» tutorial 004; he was in the habit of taking things for granted
Aaaand this one was also requested by vincibility (blame her for the deluge of posts, not me!)
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A few notes, before we start:
» This icon was originally posted here, for War 1, Trial 1 at 21tvthrowdown.
» Program: Photoshop CS5. Vibrance is used, but it's not necessary at all.
» Difficulty: Moderate.
Here's the original cap of Nikita from episode 1x18, courtesy of the now defunct disparue.org, RIP :(
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1. New 100x100 canvas, resized to 1300x1300, and positioned so she's in the center. Then after creating a layer mask, I took a large black brush at 100% and got rid of the general background. If it gets too near her then it's no big deal, I usually just switch to a smaller white brush at a lower opacity and go over the parts of her that've started disappearing. It's a very rough job, especially around the hair. To make up for that, I just used the eyedropper tool and picked the colour of the background in between her hair strands, and made a new colour fill layer with that shade (in this case, #63666f) and dragged it down below.
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2. New curves layer, first set to "auto," but I want to work on the contrast even more, so under RGB I created two new points with the following settings: 94, 94 and 181, 163. This ups the bright spots (second point) without brightening the dark spots too much (first point). Finally, a new vibrance layer, +100 (or hue/saturation with +5 hue and +45 saturation).
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3. Now for a circle shape! Because I want to eventually hide the parts of her that are all cut off and missing everywhere, by excluding everything that's not in the circle. That comes a little later though, so for now! A new fill layer in white, with a layer mask filled in black.
Then I took the elliptical marquee tool (hold down on the marquee tool until you get the list of options). Under the style drop-down menu at the toolbar on top, I went to fixed size and put in 78 px by 78 px and selected a circle area in the center of the icon. In the layer mask, I filled the selected area with white.
Then I put in a 70 px by 70 px fixed size with the marquee tool, clicked again inside the circle from before, and filled that part of the layer mask with black. Voila! Now there's a hollow white circular shape in the center of the icon.
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14. This texture by universaldogma on screen 100% adds a gradient effect, for some lighting.
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15. Some more lighting, this time by putting this texture by happy_harper13 on soft light 100%.
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16. Okay, final lighting texture, by happy_harper13 and set to soft light 50% so there's a bit of light but not overwhelmingly so.
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17. Okay, a tiny little bit of darkening via fill layers: #dab89d, colour burn 50% to colour the graininess in the blacks, and #34692d, soft light 35% to deepen the shadows.
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18. The blues are starting to get a bit washed out now, so I took this texture by happy_harper13 and set it to colour burn, 100%. I still wanted it to overall be blue instead of green though, so I took a layer mask and brushed over the parts that I wanted to go back to blueish.
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19. Finally, making the blues even richer with a fill layer (#5a79a4) set to soft light 100%.
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10. Okay, by now I've started to get irritated with the way she got all cut off on the left side, and the way her arm pokes out the right side, AND the way there's a pixellated set of lines at the top and to the right. So I took a smudge tool and went around the edges of the circle, inside the circle where her shoulder cuts off, and then around the edges of the icon.
Then because I thought I was finished, I copy merged everything and sharpened the new layer to add definition to her face (FILTER > ARTISTIC > PAINT DAUBS > 1, 1). Too sharp in some areas, so with a layer mask I went over the parts I wanted to be less defined.
Finally, I wanted to brighten it right up, so I made a new levels layer with the following settings on RGB: 2, 1.28, 230. This lightens everything up and increases the contrast on the bright spots at the same time.
»
11. Okay but then I decided it was too boring as is, so I took this texture (and I have no idea who made it? Or what I did to it? (I probably took someone's texture, desaturated it, stretched parts of it out, rotated it, messed with the brightness/contrast... maybe a whole bunch of other stuff?? Or a combination of the above? If anyone recognizes it, let me know!) And then finally, I set it to screen 61% to get those nice shape-y blobs.
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12. This texture by sinking_theship is great. I love divisive textures, and setting this one to colour burn 100% really makes everything vivid and great. Plus the line down the middle emphasizes the shape of the light blobs from the last step.
»
13. Two small steps to make the colours pop a bit more! First, a new curves layer, with two new points: 64, 59 and 169, 156. This makes the bright spots a lot brighter without losing much contrast in the dark spots. Then a vibrance layer, +30 (or hue/saturation +5? It's a really tiny step, probably skippable lol).
»
14. And the final steps in my ~composition, now! Copy merged everything (CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-E), and duplicated that. Then on the bottom layer, I flipped it horizontally (EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP HORIZONTAL). On the top layer, fill the layer mask with black so you can see the flipped version underneath, and then take the 70x70 marquee tool from before and fill in a circle with white. That's a lot of words to basically just say that the only visible part I want to see from the top, normal layer is the area inside the circle, and everything else is the flipped part from outside. I don't know how to say it any clearer than that ;~;
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15. Last last last step, I promise. This texture, by aquatilitis, set to screen 100%. By sheer chance it coincided with the circle and rectangular blobby shapes I'd made earlier LOL. Plus it hides the fact that the line between blue and green outside and inside the circle don't quite perfectly match up. It ALSO hides the small pixelly circle of blue around the bottom left part of the circle. Yay for textures and things that hide the stuff you don't want people to see!
