...he wore the flag more often...

[so_out_of_ideas]

Ok. It was recently pointed out to me that this little corner of LJ-land was started to not only to show off my fan works and assorted hoo-hah but to talk about what I actually didin creating various icons. The idea here was both to help me remember what I’d done to achieve a particular effect and to share whatever small amount of digital art knowledge I might have. (My inspiration for this is really Dee Dreslough --*points to link bar*--who is really one of the coolest artists/authors I’ve ever had the pleasure of interacting with on the net.)

But, since I’ve started posting fics here in the past few months, and since most of the icons I’ve made recently have been in response to various challenges/requests and things like that, I haven’t done a good job of commenting on how I made them.

To that end, I’ve decided to try my hand at tutorial writing. This was written for PSP 8, but hopefully should translate well into other programs.

We’ll be going from this:



to

or



Tutorial 01: Jack and Danny

Before we start: Choose an image and crop to 100x100.

---For anyone who has a tough time with this aspect of iconning, there is a really simple trick. --

With your image open, go to File>New and open a new blank image, 100x100. Then go back to your original picture, click on the layer in your layer palette and drag from the layer palette onto the blank base. You'll end up with something that looks totally wrong, but hang in there. Now go to Image> resize and set it to anything between 75-20 percent, depending on the image. Make sure the box that says "resize all layers" is not checked. Click OK and voila! Magic! If it's too big or too small, just undo and mess with it until you get what you like.

Now the Tutorial

Step 1: Let's brighten Jack and Danny up a bit.

Go to Layers>duplicate. Do this twice. In your layer palette, set the bottom one to Soft Light, the top one to Screen. If your base is too bright, just lower the opacity on the screen layer until you have something you like. Mine now looks like this:



Step 2 A touch of enhancement

--- Go to Layers>merge visible. Then Layers>duplicate again, once. Make sure you have the top layer highlighted. Go to Adjustments>Blur>Gaussian blur and set the radius to 1.00. it will look weird, but trust me. Now set the blurred layer to screen and lower the opacity a little if it's too bright.

---Now merge visible layers again. Next, go to Adjustments>Sharpness>sharpen. Only sharpen your base layer once! Over sharpening is evil! If it still seems a little blurry, duplicate the layers, sharpen the duplicate, and the lower the opacity until it looks right to you. I can almost guarantee you that if you sharpen the base again, it will be too sharp. Duplicating the layer gives you a bit more control, and it's easier than messing with unsharp masks.

You should now have something like this:


Step 3 Some subtle lighting changes

--from this point on, texture and brush credits can be found in my resource post--

Now add this texture:



I set it to Screen at about 42% opacity, but you can also try Soft Light or Overlay for a different look. You'll get something similar to this:



Step 4 Now for the coloring

Next add this texture:



I set it to color at 48 %, but again, you can try different blend modes and opacities here.

You should end up with something like this:



Step 5 Add some stylized white space.

Duplicate the texture layer and set back to Normal at 100% opacity. Now use your magic wand tool and select the white area of the texture layer. With it selected, go to Selections>Invert. Then Edit>Cut, and cut out the selected parts of the texture. You can leave it this way or use your smudge tool to make the edges softer and more wispy. You'll end up with these:



Step 6 Add text and brushes.

I used the font "Bart" @ size 14 pt, color #404000

And this tiny text brush:




And there you have it! You should now have a pair of lovely icons like these:


or