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hunters_chance2012-07-18 11:07 am
aeriiths.livejournal.com) wrote in hunters_chance2012-07-18 11:07 am
Entry tags:
3 tutorials
I was asked for some tutorials at the Ask The Maker activity! I've also got a text guide to do, which I've started working on, but that'll take a little bit longer.
The tutorials are for these icons
I was asked for a tutorial about this icon:
Luckily for me, I made this icon from an image of Kain that was already completely cut out for me. Here is the image that I used. I brought this image onto a 100x100 canvas and, knowing that I wanted a sort of negative space-ish icon, resized and placed it accordingly. Because I wanted to keep his spear in the image I kept him to the side rather than placing him in the middle, since then it would have cut off and looked weird. I then filled a layer behind him with #916893, which I colour picked from somewhere on his armour.
Next I added a gradient so that the icon looked less boring and flat. I had the dark part in the bottom left corner and the light part in the top right. this was the gradient I used and I set it to Soft Light at 70% opacity.
To finish off the basic preparation before you throw textures at it left and right, copy merge your previous layers and Gaussian Blur them. I blurred at a radius of 2 pixels, and this brought out the colours more and made the edges less sharp.
Now for textures! I used this texture:
by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
windsonnetss and set it to Screen at 25% opacity so that it wasn't too intrusive. I put it behind Kain so that it didn't cover him up and instead added some interest to the background. While I did this, I also used a large, fuzzy white blob above Kain but below the soft light and gradient layers over the back of his head and part of the background. I set this to Soft Light at 65% so that there was some more variation in tone.
There is one more texture that needs to go under layers that you already have! It's this texture:
by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
midnight_road. I flipped it horizontally so that the lightest part didn't cover up Kain, then set it to Screen 100% and put it below my copy-merged soft light layer, but above everything else.
Next, grab this texture:
bybambinainnero. It's possibly my favourite texture ever. I've never put it on an icon and had it look bad. It's all I can do to keep myself from using it constantly. Anyway, I put this on Soft Light 100% above all of the other layers.
Time for the last texture! I used this texture:
byspooky_window on Hard Light 40% to lighten up the icon and add a bit more colour and brightness. Almost there!
It's almost finished, but I wanted a few finishing touches, which I added through Adjustment Layers. I first used a Vibrance layer and set Vibrance to +50 and Saturation to +5. It just makes the purples pop a bit more, and could probably be achieved through careful saturation if Vibrance is not available. I then added a Levels layer to add some contrast. The settings I used on the RGB layer were 3, 0.92, 249, since I just wanted subtle changes.
All there is left now is to sharpen! It's a bit blurry after all of that. Copy-merge your layers now, obviously. When working with animation I like to use the Smart Sharpen tool. Here's a picture of the settings I used (I can't remember what it looks like by default so better to be safe than sorry).
I found that it was a bit too sharp as it was, so I lowered the Opacity of that layer to 75%. At that point, I knew I was finished.
I was also asked about how I achieve this sort of colouring:
It sort of happened by accident, but I'll try and write a tutorial of my processes.
I started off with this image (slightly nsfw?) And I cut out the character that I wanted to icon (Jacqli) by quick masking. Next I resized and moved her so that she was centred, because I wanted to force myself to do something different to negative space. I then used this texture:
bymidnight_road as the background, so the icon looked something like this.
So now that I had done this I decided that, in my opinion, the texture/image combo looked really unfitting. So I covered them up with textures! I set this texture:
bymidnight_road to Screen 70% after rotating it 180 degrees. I then set this texture:
bymidnight_road to Multiply 100%.
I felt the image blended together a bit better now, so I copy-merged, Gaussian Blurred at 2.0 pixels and set that layer to Soft Light 100%.
Next I used a Vibrance layer, where I just set Vibrance to +50 to make the colours stand out more. All it really did was make the purples and blues pop out a little more. Then, to make the icon a little shinier, I used a Levels adjustment layer and used the settings 0, 1.00, 249.
That's basically all the colouring I did! The rest was just text and sharpening, and I'll go over text in my upcoming text guide, and the sharpening was the same as my previous tutorial but I kept the Opacity at 100%.
Lastly for now, I was asked for a tutorial for this icon:
This is far less texture heavy than the last couple, obviously.
I started off with this cap and I dragged it onto a 100x100 canvas and resized until I was happy with the crop.
I then copied the base image, Gaussian Blurred it at 2 pixels radius, then set it to Soft Light at 100%. This emphasised the colour of his jumpsuit and the shadows more.
However, it now looked really dark, especially around Simon. I wanted to brighten him up a bit, so I made some light blobs in the colour #fcdebd and set them to 100% soft light. I put them above the base image but below the soft light copy.
Now it's time for loads of adjustment layers! I started off with Colour Balance. These are the values I used, since I wanted a warmer image.
Midtones:
+22
-6
-13
Shadows:
+17
0
-8
Highlights:
-9
-5
-15
Next I used Curves to lighten the image up some more. I used the RGB layer and used the following settings: Output 118, Input 107
I then used a Vibrance layer, setting the Vibrance to +50, because I wanted to make the orange of the jumpsuit pop out even more. It didn't really make a difference to any of the other colours.
The final adjustment layer, levels! I was finding the contrast a bit dull so I used the settings 11, 1.06, 241 on the RGB setting to add in more tones.
