Tutorial #003
Tutorial #3
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
THIS to
Requests are in the making. Actually the icon we’ll be going through the motions for today is something I was playing with while doing requests. So, no worries. They’ll be up soon! In the meantime, I thought I’d whip up a quick tutorial because some of you were interested in seeing how I work/how I get my coloring.
Fyi, I use Photoshop 7 because I am old school. =D I don't know how translatable this is because I use Photoshop specific filters quite a bit.
So, the first thing I thought I’d say is that I have a set process, I suppose. However, each icon is different. Every time I open a new canvas and make a new icon, I do something a little different. As such (and I am sure you all know this already!), you definitely need to experiment in your graphics making program and see what works for you individually! And if this guide helps inspire you to do that, then awesome!
Okay, on to the ~guide~.
Step One
Creating a base.
I grabbed a screencap from Screencap Paradise (and there was no nifty selection process either; I just grabbed something off the randomizer at the bottom real scientific like ;D). And I was feeling uncreative like usual so I just decided to go for a center crop. So I cropped the image down, grabbing all of Buffy but shaving off most of the sides. Then I resized it to a 300x300 canvas. Why? Because once upon I time, I read a tutorial where the maker worked that way and I decided that I liked it. Of course, it does usually mean I obsess over LITTLE DETAILS that you will never see once it is 100x100, but WHATEVER.
Okay, so we've got Buffy on a 300x300 canvas except, as you can see, the cap doesn't take up all the space. OH NO. BLANK SPACE. EEGADS. Ahem. Well, after I had my little internal panic attack over the blank space, I decided to duplicate the image. Then I dragged the bottom layer up until it covered all the blank space which, while it does fix our blank space problem, looks a little dumb. BUT THAT'S OKAY. The next step fixes that and all that jazz.
My icon after STEP ONE: HERE
Step Two
Why the Blur Tool is Your BFF.
This step is the exciting step. Well, I think it is exciting. But I also think matching socks are exciting so...
Anyway, this is where we whip out our fun BLUR TOOL. Basically, you want to duplicate your base layer so that you have TWO layers that have our base on them. Then make sure you have the top layer selected before venturing up into the Filter menu. You are looking for Blur>>Motion Blur. A menu should pop up that looks like this. The settings in the screenshot (Angle (-90) and Distance 235 pixels) are the settings I used in the original icon. If you movie the black line around the little black circle, you can see what it looks like when you change the angle (or the direction), and the distance changes the intensity of the blur.
And now we have a nifty blur level. Unfortunately, that nifty blur level does not a pretty icon make! So then we have to move on to my favorite part of this step. THE LAYER MASK! Huzzah! Seriously, layer masks? Best thing EVER. I was just explaining this to my mom the other day. Anyway, create a layer mask on the blurred layer. And then grab a soft brush (well, that's what I use anyway), and get ready to mask away some of the blurred bits.
I use a soft brush (usually around 60/70 in size) on full opacity to mask away everything covering Buffy (the Buffy you can see all of). Er, but I didn't like how clear Buffy looked on an entirely solid blurred background, so! I lessened the opacity of my brush to about 50 or 60, and masked away at various bits of the background until I got an effect I liked. This is all really trial and error, and you just have to go with what you like really. When I was making this icon, I ended up switching back and forth between the white and the black brush to take away and put back bits of blur because I can NOT make up my mind. La te da.
Anyway, once finished my icon looked like THIS. And if you want to have a gander at my layer palette to see what my layer mask looked like, here ya go!
Step Three
Kind of like step two but not.
Step Three is basically just to smooth out some of the blur lines. IDK. But after I finish something like in Step Two, I always think things look a little...jagged, I guess. And I want to smooth them out. So I Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged and paste that on a NEW LAYER. Then I went and repeated the blur steps in step two with all the same settings.
Once I was done, I put that layer on soft light. But, uh, Buffy screencaps have a tendency to go really, really dark on me because I love soft light layers a little too much. So, I lowered the opacity of the soft light layer to 50% so that it wasn't so dark. And the icon after this step: here.
Step Four
Making pretty lights!
