I'm on the edge, the edge, the edge, the edge, the eeddddggggeee
The first part of my Ask the Maker answers. A little bit about icon-making and then tutorials.
Warning: this post is image heavy, for serious.
The questions:
from motorized:
1. what size base do you usually work off
Usually I resize and sharpen down to about 300 px horizontally and then zoom out to 50% view. With LQ caps I resize down to 200 px. What's nice about zooming out is you aren't distracted by the worries that will go away in resizing, like jaggedness from sharpening and blocky pixels ruining the coloring.
However, I usually have to force myself not to add too much stuff once I've actually resized it to 100x100, cause I have a hard time keeping things simple and letting them be. :D
2. favorite textures?
blueymcphluey made some amazing paint textures that I cannot get enough of. pandavirus makes really good 100x100 textures, I don't usually work that small but they make great finishing touches. bea_lost makes great color blob textures, I like those because they can be stretched out and blurred to work on any size canvas. And I still love many of tulle's textures although they are rather old by iconning standards (because... so am I. :x).
how is it that you gets your blues and reds to look so damn fine /how is that colouring even possible? :P
Well first of all, if anyone knows pretty coloring, it's motorized :P but basically my strategy is just lots of layers, and experimenting with placement... I almost never make an icon from the bottom up, I always am goofing around with mixing, masking, duplicating. You never know what you can find, a simple selective color layer can look 10x stronger when you move it under your curves, a texture can look even better if you set it to hard light and max out the parts you don't want, etc! Also I've been trying to use the more neglected blending modes. Putting an aqua-green color fill at a low opacity can bring out cool bluish green highlights, and then you can use selective coloring to make the more vibrant. Or putting a softly colored layer at very low level luminosity can brighten your image but add a matte effect (I actually got that from a calixa tutorial, it's awesome.
Of course a lot depends on the caps too! Lost caps are amazing for color as everyone knows. 24 or murkier BSG caps, not so much. ;D
The tutorials:
to
Here is our base:
01. (OPTIONAL) Add a plain curves layer at Soft Light 23% -- the caps I was using were somewhat "flat" without a lot of contrast. I actually like this, because it makes them easier to manipulate, but if your caps aren't the same, you can skip this step.
02. Linear burn #d0ebd1 (a pale green) at 100%
03. (OPTIONAL) Add dusty texture at Screen 100%. (I derped hard and forgot who made it because I had it as a pattern -- but any texture should work, even a dark gray color fill, this is just to make it brighter)
04. Add dark blue texture at Screen 31% -- from colourmayfade iirc
05. Add light texture by colourmayfade at Screen 35%
06. Duplicate texture, smudge to cover the right side of the image, set to Soft Light 84%
07. Add gradients of various green tones at Soft Light 85%
08. Screen #114833 at 30%
09. Duplicate base, Soft Light 100%
10. Curves layer:
RGB: 30, 50 / 90, 97 / 183, 149
Red: 66, 43 / 157, 157
Green: 161, 165 / 160, 160
Blue: 94, 82 / 186, 186
11. Another curves layer:
RGB: 0, 9 / 27, 27 / 63, 59 / 170, 170
Green: 27, 34 / 111, 107 / 213, 215
Blue: 52, 37 / 94, 85
12. A light texture set to Screen 18% -- I didn't save it (it was something I made from a scrapped larger graphic with lots of gaussian blur) but suffice to say, it's at so low an opacity that it doesn't really matter what it looks like, as long as it's subtly bright and covering parts of the image
13. Sharpen and resize.
to
Our base:
1. (OPTIONAL) Curve set to Soft Light 100%. As explained in the Juliet tutorial this all depends on the values and tones of your cap, but for this one I wanted much more contrast and brightness b/c theres not much work done to the tones of the image itself.
