Layers seventeen to nineteen are text. You may wonder why the text is scattered and on different layers. Sometimes I just fooled around until I found a place where I thought it looked best. Sometimes it just happened to go above the layer I was currently working on. I'm wacky that way.
Layers twenty to twenty-two are the small pictures of Aeryn in the center. Are are normal blend, though one's only at 83%. Again, I did all the colorizing of these on different files, and added the borders on different files as well.
Layers twenty-three to twenty-four are text again.
Layers twenty-five to twenty-seven are the cap of the J/A almost-kiss. Blurred and smudged and erased to try to blend. I'm still not happy with the way I did this because I think it's too obvious where the cap ends. But hey, whatever. Normal and soft light blends at different opacities.
Layer twenty-eight is another of my lame ass attempts to hide my blending skills. Brush in the center of the bottom half, screen blend.
Layers twenty-nine to thirty-two la la la text.
Layer thirty-three is another texture brush over the J/A kiss. Why is it here and not beneath the text layers? The world may never know.
Layer thirty-four is a rectangle bucket filled with a pattern. It's there to hide the bottom of the J/A screencap. Gosh, I'm soooo clever. Soft light 100%.
Layers thirty-five and thirty-six are duplicate layers of slanty lines. Basically to give a feel of dimension. And cause it looks cool. Screen 100% on both of them, one layer blurred.
Layers thirty-seven and thirty-eight are the picture strip. Again, the coloring and borders were done on a separate file. Soft light and then normal blend.
Layers thirty-nine and forty are duplicates of the soft light blend picture strip. I used the filter pixelate -> fragment and then moved the results up and to the left. Overlay and hard light blends, both at 100%.
Layers forty-one to forty-four are different dotted line brushes. Added to give more interest and dimension around the picture strip. Different layers are blurred because I thought it looked too harsh.
Layer forty-five is a rectangle bucket filled with the same pattern used on the bottom. Gives the wallpaper a bit of symmetry. Soft light 100%.
Layers forty-six and forty-seven are both fragmented copies of the spacecraft strip. Frankly, I have NO idea why they're on layers so far removed from the original picture strip. It's probably just because I'm really disorganized.
Layer forty-eight is just another brush layer. Multiply blend this time to give more color.
And the rest... is just text at different blends.
The finished product again, full size.
PS: a shameless plug of my latest wallpaper. Crais wants looooove dammit!
PPS: a shameless plug of Tissa's gorgeous IP:IA wallpaper.
So, um, hopefully that was a little bit helpful? Again, the best way you're going to learn how to make a wallpaper is to just start fooling around with stuff. (And again please don't mock my ineptness. *g*)
ETA I'm going through and deleting some of the older icons I now HATE. Felicity, Chocolat and Shakespeare in Love are gone. I'll probably delete some of the oldest Buffy icons, too.