Okay. I am sorry if this step gets a little convoluted. I'll grab a screencap of my layer palette at the end so you guys can see. >.<
Basically, you want to Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged and then paste everything onto a new layer at the top. And then go up to Image >> Adjustments >> Variations. You should get a pretty menu that has all the different colors in the middle and the Lighter/Darker on the right side. The colors are pretty useful and I use them a lot in icon making; however, for the purposes of this tutorial, all you need to focus on is the Lighter/Darker section. Give the Lighter selection TWO clicks. And then Hit 'OK'. And now we have a much lighter base to work with. Yay! Um, in the past I have used both Screen layers and Curves to do this. I usually alternate between the three options depending on the show I am working with. Buffy almost always gets variations. Xena gets curves layers. Legend of the Seeker gets screen layers or variations depending on my mood the darkness of the cap. Anyway, the icon now looks like THIS.
And this is where it gets convoluted. I'm sorry. My process makes no sense, but I almost always do it this way.
You want to Copy Merged and paste as a new layer. Set this layer to soft light. Then, on the same layer, go to Filters >> Distort >> Diffuse Glow. Okay, for this to work right you absolutely have to have the colors set right. So, you know your tool bar? Where all the tools are? Okay, at the bottom, there are two color swatches. The bottom one? Absolutely MUST be white. MUST. And as long as it is then Diffuse Glow will work properly. So Diffuse Glow is one of my FAVORITE tools ever. I started using it way back when I first started making Xena icons. The settings i used in this icon were: Graininess: 0, Glow Amount: 10, Clear Amount: 15. This just adds subtle light to places on the icon that already have light. It makes the icon pop just that little bit more (those who have said they like my glowy effect: this is usually how I achieve it.), and yes, I over use it A LOT. Heh.
Right, but I'm not done. Because, I am all about the ~glow~, and this is no where near shiny enough for an icon made by me! So. I created a new layer underneath the soft light layer we just made. And then I grabbed my soft brush again. This time I upped the brush size to 90/100 or somewhere around there. The size varies, of course, depending on where I want to brush. This time I am interested in Buffy's head so I didn't need to to be huge. Then I changed the color to light beige. I don't know the exact color. Um, I just select something in the same range. So no HEX codes for you! Anyway, then I brushed around Buffy's head. Again another trial and error step. Then, once I was done, I went to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur, and blurred the the layer slightly. The finished product of this step looks like THIS.
And my layer palette? Looks like this.
Step Five
Do you take Lots of Contrast to be your lawfully wedded husband? Yes. Yes I do.
CONTRAST! *spazzes* Yeah, you knew I was going to get there eventually. =D This is a fairly simple step. Another trick I picked up somewhere random, and using another tool that I could not live without.
Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged again. Then paste as a new layer on top of everything thus far. Then skip over to the Filter menu and scroll down until you see Other >> High Pass! I typically keep my radius permanently at 60.0 pixels, but I suppose you can change it up as you see fit. At this point your new layer should look rather blueish and ugly. But once you set the layer to soft light, it'll look a whole lot better. Now High Pass is another favorite tool of mine (no, I don't actually have millions of favorite tools, lol. I just tend to use all my favorites while icon making; hence why they are my favorites.). Basically, it works a little like Invert only without the crappy side effects. It adds warm hues to cool icons and cool hues to warm icons (like this one!). It also maintains brightness while adding contrast to an image. I usually like using High Pass instead of a straight soft light layer because High Pass achieves clarity that straight soft light layers can't.
Anyway, easy peasy layer! The icon, at this point, looks like THIS.
Step Six
Coloring!
Lol, the whole idea of "coloring" icons does not even apply to me. XD I just enhance the original colors of the icon USUALLY. I mean, occasionally I use variations to change colors, selective coloring to spice stuff up, or maybe a color fill layer here and there, but...generally, if you like my coloring, it is just because the original caps were so lovely. ANYWAY. This particular icon doesn't have much in the way of "coloring", I guess. So this is another easy layer.
Hue/Saturation: Master: Saturation +15. This just increases the warm tones and counteracts the tendency of High Pass to make all the color seem flat.
The icon now looks like this!
Step Seven
Sharpening. This is a boring layer.
This layer is a no brainer. Select all >> copy merged and then paste as a new layer. Then Filter >> Sharpen. Occasionally this needs to be decreased, but the beauty of working on a 300x300 canvas is, typically, a full sharpen will look good once you resize it.
Step Eight
Finishing up and amping up the contrast...again.