RGB: 181, 98
2. Duplicate curve.
3. Watercolor texture by realproof set to Multiply 30%
4. Watercolor texture, shifted, set to Multiply 65%
5. Light texture set to 100% (I've had this forever and can't remember who made it... oops. But any sort of light texture should work here as long as it's not excessively bright)
6. Light texture, shifted, set to 19%
7. Light texture, shifted again, set to 100%
8. Paint texture by blueymcphluey set to Screen 100% (these paint textures, they are my favorite. You can see them in like, all my icon posts lately.)
9. Paint texture from same set at Screen 100% (with part covering Richard masked out)
10. Solid fill #f3f3f3, Normal 3% (brightening/decontrasting the image just a tad)
11. Light texture by colourmayfade, Soft Light 40%
12. Curve
RGB: 224, 203 / 255, 240
13. Selective coloring:
Red: C +63
Yellow: Y +100
White: C +35, M -32, Y -51
Neutral: C +13, M +7, Y +2
Set on Color
14. Curve:
RGB: 79, 78 / 213, 192
However, it brightened the texture a little too much, so I slightly masked it out on the left side (using a medium gray shade instead of black)
15. Duplicate curve, remove mask, set to 50%
16. White blob over white paint texture, set to Soft Light 100%.
Sharpen and resize.
to
This is the least exact because as you can see it was a dark cap, but I did my best to remake it. I'm sure there are easier ways to do this, but this was my trial-and-error heavy method. Also: this is the tutorial least likely to translate to other caps/image sources, make sure you experiment -- your cap might look similar at first but have different colors when you brighten it up!
1. Curve set to Soft Light 100%
RGB: 181, 98
2. Hue/Saturation +30, set to Color
3. Duplicate Hue/Saturation layer
4. Curve:
RGB: 157, 64
Green: 0, 12 / 124, 122
Blue: 0, 20 / 132, 122
5. Curve:
RGB: 79, 78 / 213, 192
6. Curve:
RGB: 134, 95
Red: 90, 82 / 209, 191
Green: 121, 128
Blue: 108, 133 / 168, 195
Set to Normal 65%
7. Overlay #eea7d6 set to 47%
8. Curves:
Red: 82, 49 / 142, 110 / 190, 161
Green: 79, 52 / 133, 123 / 199, 188
Blue: 59, 75 / 123, 128 / 182, 182
9. Color fill #d9c4ca set to Soft Light 40%
10. Curves:
RGB: 49, 40 / 82, 80 / 162, 191
Red: 168, 181 / 184, 218
Blue: 115, 45 / 183, 119
11. Color fill #ff8c9d set to Luminosity 3%
12. Duplicate of base set to Screen 100%
13. Color fill #ff8c9d set to Luminosity 5%
14. Selective Color:
Red C -39 M +19 Y +63 B -25
Neutral: C -4 M +8 Y +5 B -9
15. Curves:
RGB: 93, 71
Red: 144, 124
Blue: 102, 102 / 125, 137
16. Duplicate Selective Color from step #13, Normal 71%
17. Color fill #fbf7f4, Color Burn 100%
18. Color fill #fdf0e6, Color Burn 100%
19. Selective Color:
Yellow: Y +5
White: C +62
20. Color fill #f1c84a, Overlay 17%
21. Color fill #f14a91, Overlay 35%
22. Selective Color:
Red: C +10, M +11
Cyan: C +80, Y -55
White: C +16
23. Selective Color:
Red: C -2, B +30
Yellow: C -30, Y +54
Black: B +17
24. Color fill #f4fcf5 Normal 4%
25. Curves:
RGB: 75, 61 / 217, 193
And you're done, sharpen and resize. (It should look less blurry and jagged at 100x100 pixels. If you can still see bad spots, try going over the pixely parts with a soft round default brush at 5 px or so, use a light color and set it to color burn if it's in the darker spots, or zoom in and use the blur/smudge tool if it's in a lighter spot, and if worse comes to worst just zoom in and paint over the bad parts... y'all know the drill I'm sure.)
