Program: Paint Shop Pro 8
Difficulty: Beginner
Translatable: Partially (uses radial blur, but it's possible to skip that step or use another effect)
here on my blog

Translatable: Should work in any program that has a guides feature and supports layers.


here on my blog

Posting this for kj_svala. If anyone wants further details or anything, please comment. It uses someone else's tut as a base point, so I don't want to go through a full tutorial here.

The coloring on my DA icons:

Each one is different depending on the icon, and I don't remember all the exact settings. Basically, with any coloring technique it's not exact, you have to play with it to find what works best for the lighting and whatever on the original cap.

This is what I started with as a guide. I love this tutorial, use it on 60-75 % of my icons. The DA caps come out too red and/or over saturated, so lower the red saturation level or, if that doesn't work, try turning down the opacity on the saturation later. Then, pretty much all I did was increase the opacity on the blue overlay layer (how much depends on the icon) add a burn layer of one or more of these:

#EFECDB

#FFFFC0

or

#8B7DBB

The burn layers are basically there to bring out the existing colors and add something a little different. The opacity and number of them is different depending on the icon.

Finally, if it's a bit too dark or yellow, a screen layer on top on a medium to low opacity

Well, I haven't done a tut since Christmas, so I figured it was about time. I had some people choose this one over the other Way, way, way shorter icon I offered to do a tut on, so I hope that it's helpful and that I did't ramble too much. This tutorial is long, since it involves multiple images and I tried to give you an idea of the coloring first, then explain the cropping. That said, keep in mind, the particular coloring doesn't matter that much, as long as you remember to choose with images that pick up the same coloring well. Some screencaps or promos pick up blue nicely while others tend to give you really odd, reddish looking skin tones. Whatever coloring you choose to use for your icon, make sure that the bases you end up with compliment each other in terms of coloring.

The icon was made for obiwanstillness using caps by leia06.

We'll be going from this and this to

This is a PSP 8 Tutorial. Translates easily to other versions of the program; not sure about PS and GIMP since I haven't tried it. Like all my tuts, this is meant to be beginner friendly, so there are detailed explanations, even about things that you may find obvious if you've been doing this for a while. My goal is to answer questions I have been asked and to address issues I've seen around the icon sharing comms. Feel free to skip anything you don't need.

( Show Me How )

Well, my favorite day of the year has come to an end. I'll bet there are lots of folks with new graphics programs out there today, just itching to make icons. I'm still using my trusty old PSP 8 and quite happy with it. The reviews I've read of the latest version don't thrill me, otherwise I would have asked Santa to bring it this year. (Yes, really. Stop saying I'm too cheap to spring for it. That's where Santa comes in.)

I'm still in a Christmas mood, listening to George Strait's wonderful Christmas CD, which has brought me so much enjoyment this season. (Thanks, Nerca!) Additionally, earlier in the day, I posted a set of icons from my all time favorite episode of Stargate: SG-1. I had a lot of fun experimenting on those icons--primarily on Daniel, which won't surprise anyone. However, I did also do some neat things with the rest of the team. So, I wanted to do some tutorials on coloring and one on some time saving tricks I often use when making my notoriously gigantic icon batches. Most of it is stuff I stumbled on quite accidentally, but I thought it might help new (or maybe not so new?) graphic makers save themselves some time and effort.

First a very simple scripting tutorial with General Hammond. Images in the same scene often have very similar lighting, so I find myself repeating the same basic steps to make all my bases from that scene. Or, if there's a particular type of coloring I want to achieve, I will again be repeating the same steps to do so. That's not so bad if I'm making a small set of icons, but it does get tedious after a while. PSP has a feature called scripting, which allows you to record your actions and tell the program to repeat them for you on the next image. It's similar to creating a macro in Word or something. The PS equivalent to this is "saved actions". I can't really provide much help with recording saved actions, since I have never really used PS and don't know the interface, but the principle is the same, I believe.

"But!" you protest. "If I do that, then I can only use that script for that scene, right?"

Well, sometimes. Not every script works for every icon, but the good news is that since your layers stay intact once you've run a script, you can "tweak" it. Add or take out layers as you choose. Or, if it just doesn't work altogether, you've only lost a few moments, because a script runs in a click of your mouse. If you still don't like the idea, you're welcome to just skip the scripting part of the tutorial and make yourself a nice simple icon.

We'll be going from this to , and I will show you how to duplicate the process automatically for other icons.

This is a PSP 8 Tutorial. The coloring should translate easily to PS and GIMP. The scripting translates to other versions of PSP. The tutorial is meant for beginners and has detailed explanations and screen caps of my PSP workspace. Feel free to skip anything you don't need.

( Show Me How )

Omg! I've gotten my first official tutorial request. I mean, I've gotten like questions before but never an actual "write me a tutorial" on a specific icon! I don't know why I find this so exciting. So, tried to recreate one of my recent DV icons in GIMP. For cha_aka and whoever else. Inspired by aruna7's Duncan/Tessa vid. Go figure; I turn it into Daniel/Vala. Anyway, the coloring in the recreation isn't exact, but it's about as close as I can get. Hope it's still useful.

We'll be going from this to

*Image and resource credits can be found in my resource post.

( Show Me How )

Since my last GIMP tutorial was such a resounding success, I felt inspired to do a second.

I was actually trying to do something similar to my Padme icon in GIMP. Didn't quite get it right, but I like what I got.

We'll be going from this to

*Image and texture credits can be found in my resource post.

( Show Me How )

I got some questions this week on textures. Either about how to make icon subjects stay clear when using a texture over the image or on specific icons I'd done where most of my coloring and lighting had been achieved through textures. So, I decided to put some tutorials together. As I was doing the first one, I realized that, to my knowledge, GIMP does not have the equivalent of PSP's wonderful "fade correction" or "clarify" features. Now, it very well may have them, but my own knowledge of the program is extremely limited. I've spoken with some GIMP users and no one seemed to think it did. So, I tried to make a second icon that I know will work in all programs.

Note: These are rather image heavy...sorry dialup folks.

We'll be going from this to

*Image and texture credits can be found in my resource post.

( Show Me How )

---

And from this to

*Image and texture credits can be found in my resource post.

( Show Me How )

More than one person this week has asked me for ideas about what to do to "jazz up" an icon if it just looks "plain". There are of course, always brushes and textures to add effects, but what if you still don't like it, or you really want something that's just different from your usual? pokecharm and I were talking a while back about how cropping can really change an icon and the fact that there really aren't a lot of tutorials or anything that are specifically on cropping, so I decided I'd throw a few examples together of different cropping techniques. These run from really basic, simple cropping concepts to help new icon makers to some more complicated stuff for those who're bored with the basics.
I'm not some big expert or anything; mostly this is just a ramble about some tricks I've either picked up from others or stumbled across completely by accident. This is long, but I have pretty bold headings and then examples for each thing I'm talking about, so you can just sort of scroll down through until you see an icon you like. ;) I won't go into step by step details of how I did any of these icons, but anyone who likes one and wants a tutorial, please comment and I'll see what I can do.

Note: I use PSP, but the ideas should be translatable into other programs.

( Read Dar's Cropping Ramble )

And...since the variation monster of course couldn't stay under the bed while I made the example icons, I have some...erm extras. Plus Daniel..because he's Daniel.

( Extra pretty pretties! )