Then, lastly, I copy-merged and sharpened the icon. With live action icons I tend to use Paint Daubs to sharpen as it has a more noticeable result. The settings I used were Brush Size 1, Sharpness 1, since that's the lowest available, and because that was really sharp I lowered the opacity of this layer to 25%.
I was asked for a tutorial about this icon:
Luckily for me, I made this icon from an image of Kain that was already completely cut out for me. Here is the image that I used. I brought this image onto a 100x100 canvas and, knowing that I wanted a sort of negative space-ish icon, resized and placed it accordingly. Because I wanted to keep his spear in the image I kept him to the side rather than placing him in the middle, since then it would have cut off and looked weird. I then filled a layer behind him with #916893, which I colour picked from somewhere on his armour.
Next I added a gradient so that the icon looked less boring and flat. I had the dark part in the bottom left corner and the light part in the top right. this was the gradient I used and I set it to Soft Light at 70% opacity.
To finish off the basic preparation before you throw textures at it left and right, copy merge your previous layers and Gaussian Blur them. I blurred at a radius of 2 pixels, and this brought out the colours more and made the edges less sharp.
Now for textures! I used this texture:
by
windsonnetss and set it to Screen at 25% opacity so that it wasn't too intrusive. I put it behind Kain so that it didn't cover him up and instead added some interest to the background. While I did this, I also used a large, fuzzy white blob above Kain but below the soft light and gradient layers over the back of his head and part of the background. I set this to Soft Light at 65% so that there was some more variation in tone.There is one more texture that needs to go under layers that you already have! It's this texture:
by
midnight_road. I flipped it horizontally so that the lightest part didn't cover up Kain, then set it to Screen 100% and put it below my copy-merged soft light layer, but above everything else.Next, grab this texture:
by
bambinainnero. It's possibly my favourite texture ever. I've never put it on an icon and had it look bad. It's all I can do to keep myself from using it constantly. Anyway, I put this on Soft Light 100% above all of the other layers.Time for the last texture! I used this texture:
by
spooky_window on Hard Light 40% to lighten up the icon and add a bit more colour and brightness. Almost there!It's almost finished, but I wanted a few finishing touches, which I added through Adjustment Layers. I first used a Vibrance layer and set Vibrance to +50 and Saturation to +5. It just makes the purples pop a bit more, and could probably be achieved through careful saturation if Vibrance is not available. I then added a Levels layer to add some contrast. The settings I used on the RGB layer were 3, 0.92, 249, since I just wanted subtle changes.
All there is left now is to sharpen! It's a bit blurry after all of that. Copy-merge your layers now, obviously. When working with animation I like to use the Smart Sharpen tool. Here's a picture of the settings I used (I can't remember what it looks like by default so better to be safe than sorry).
I found that it was a bit too sharp as it was, so I lowered the Opacity of that layer to 75%. At that point, I knew I was finished.
I was also asked about how I achieve this sort of colouring:
It sort of happened by accident, but I'll try and write a tutorial of my processes.
I started off with this image (slightly nsfw?) And I cut out the character that I wanted to icon (Jacqli) by quick masking. Next I resized and moved her so that she was centred, because I wanted to force myself to do something different to negative space. I then used this texture:
by
midnight_road as the background, so the icon looked something like this.So now that I had done this I decided that, in my opinion, the texture/image combo looked really unfitting. So I covered them up with textures! I set this texture:
by
midnight_road to Screen 70% after rotating it 180 degrees. I then set this texture: by
midnight_road to Multiply 100%.I felt the image blended together a bit better now, so I copy-merged, Gaussian Blurred at 2.0 pixels and set that layer to Soft Light 100%.
Next I used a Vibrance layer, where I just set Vibrance to +50 to make the colours stand out more. All it really did was make the purples and blues pop out a little more. Then, to make the icon a little shinier, I used a Levels adjustment layer and used the settings 0, 1.00, 249.
That's basically all the colouring I did! The rest was just text and sharpening, and I'll go over text in my upcoming text guide, and the sharpening was the same as my previous tutorial but I kept the Opacity at 100%.
Lastly for now, I was asked for a tutorial for this icon:
This is far less texture heavy than the last couple, obviously.
I started off with this cap and I dragged it onto a 100x100 canvas and resized until I was happy with the crop.
I then copied the base image, Gaussian Blurred it at 2 pixels radius, then set it to Soft Light at 100%. This emphasised the colour of his jumpsuit and the shadows more.
However, it now looked really dark, especially around Simon. I wanted to brighten him up a bit, so I made some light blobs in the colour #fcdebd and set them to 100% soft light. I put them above the base image but below the soft light copy.
Now it's time for loads of adjustment layers! I started off with Colour Balance. These are the values I used, since I wanted a warmer image.
Midtones:
+22
-6
-13
Shadows:
+17
0
-8
Highlights:
-9
-5
-15
Next I used Curves to lighten the image up some more. I used the RGB layer and used the following settings: Output 118, Input 107
I then used a Vibrance layer, setting the Vibrance to +50, because I wanted to make the orange of the jumpsuit pop out even more. It didn't really make a difference to any of the other colours.
The final adjustment layer, levels! I was finding the contrast a bit dull so I used the settings 11, 1.06, 241 on the RGB setting to add in more tones.
Then, lastly, I copy-merged and sharpened the icon. With live action icons I tend to use Paint Daubs to sharpen as it has a more noticeable result. The settings I used were Brush Size 1, Sharpness 1, since that's the lowest available, and because that was really sharp I lowered the opacity of this layer to 25%.