Right, so at this point I figured my icon was pretty much done. On a big canvas, it looked pretty alright as far as I was concerned, and I'm not typically one to use textures and I didn't have any text in mind. So, I did a select all >> copy merged and pasted it onto a new canvas before resizing to 100x100. And it looked like THIS. Which, I guess, is okay for some people. BUT NOT FOR ME. So I had another little flail in front of my computer and I stared at for a little while and probably tried a layer on soft light because sometimes that works. And then I probably played with the invisibility of layers and twiddled my thumbs for a bit.
AND THEN!
I decided to use my favorite tool: Diffuse Glow again!
I went back to the big canvas (where all our layers are still intact), and I did a select all >> copy merged and then pasted it on top of everything. Then I used the same Diffuse Glow settings as we did before and set the layer on soft light. You can see that the glow is much stronger than it was in the beginning. That's because we added more light to the icon itself. Now I wasn't completely happy because while I liked the light that it put around Buffy's face and the way the soft light setting amped the colors up another notch, I did not like how it darkened the background. So it was time for another layer mask! Huzzah!
After adding a layer mask to the layer, I used the same soft brush at 50/60 opacity and brushed away at the background concentrating mostly on the upper corners where things had gotten too dark/black.
Then I copy merged into a new canvas and resized to 100x100. And decided I was happy with that.
Both the non-shiny and the shiny versions of this icon will be up for grabs when the request post goes up sometime next week. But, uh, I guess it would be cool if you snagged it now. I mean, whatever.
.if you decide this tutorial is worthy of your ~list~, feel free to link to it. Uh, it'd be nice to know where I'm being linked so I can head over to your post and flail about a bit (I like flailing).
.I absolutely will NOT provide a .psd. Not even if you bribe me (unless you can somehow show up at my door with chocolate cake. But that seems like a lot of effort just to get a lousy .psd of a super easy tutorial)
.I don't claim to be an icon genius. And I am aware that most of my icons are NOT ~super complicated~. If this is a problem for you, STFU. :P
.Er, I'd rather you not copy this icon exactly. I mean, if it means that much to you, go ahead. But...generally you'll find more benefit in making YOUR OWN. :D
.SORRY FOR TALKING SO MUCH. But feel free to ask questions! I like talking.
And the tl;dr version: I LIKE TO MAKE THINGS GLOW AND I LOVE LAYER MASKS. ALSO SOFT LIGHT LAYERS. YAY! \o/
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
THIS to
Requests are in the making. Actually the icon we’ll be going through the motions for today is something I was playing with while doing requests. So, no worries. They’ll be up soon! In the meantime, I thought I’d whip up a quick tutorial because some of you were interested in seeing how I work/how I get my coloring.
Fyi, I use Photoshop 7 because I am old school. =D I don't know how translatable this is because I use Photoshop specific filters quite a bit.
So, the first thing I thought I’d say is that I have a set process, I suppose. However, each icon is different. Every time I open a new canvas and make a new icon, I do something a little different. As such (and I am sure you all know this already!), you definitely need to experiment in your graphics making program and see what works for you individually! And if this guide helps inspire you to do that, then awesome!
Okay, on to the ~guide~.
Step One
Creating a base.
I grabbed a screencap from Screencap Paradise (and there was no nifty selection process either; I just grabbed something off the randomizer at the bottom real scientific like ;D). And I was feeling uncreative like usual so I just decided to go for a center crop. So I cropped the image down, grabbing all of Buffy but shaving off most of the sides. Then I resized it to a 300x300 canvas. Why? Because once upon I time, I read a tutorial where the maker worked that way and I decided that I liked it. Of course, it does usually mean I obsess over LITTLE DETAILS that you will never see once it is 100x100, but WHATEVER.
Okay, so we've got Buffy on a 300x300 canvas except, as you can see, the cap doesn't take up all the space. OH NO. BLANK SPACE. EEGADS. Ahem. Well, after I had my little internal panic attack over the blank space, I decided to duplicate the image. Then I dragged the bottom layer up until it covered all the blank space which, while it does fix our blank space problem, looks a little dumb. BUT THAT'S OKAY. The next step fixes that and all that jazz.
My icon after STEP ONE: HERE
Step Two
Why the Blur Tool is Your BFF.
This step is the exciting step. Well, I think it is exciting. But I also think matching socks are exciting so...
Anyway, this is where we whip out our fun BLUR TOOL. Basically, you want to duplicate your base layer so that you have TWO layers that have our base on them. Then make sure you have the top layer selected before venturing up into the Filter menu. You are looking for Blur>>Motion Blur. A menu should pop up that looks like this. The settings in the screenshot (Angle (-90) and Distance 235 pixels) are the settings I used in the original icon. If you movie the black line around the little black circle, you can see what it looks like when you change the angle (or the direction), and the distance changes the intensity of the blur.
