Look, guys, I wrote a tutorial!
From 
to
Using this screencap of Leo from Romeo and Juliet.
Presented in layer order:
Crop the image to 100x100 however you like. I chose to put Leo off center a bit to the left
Almost every icon I make starts out the same way. It just depends on the image, but first I duplicate the base and set it to Screen. After my next two layers I decide how much of a screen I need and this ended up being 25%
Duplicate the base and set it to softlight
Duplicate the base and set it to softlight again. This time desaturate the softlighted layer.
Flood fill a new layer with black and set it to color. Decrease the opacity to 50% or whatever suits your needs
#2E6650 set to color at 57% opacity
Maybe it's the roundabout way of adding some of his original coloring back, but I duplicated the base again and set it to softlight at 62% opacity
If you want to preserve your layers for saving purposes select all and then go to Edit - Copy Merged and paste that as a new layer. Otherwise Merge all the layers and duplicate it. Then go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur. I used a radius of 1.9. Then I set the layer to Darken at 53%. This will give the whole image a nice soft look. Sometimes leaving it at 100% gives a cartoonish sort of look. Adjust the opacity at your will.
If you chose to keep your layers in tact, I might mention that you should copy it twice and use the last step on the top layer. Either way, on the bottom layer use the dodge tool at a relatively low exposure to get rid of some of the unwanted black lines. Make sure you are doing this on the layer underneath and not the layer set to Darken.
I used a default PS7 brush called "Watercolor Loaded Wet Flat Tip" using white and stamped the area around his face. I set the layer to soft light.
I used Terminal at 14 point and wrote out "Romeo". Then I went to Edit - Transform - Rotate 90 degrees CW. I set the layer to 51% opacity.
I added a 1px black border by creating a new layer and selecting the canvas. Go to Edit - Stroke, choose the thickness you want, I chose 1px make sure "inside" is selected, and then choose the color you'd like to stroke with.
I hope this was helpful. I really wanted to show how I get such a nice soft effect on my images. It's achieved by the gaussian blur layer set to darken. I stumbled upon this one time and I've been using it since =)
You can take the icon, just credit teneraestnox
Rebekah
to
Using this screencap of Leo from Romeo and Juliet.
Presented in layer order:
Crop the image to 100x100 however you like. I chose to put Leo off center a bit to the left
Almost every icon I make starts out the same way. It just depends on the image, but first I duplicate the base and set it to Screen. After my next two layers I decide how much of a screen I need and this ended up being 25%
Duplicate the base and set it to softlight
Duplicate the base and set it to softlight again. This time desaturate the softlighted layer.
Flood fill a new layer with black and set it to color. Decrease the opacity to 50% or whatever suits your needs
#2E6650 set to color at 57% opacity
Maybe it's the roundabout way of adding some of his original coloring back, but I duplicated the base again and set it to softlight at 62% opacity
If you want to preserve your layers for saving purposes select all and then go to Edit - Copy Merged and paste that as a new layer. Otherwise Merge all the layers and duplicate it. Then go to Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur. I used a radius of 1.9. Then I set the layer to Darken at 53%. This will give the whole image a nice soft look. Sometimes leaving it at 100% gives a cartoonish sort of look. Adjust the opacity at your will.
If you chose to keep your layers in tact, I might mention that you should copy it twice and use the last step on the top layer. Either way, on the bottom layer use the dodge tool at a relatively low exposure to get rid of some of the unwanted black lines. Make sure you are doing this on the layer underneath and not the layer set to Darken.
I used a default PS7 brush called "Watercolor Loaded Wet Flat Tip" using white and stamped the area around his face. I set the layer to soft light.
I used Terminal at 14 point and wrote out "Romeo". Then I went to Edit - Transform - Rotate 90 degrees CW. I set the layer to 51% opacity.
I added a 1px black border by creating a new layer and selecting the canvas. Go to Edit - Stroke, choose the thickness you want, I chose 1px make sure "inside" is selected, and then choose the color you'd like to stroke with.
I hope this was helpful. I really wanted to show how I get such a nice soft effect on my images. It's achieved by the gaussian blur layer set to darken. I stumbled upon this one time and I've been using it since =)
You can take the icon, just credit teneraestnox
Rebekah