I hope these were helpful/not too hellish on your browsers! If I accidentally skipped anything or worded it wrong, let me know.
Warning: this post is image heavy, for serious.
The questions:
from motorized:
1. what size base do you usually work off
Usually I resize and sharpen down to about 300 px horizontally and then zoom out to 50% view. With LQ caps I resize down to 200 px. What's nice about zooming out is you aren't distracted by the worries that will go away in resizing, like jaggedness from sharpening and blocky pixels ruining the coloring.
However, I usually have to force myself not to add too much stuff once I've actually resized it to 100x100, cause I have a hard time keeping things simple and letting them be. :D
2. favorite textures?
blueymcphluey made some amazing paint textures that I cannot get enough of. pandavirus makes really good 100x100 textures, I don't usually work that small but they make great finishing touches. bea_lost makes great color blob textures, I like those because they can be stretched out and blurred to work on any size canvas. And I still love many of tulle's textures although they are rather old by iconning standards (because... so am I. :x).
how is it that you gets your blues and reds to look so damn fine /how is that colouring even possible? :P
Well first of all, if anyone knows pretty coloring, it's motorized :P but basically my strategy is just lots of layers, and experimenting with placement... I almost never make an icon from the bottom up, I always am goofing around with mixing, masking, duplicating. You never know what you can find, a simple selective color layer can look 10x stronger when you move it under your curves, a texture can look even better if you set it to hard light and max out the parts you don't want, etc! Also I've been trying to use the more neglected blending modes. Putting an aqua-green color fill at a low opacity can bring out cool bluish green highlights, and then you can use selective coloring to make the more vibrant. Or putting a softly colored layer at very low level luminosity can brighten your image but add a matte effect (I actually got that from a calixa tutorial, it's awesome.
Of course a lot depends on the caps too! Lost caps are amazing for color as everyone knows. 24 or murkier BSG caps, not so much. ;D
The tutorials:
to
Here is our base:
01. (OPTIONAL) Add a plain curves layer at Soft Light 23% -- the caps I was using were somewhat "flat" without a lot of contrast. I actually like this, because it makes them easier to manipulate, but if your caps aren't the same, you can skip this step.
02. Linear burn #d0ebd1 (a pale green) at 100%
03. (OPTIONAL) Add dusty texture at Screen 100%. (I derped hard and forgot who made it because I had it as a pattern -- but any texture should work, even a dark gray color fill, this is just to make it brighter)
04. Add dark blue texture at Screen 31% -- from colourmayfade iirc
05. Add light texture by colourmayfade at Screen 35%
06. Duplicate texture, smudge to cover the right side of the image, set to Soft Light 84%
07. Add gradients of various green tones at Soft Light 85%
08. Screen #114833 at 30%
09. Duplicate base, Soft Light 100%
10. Curves layer:
RGB: 30, 50 / 90, 97 / 183, 149
Red: 66, 43 / 157, 157
Green: 161, 165 / 160, 160
Blue: 94, 82 / 186, 186
11. Another curves layer:
RGB: 0, 9 / 27, 27 / 63, 59 / 170, 170
Green: 27, 34 / 111, 107 / 213, 215
Blue: 52, 37 / 94, 85
12. A light texture set to Screen 18% -- I didn't save it (it was something I made from a scrapped larger graphic with lots of gaussian blur) but suffice to say, it's at so low an opacity that it doesn't really matter what it looks like, as long as it's subtly bright and covering parts of the image
13. Sharpen and resize.
to
Our base:
1. (OPTIONAL) Curve set to Soft Light 100%. As explained in the Juliet tutorial this all depends on the values and tones of your cap, but for this one I wanted much more contrast and brightness b/c theres not much work done to the tones of the image itself.