And now we have a nifty blur level. Unfortunately, that nifty blur level does not a pretty icon make! So then we have to move on to my favorite part of this step. THE LAYER MASK! Huzzah! Seriously, layer masks? Best thing EVER. I was just explaining this to my mom the other day. Anyway, create a layer mask on the blurred layer. And then grab a soft brush (well, that's what I use anyway), and get ready to mask away some of the blurred bits.
I use a soft brush (usually around 60/70 in size) on full opacity to mask away everything covering Buffy (the Buffy you can see all of). Er, but I didn't like how clear Buffy looked on an entirely solid blurred background, so! I lessened the opacity of my brush to about 50 or 60, and masked away at various bits of the background until I got an effect I liked. This is all really trial and error, and you just have to go with what you like really. When I was making this icon, I ended up switching back and forth between the white and the black brush to take away and put back bits of blur because I can NOT make up my mind. La te da.
Anyway, once finished my icon looked like THIS. And if you want to have a gander at my layer palette to see what my layer mask looked like, here ya go!
Step Three
Kind of like step two but not.
Step Three is basically just to smooth out some of the blur lines. IDK. But after I finish something like in Step Two, I always think things look a little...jagged, I guess. And I want to smooth them out. So I Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged and paste that on a NEW LAYER. Then I went and repeated the blur steps in step two with all the same settings.
Once I was done, I put that layer on soft light. But, uh, Buffy screencaps have a tendency to go really, really dark on me because I love soft light layers a little too much. So, I lowered the opacity of the soft light layer to 50% so that it wasn't so dark. And the icon after this step: here.
Step Four
Making pretty lights!
Okay. I am sorry if this step gets a little convoluted. I'll grab a screencap of my layer palette at the end so you guys can see. >.<
Basically, you want to Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged and then paste everything onto a new layer at the top. And then go up to Image >> Adjustments >> Variations. You should get a pretty menu that has all the different colors in the middle and the Lighter/Darker on the right side. The colors are pretty useful and I use them a lot in icon making; however, for the purposes of this tutorial, all you need to focus on is the Lighter/Darker section. Give the Lighter selection TWO clicks. And then Hit 'OK'. And now we have a much lighter base to work with. Yay! Um, in the past I have used both Screen layers and Curves to do this. I usually alternate between the three options depending on the show I am working with. Buffy almost always gets variations. Xena gets curves layers. Legend of the Seeker gets screen layers or variations depending on my mood the darkness of the cap. Anyway, the icon now looks like THIS.
And this is where it gets convoluted. I'm sorry. My process makes no sense, but I almost always do it this way.
You want to Copy Merged and paste as a new layer. Set this layer to soft light. Then, on the same layer, go to Filters >> Distort >> Diffuse Glow. Okay, for this to work right you absolutely have to have the colors set right. So, you know your tool bar? Where all the tools are? Okay, at the bottom, there are two color swatches. The bottom one? Absolutely MUST be white. MUST. And as long as it is then Diffuse Glow will work properly. So Diffuse Glow is one of my FAVORITE tools ever. I started using it way back when I first started making Xena icons. The settings i used in this icon were: Graininess: 0, Glow Amount: 10, Clear Amount: 15. This just adds subtle light to places on the icon that already have light. It makes the icon pop just that little bit more (those who have said they like my glowy effect: this is usually how I achieve it.), and yes, I over use it A LOT. Heh.
Right, but I'm not done. Because, I am all about the ~glow~, and this is no where near shiny enough for an icon made by me! So. I created a new layer underneath the soft light layer we just made. And then I grabbed my soft brush again. This time I upped the brush size to 90/100 or somewhere around there. The size varies, of course, depending on where I want to brush. This time I am interested in Buffy's head so I didn't need to to be huge. Then I changed the color to light beige. I don't know the exact color. Um, I just select something in the same range. So no HEX codes for you! Anyway, then I brushed around Buffy's head. Again another trial and error step. Then, once I was done, I went to Filter >> Blur >> Gaussian Blur, and blurred the the layer slightly. The finished product of this step looks like THIS.
And my layer palette? Looks like this.
Step Five
Do you take Lots of Contrast to be your lawfully wedded husband? Yes. Yes I do.
