37. Ask the Maker 2015 - Tutorial #2 + Guide #1
Vibrancy can be a fickle mistress. The line between vibrant and oversaturated is extremely thin. To me, the best way to understand vibrancy is to understand how colors work with each other. So, first off, a tutorial!
as always, step 0 is the base :)
1.
Duplicate the base and change the layer setting to screen. Duplicate again and change the layer setting to soft light (make sure the soft light layer is above the screen layer). Next is a little but of a "cheat," per se, but I used this coloring by selcoloring @ tumblr and changed the file setting to 50%
2.
Use the polygon lasso took and cut around Clarke, Monty, and Jasper. It should look like the three are outlined, so press control + shift + i to invert your selection, the create a gradient map layer. The left color is #155000 and the right color is #fff100. Create a new hue/saturation layer and clip it to the gradient map layer (hold alt and click between the h/s layer and the gradient map layer, making sure the h/s layer is on top). Change the hue on the master level to +63
3.
Hold the control and select the mask part (where it shows the selection in black and white) then press control + shift + i so the selection is inverted and it looks like the trio is selected again. Create a new hue/saturation level and change the saturation to +50. You should have something similar to this:
4.
Now for textures! \^o^/ First is this texture by me (adriftingsea; it's one of the personal favorite's I've made), set it to soft light at 50% opacity. Then this texture by encorevous set to screen at 100%. Next, create a color fill layer using #b5e7ff. Set it to hard light and 75%. Press control + i to invert the color (so you should just the the icon without the hard light layer), then use a feather brush and color around the edges (as if extending the previous texture). The mask looks like this. Next, add another texture by encorevous, set to 50%. Add this texture (by unknown), and set to soft light at 50%. Finally, add this texture by mm3butterfly set to screen at 100%
Tada! \^o^/ Other icons made with this technique:
But, wait, we're not done. We haven't talked about vibrancy yet, you're thinking. And you're right; we haven't. Until now! **\^o^/**
As I stated earlier, vibrancy for me requires a study of color. When I was reading tutorials on how to color manga, I read up a bunch of coloring and shading tutorials written by actual artists, and one thing came up over and over repeatedly. It was how to shade. View the following poorly-made figure:
It's a simple way to add more, vibrant color and still get the lighting/shading you need :3 Here's some examples of what I'm talking about:
vs.
and
vs.
See? Just by shading by shifting the color up or down the spectrum, vibrancy is almost immediantly added to you icon! \^O^/ In addition to this technique, I almost always add a hue/saturation level with the saturation bumped to +25. If the icon gets too red (like the faces of people, or just too angry-red in general), I create another h/s layer, switch to the red channel, and bump it down to -15
And now we're finished! ^^ If you have any questions, let me know :)