RGB: 181, 98
2. Duplicate curve.
3. Watercolor texture by realproof set to Multiply 30%
4. Watercolor texture, shifted, set to Multiply 65%
5. Light texture set to 100% (I've had this forever and can't remember who made it... oops. But any sort of light texture should work here as long as it's not excessively bright)
6. Light texture, shifted, set to 19%
7. Light texture, shifted again, set to 100%
8. Paint texture by blueymcphluey set to Screen 100% (these paint textures, they are my favorite. You can see them in like, all my icon posts lately.)
9. Paint texture from same set at Screen 100% (with part covering Richard masked out)
10. Solid fill #f3f3f3, Normal 3% (brightening/decontrasting the image just a tad)
11. Light texture by colourmayfade, Soft Light 40%
12. Curve
RGB: 224, 203 / 255, 240
13. Selective coloring:
Red: C +63
Yellow: Y +100
White: C +35, M -32, Y -51
Neutral: C +13, M +7, Y +2
Set on Color
14. Curve:
RGB: 79, 78 / 213, 192
However, it brightened the texture a little too much, so I slightly masked it out on the left side (using a medium gray shade instead of black)
15. Duplicate curve, remove mask, set to 50%
16. White blob over white paint texture, set to Soft Light 100%.
Sharpen and resize.
to
This is the least exact because as you can see it was a dark cap, but I did my best to remake it. I'm sure there are easier ways to do this, but this was my trial-and-error heavy method. Also: this is the tutorial least likely to translate to other caps/image sources, make sure you experiment -- your cap might look similar at first but have different colors when you brighten it up!
1. Curve set to Soft Light 100%
RGB: 181, 98
2. Hue/Saturation +30, set to Color
3. Duplicate Hue/Saturation layer
4. Curve:
RGB: 157, 64
Green: 0, 12 / 124, 122
Blue: 0, 20 / 132, 122
5. Curve:
RGB: 79, 78 / 213, 192
6. Curve:
RGB: 134, 95
Red: 90, 82 / 209, 191
Green: 121, 128
Blue: 108, 133 / 168, 195
Set to Normal 65%
7. Overlay #eea7d6 set to 47%
8. Curves:
Red: 82, 49 / 142, 110 / 190, 161
Green: 79, 52 / 133, 123 / 199, 188
Blue: 59, 75 / 123, 128 / 182, 182
9. Color fill #d9c4ca set to Soft Light 40%
10. Curves:
RGB: 49, 40 / 82, 80 / 162, 191
Red: 168, 181 / 184, 218
Blue: 115, 45 / 183, 119
11. Color fill #ff8c9d set to Luminosity 3%
12. Duplicate of base set to Screen 100%
13. Color fill #ff8c9d set to Luminosity 5%
14. Selective Color:
Red C -39 M +19 Y +63 B -25
Neutral: C -4 M +8 Y +5 B -9
15. Curves:
RGB: 93, 71
Red: 144, 124
Blue: 102, 102 / 125, 137
16. Duplicate Selective Color from step #13, Normal 71%
17. Color fill #fbf7f4, Color Burn 100%
18. Color fill #fdf0e6, Color Burn 100%
19. Selective Color:
Yellow: Y +5
White: C +62
20. Color fill #f1c84a, Overlay 17%
21. Color fill #f14a91, Overlay 35%
22. Selective Color:
Red: C +10, M +11
Cyan: C +80, Y -55
White: C +16
23. Selective Color:
Red: C -2, B +30
Yellow: C -30, Y +54
Black: B +17
24. Color fill #f4fcf5 Normal 4%
25. Curves:
RGB: 75, 61 / 217, 193
And you're done, sharpen and resize. (It should look less blurry and jagged at 100x100 pixels. If you can still see bad spots, try going over the pixely parts with a soft round default brush at 5 px or so, use a light color and set it to color burn if it's in the darker spots, or zoom in and use the blur/smudge tool if it's in a lighter spot, and if worse comes to worst just zoom in and paint over the bad parts... y'all know the drill I'm sure.)
I hope these were helpful/not too hellish on your browsers! If I accidentally skipped anything or worded it wrong, let me know.