tutorial 1 [bloody cordy] // tutorial 2 [greyscaled]
First comes "Bloody Cordy": 
to
.
Okay, this is the base. I've sharpened and cropped the cap and smoothened her skin out. Nothing fancy, but I consider these steps to be absolutely necessary if you want your icon to look any good.
Because I'm planning on making it greyscale and black-and-white icons look better if they're light, I duplicate the base and set it to screen at 100% opacity.
It's lighter, but I don't think there's enough contrast, so I duplicate the base again and set it to soft light, again at 100% opacity.
Now for the border. Whenever I want a white border, I open one of inxsomniax's in PSP, copy it with the pan tool, paste it on my icon as a new layer, then negative it (Adjust>>Color balance>>Negative image) and set it to screen. Yes, it is always by inxsomniax. Her brushes are absolutely fantastic.
Here cometh the greyscale. It's as easy as making a new raster layer, filling it with black, setting it to Color (Legacy) and erasing the bits I want to stay red.
I think the red looks kind of gross, what with how bright it is and all, so I put a layer under the blackness and fill it with a neutral, grayish color (#8a7e77), then set it to color (legacy) at 40% opacity.
And we arrive at the finished icon...
This placed first at btvsats_girls, btw.
Second is "Greyscaled":
to
.
The base. Again, sharpened, resized, and smoothened.
'Tis very...pink, for lack of a better word. I don't like it, so I'm going to make it greyscale, because it's my icon and I can do that if I want. But before I make anything black-and-white, I need to make it very light, so I duplicate the base twice and set both new layers to screen. The top one's at 50% opacity and the bottom one's set to 100%.
Waaaay too bright, IMO, so I make a new layer, fill it with black, and set it to color (legacy) at 100% opacity to see if it looks any better without color.
Nope, it's still annoyingly bright, so I make a layer underneath the blackness, fill it with a nice shade of pink (#fed3bd), and set the layer to multiply at 50% opacity.
Goody. It's still nice and contrast-y, but not to an extreme. Now the border--another one by inxsomniax, because she rocks. Again with the copy>>paste as new layer>>negative>>set to screen.
I like, but it needs something. Of course! Tiny text! Actually, tiny text doesn't fix everything, but I made this at a point during which I thought it did, so I typed something random in Book Antiqua, size 2. It's white, of course, with stroke width set to zero and anti-alias on sharp.
And she's finished.
Please don't copy the tutorials exactly. Then your icon would look just like mine and there wouldn't be any variety. Lack of variety can be very, very boring.
to
.
Okay, this is the base. I've sharpened and cropped the cap and smoothened her skin out. Nothing fancy, but I consider these steps to be absolutely necessary if you want your icon to look any good.
Because I'm planning on making it greyscale and black-and-white icons look better if they're light, I duplicate the base and set it to screen at 100% opacity.
It's lighter, but I don't think there's enough contrast, so I duplicate the base again and set it to soft light, again at 100% opacity.
Now for the border. Whenever I want a white border, I open one of inxsomniax's in PSP, copy it with the pan tool, paste it on my icon as a new layer, then negative it (Adjust>>Color balance>>Negative image) and set it to screen. Yes, it is always by inxsomniax. Her brushes are absolutely fantastic.
Here cometh the greyscale. It's as easy as making a new raster layer, filling it with black, setting it to Color (Legacy) and erasing the bits I want to stay red.
I think the red looks kind of gross, what with how bright it is and all, so I put a layer under the blackness and fill it with a neutral, grayish color (#8a7e77), then set it to color (legacy) at 40% opacity.
And we arrive at the finished icon...
This placed first at btvsats_girls, btw.
Second is "Greyscaled":
to
.
The base. Again, sharpened, resized, and smoothened.
'Tis very...pink, for lack of a better word. I don't like it, so I'm going to make it greyscale, because it's my icon and I can do that if I want. But before I make anything black-and-white, I need to make it very light, so I duplicate the base twice and set both new layers to screen. The top one's at 50% opacity and the bottom one's set to 100%.
Waaaay too bright, IMO, so I make a new layer, fill it with black, and set it to color (legacy) at 100% opacity to see if it looks any better without color.
Nope, it's still annoyingly bright, so I make a layer underneath the blackness, fill it with a nice shade of pink (#fed3bd), and set the layer to multiply at 50% opacity.
Goody. It's still nice and contrast-y, but not to an extreme. Now the border--another one by inxsomniax, because she rocks. Again with the copy>>paste as new layer>>negative>>set to screen.
I like, but it needs something. Of course! Tiny text! Actually, tiny text doesn't fix everything, but I made this at a point during which I thought it did, so I typed something random in Book Antiqua, size 2. It's white, of course, with stroke width set to zero and anti-alias on sharp.
And she's finished.
Please don't copy the tutorials exactly. Then your icon would look just like mine and there wouldn't be any variety. Lack of variety can be very, very boring.