Kingdom Hearts II Icon Tutorial -- Kairi
This is my first tutorial, so feel free to tell me what doesn’t make sense and I’ll be sure to fix it right away. :D Made for PS7, but doesn’t use curves and should be compatible with other programs. It’s fairly easy but you should have some basic knowledge of Photoshop. Anything you don’t get, just ask!
We’ll be going from this
to this
.
1. First, crop your picture. I chose one of Kairi from Kingdom Hearts II (a great game, you should all play it if you haven’t already). Sharpen if necessary (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen). Here, I only sharpened once. This gives us our base.
2. Next, a little trick I picked up from green_queen. Duplicate your base layer three times. Set the first layer (the one on top) to soft light, the next layer to screen, and the bottom layer to multiply. The result looks like this:
3. Now, to start the coloring steps. I added a new layer on top of everything (ctrl + shift + N or Layer > New > Layer) and filled it with a dark blue; I used #1E3B4C. Set this layer to exclusion and play with the opacity of the layer a bit to fit your icon. In this example, I set the layer at 49 percent opacity, but that should vary from icon to icon. Now we have this:
4. Create another new layer on top of everything. This one I filled with a sky blue color, in this case #1AA5F3, and set it to soft light. This one I left at 100 percent opacity. The icon looks like this:
5. Looks all washed out and ugly now, right? Don’t worry, we’ll fix it. Duplicate your original base twice and bring both layers to the top of your layer palette. Set both of these to soft light at 100 percent opacity. Here’s the result:
6. Getting better, but I didn’t like how light the pink in her dress had become, and I still wanted a little more contrast. I created a new layer on top of everything and filled it with a dusty rose color; I used #CD8394. (A side note on picking colors - whenever possible, I try to pick colors that are already in the icon. In this case, I went back to the base and picked a pink from her dress.) I set this layer to color burn at 65 percent opacity. Again, play around with the opacity. Chances are that following this exactly won’t look the same on your picture than it does on this one, so please, experiment! The result looks like this:
7. I’m pretty happy with this coloring, so you’re free to stop here if you’d like, or to add your own text, brushes, or whatnot. I decided on just a few words of simple text. I typed the word “sweet” in 9pt. Century Gothic, in white. Below it, on another text layer, I wrote “memories,” also in white, 9pt. Century Gothic font, but this time I bolded the text. Now the icon looks like:
8. The white text doesn’t stand out so well with this background. I decided to add small shadows to each text layer to make the white pop out a little more. Highlight each text layer and go to Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow. This box will pop up:
For this icon, I set the “Distance” and “Size” options to 1px each, and left the “Spread” option at 0 percent. The default color for your shadow will be black, but here I changed it. Double click on the little box next to the blending mode to change the color. For this icon, I changed the color to #092383, a darker medium blue color. You might want to change yours to something else, depending on what picture you’re using.
And that’s it! My icon is finished:
For reference, my layer palette looked like this:
Let me know how helpful this was for you -- I’d love to see the results when you’re done.
We’ll be going from this
to this
.
1. First, crop your picture. I chose one of Kairi from Kingdom Hearts II (a great game, you should all play it if you haven’t already). Sharpen if necessary (Filter > Sharpen > Sharpen). Here, I only sharpened once. This gives us our base.
2. Next, a little trick I picked up from green_queen. Duplicate your base layer three times. Set the first layer (the one on top) to soft light, the next layer to screen, and the bottom layer to multiply. The result looks like this:
3. Now, to start the coloring steps. I added a new layer on top of everything (ctrl + shift + N or Layer > New > Layer) and filled it with a dark blue; I used #1E3B4C. Set this layer to exclusion and play with the opacity of the layer a bit to fit your icon. In this example, I set the layer at 49 percent opacity, but that should vary from icon to icon. Now we have this:
4. Create another new layer on top of everything. This one I filled with a sky blue color, in this case #1AA5F3, and set it to soft light. This one I left at 100 percent opacity. The icon looks like this:
5. Looks all washed out and ugly now, right? Don’t worry, we’ll fix it. Duplicate your original base twice and bring both layers to the top of your layer palette. Set both of these to soft light at 100 percent opacity. Here’s the result:
6. Getting better, but I didn’t like how light the pink in her dress had become, and I still wanted a little more contrast. I created a new layer on top of everything and filled it with a dusty rose color; I used #CD8394. (A side note on picking colors - whenever possible, I try to pick colors that are already in the icon. In this case, I went back to the base and picked a pink from her dress.) I set this layer to color burn at 65 percent opacity. Again, play around with the opacity. Chances are that following this exactly won’t look the same on your picture than it does on this one, so please, experiment! The result looks like this:
7. I’m pretty happy with this coloring, so you’re free to stop here if you’d like, or to add your own text, brushes, or whatnot. I decided on just a few words of simple text. I typed the word “sweet” in 9pt. Century Gothic, in white. Below it, on another text layer, I wrote “memories,” also in white, 9pt. Century Gothic font, but this time I bolded the text. Now the icon looks like:
8. The white text doesn’t stand out so well with this background. I decided to add small shadows to each text layer to make the white pop out a little more. Highlight each text layer and go to Layer > Layer Style > Drop Shadow. This box will pop up:
For this icon, I set the “Distance” and “Size” options to 1px each, and left the “Spread” option at 0 percent. The default color for your shadow will be black, but here I changed it. Double click on the little box next to the blending mode to change the color. For this icon, I changed the color to #092383, a darker medium blue color. You might want to change yours to something else, depending on what picture you’re using.
And that’s it! My icon is finished:
For reference, my layer palette looked like this:
Let me know how helpful this was for you -- I’d love to see the results when you’re done.