Comments would be faaaabulous, and if you have anything else you'd like to ask, feel free to (please!) hit me up here! :)
» »
A few notes, before we start:
» This icon was originally posted here, for War 1, Trial 1 at 21tvthrowdown.
» Program: Photoshop CS5. Vibrance is used, but it's not necessary at all.
» Difficulty: Moderate.
Here's the original cap of Nikita from episode 1x18, courtesy of the now defunct disparue.org, RIP :(
»
»
1. New 100x100 canvas, resized to 1300x1300, and positioned so she's in the center. Then after creating a layer mask, I took a large black brush at 100% and got rid of the general background. If it gets too near her then it's no big deal, I usually just switch to a smaller white brush at a lower opacity and go over the parts of her that've started disappearing. It's a very rough job, especially around the hair. To make up for that, I just used the eyedropper tool and picked the colour of the background in between her hair strands, and made a new colour fill layer with that shade (in this case, #63666f) and dragged it down below.
»
»
2. New curves layer, first set to "auto," but I want to work on the contrast even more, so under RGB I created two new points with the following settings: 94, 94 and 181, 163. This ups the bright spots (second point) without brightening the dark spots too much (first point). Finally, a new vibrance layer, +100 (or hue/saturation with +5 hue and +45 saturation).
»
»
3. Now for a circle shape! Because I want to eventually hide the parts of her that are all cut off and missing everywhere, by excluding everything that's not in the circle. That comes a little later though, so for now! A new fill layer in white, with a layer mask filled in black.
Then I took the elliptical marquee tool (hold down on the marquee tool until you get the list of options). Under the style drop-down menu at the toolbar on top, I went to fixed size and put in 78 px by 78 px and selected a circle area in the center of the icon. In the layer mask, I filled the selected area with white.
Then I put in a 70 px by 70 px fixed size with the marquee tool, clicked again inside the circle from before, and filled that part of the layer mask with black. Voila! Now there's a hollow white circular shape in the center of the icon.
»
14. This texture by universaldogma on screen 100% adds a gradient effect, for some lighting.
»
15. Some more lighting, this time by putting this texture by happy_harper13 on soft light 100%.
»
16. Okay, final lighting texture, by happy_harper13 and set to soft light 50% so there's a bit of light but not overwhelmingly so.
»
»
»
17. Okay, a tiny little bit of darkening via fill layers: #dab89d, colour burn 50% to colour the graininess in the blacks, and #34692d, soft light 35% to deepen the shadows.
»
»
»
18. The blues are starting to get a bit washed out now, so I took this texture by happy_harper13 and set it to colour burn, 100%. I still wanted it to overall be blue instead of green though, so I took a layer mask and brushed over the parts that I wanted to go back to blueish.
»
19. Finally, making the blues even richer with a fill layer (#5a79a4) set to soft light 100%.
»
»
»
10. Okay, by now I've started to get irritated with the way she got all cut off on the left side, and the way her arm pokes out the right side, AND the way there's a pixellated set of lines at the top and to the right. So I took a smudge tool and went around the edges of the circle, inside the circle where her shoulder cuts off, and then around the edges of the icon.
Then because I thought I was finished, I copy merged everything and sharpened the new layer to add definition to her face (FILTER > ARTISTIC > PAINT DAUBS > 1, 1). Too sharp in some areas, so with a layer mask I went over the parts I wanted to be less defined.
Finally, I wanted to brighten it right up, so I made a new levels layer with the following settings on RGB: 2, 1.28, 230. This lightens everything up and increases the contrast on the bright spots at the same time.
»
11. Okay but then I decided it was too boring as is, so I took this texture (and I have no idea who made it? Or what I did to it? (I probably took someone's texture, desaturated it, stretched parts of it out, rotated it, messed with the brightness/contrast... maybe a whole bunch of other stuff?? Or a combination of the above? If anyone recognizes it, let me know!) And then finally, I set it to screen 61% to get those nice shape-y blobs.
»
12. This texture by sinking_theship is great. I love divisive textures, and setting this one to colour burn 100% really makes everything vivid and great. Plus the line down the middle emphasizes the shape of the light blobs from the last step.
»
13. Two small steps to make the colours pop a bit more! First, a new curves layer, with two new points: 64, 59 and 169, 156. This makes the bright spots a lot brighter without losing much contrast in the dark spots. Then a vibrance layer, +30 (or hue/saturation +5? It's a really tiny step, probably skippable lol).
»
14. And the final steps in my ~composition, now! Copy merged everything (CTRL-SHIFT-ALT-E), and duplicated that. Then on the bottom layer, I flipped it horizontally (EDIT > TRANSFORM > FLIP HORIZONTAL). On the top layer, fill the layer mask with black so you can see the flipped version underneath, and then take the 70x70 marquee tool from before and fill in a circle with white. That's a lot of words to basically just say that the only visible part I want to see from the top, normal layer is the area inside the circle, and everything else is the flipped part from outside. I don't know how to say it any clearer than that ;~;
»
15. Last last last step, I promise. This texture, by aquatilitis, set to screen 100%. By sheer chance it coincided with the circle and rectangular blobby shapes I'd made earlier LOL. Plus it hides the fact that the line between blue and green outside and inside the circle don't quite perfectly match up. It ALSO hides the small pixelly circle of blue around the bottom left part of the circle. Yay for textures and things that hide the stuff you don't want people to see!
Comments would be faaaabulous, and if you have anything else you'd like to ask, feel free to (please!) hit me up here! :)