CONTRAST! *spazzes* Yeah, you knew I was going to get there eventually. =D This is a fairly simple step. Another trick I picked up somewhere random, and using another tool that I could not live without.
Select All >> Edit >> Copy Merged again. Then paste as a new layer on top of everything thus far. Then skip over to the Filter menu and scroll down until you see Other >> High Pass! I typically keep my radius permanently at 60.0 pixels, but I suppose you can change it up as you see fit. At this point your new layer should look rather blueish and ugly. But once you set the layer to soft light, it'll look a whole lot better. Now High Pass is another favorite tool of mine (no, I don't actually have millions of favorite tools, lol. I just tend to use all my favorites while icon making; hence why they are my favorites.). Basically, it works a little like Invert only without the crappy side effects. It adds warm hues to cool icons and cool hues to warm icons (like this one!). It also maintains brightness while adding contrast to an image. I usually like using High Pass instead of a straight soft light layer because High Pass achieves clarity that straight soft light layers can't.
Anyway, easy peasy layer! The icon, at this point, looks like THIS.
Step Six
Coloring!
Lol, the whole idea of "coloring" icons does not even apply to me. XD I just enhance the original colors of the icon USUALLY. I mean, occasionally I use variations to change colors, selective coloring to spice stuff up, or maybe a color fill layer here and there, but...generally, if you like my coloring, it is just because the original caps were so lovely. ANYWAY. This particular icon doesn't have much in the way of "coloring", I guess. So this is another easy layer.
Hue/Saturation: Master: Saturation +15. This just increases the warm tones and counteracts the tendency of High Pass to make all the color seem flat.
The icon now looks like this!
Step Seven
Sharpening. This is a boring layer.
This layer is a no brainer. Select all >> copy merged and then paste as a new layer. Then Filter >> Sharpen. Occasionally this needs to be decreased, but the beauty of working on a 300x300 canvas is, typically, a full sharpen will look good once you resize it.
Step Eight
Finishing up and amping up the contrast...again.
Right, so at this point I figured my icon was pretty much done. On a big canvas, it looked pretty alright as far as I was concerned, and I'm not typically one to use textures and I didn't have any text in mind. So, I did a select all >> copy merged and pasted it onto a new canvas before resizing to 100x100. And it looked like THIS. Which, I guess, is okay for some people. BUT NOT FOR ME. So I had another little flail in front of my computer and I stared at for a little while and probably tried a layer on soft light because sometimes that works. And then I probably played with the invisibility of layers and twiddled my thumbs for a bit.
AND THEN!
I decided to use my favorite tool: Diffuse Glow again!
I went back to the big canvas (where all our layers are still intact), and I did a select all >> copy merged and then pasted it on top of everything. Then I used the same Diffuse Glow settings as we did before and set the layer on soft light. You can see that the glow is much stronger than it was in the beginning. That's because we added more light to the icon itself. Now I wasn't completely happy because while I liked the light that it put around Buffy's face and the way the soft light setting amped the colors up another notch, I did not like how it darkened the background. So it was time for another layer mask! Huzzah!
After adding a layer mask to the layer, I used the same soft brush at 50/60 opacity and brushed away at the background concentrating mostly on the upper corners where things had gotten too dark/black.
Then I copy merged into a new canvas and resized to 100x100. And decided I was happy with that.
Both the non-shiny and the shiny versions of this icon will be up for grabs when the request post goes up sometime next week. But, uh, I guess it would be cool if you snagged it now. I mean, whatever.
.if you decide this tutorial is worthy of your ~list~, feel free to link to it. Uh, it'd be nice to know where I'm being linked so I can head over to your post and flail about a bit (I like flailing).
.I absolutely will NOT provide a .psd. Not even if you bribe me (unless you can somehow show up at my door with chocolate cake. But that seems like a lot of effort just to get a lousy .psd of a super easy tutorial)
.I don't claim to be an icon genius. And I am aware that most of my icons are NOT ~super complicated~. If this is a problem for you, STFU. :P
.Er, I'd rather you not copy this icon exactly. I mean, if it means that much to you, go ahead. But...generally you'll find more benefit in making YOUR OWN. :D
.SORRY FOR TALKING SO MUCH. But feel free to ask questions! I like talking.
And the tl;dr version: I LIKE TO MAKE THINGS GLOW AND I LOVE LAYER MASKS. ALSO SOFT LIGHT LAYERS. YAY! \o/