A few days ago, a friend asked me if I could make a tutorial for this Lydia Martin icon -
So, I did, but I can't guarantee it's gonna be any good or understandable, lol.
So, okay, today we're going to turn THIS:
into THIS:
This is done in Photoshop, but everything but the coloring at the end is translatable.
I don't remember the exact steps I took to get the original icon, as I pretty much just played around until I found something that worked, so this might be slightly different to the Lydia icon, but it'll be the same general idea.
To start with, we need to give our image a solid background. I've done this a lot of different ways over the years, but recently, I've decided that it's easier, for me at least, to make a solid colored background before I crop the image at all. Easier to see to erase and paint, if you ask me.
So, choose your color and create a new layer, on top of your chosen image, and fill it with that color. Then, using a mask or eraser, or whatever your preferred method is, remove everything covering the subject. My advice would be to go for a very, very light, almost white color, as it'll be easier for the next few steps. (At least, this is how I did it, because, like I said, I made this up as I went along)
You'll have something that looks like this (don't worry about the space between her arms):
This is where it gets stupid. I'm basically just playing here, so here we go.
Resize your image to a height of around 80 or 90px, width is less important. Copy the whole thing, and paste it on a new canvas, size 100px by 100px. Make a new layer UNDER the pasted image and fill it with the same color you used previously. I used #fffffe. Move your image close to the top of the canvas. (Told you this was gonna be stupid)
You should have something that looks like this:
Take THIS TEXTURE (sorry, I don't know who made it, any help would be wonderful) and paste it onto your canvas. Invert it (image – invert) and move it until the 'drips' are at the bottom of your subject. Set it to Screen and duplicate it.
You should have something that looks like this:
Next, create a new layer and fill it with your choice of color. I chose the same purple as Dawn's shirt. Leave it set to 'normal' and reduce it to 67% opacity. Then, VERY CAREFULLY erase as much of the color from your subject as possible, including – if you need to – the 'drips'. Then, create a new gradient layer with a black and white gradient. Set it to 'soft light'. I also erased across Dawn's face on the gradient layer, as I thought it made her too pale.
You should have something that looks like this:
After this, you can continue with your normal coloring techniques. If you want to know, this is what I did:
Curves layer, Input: 48 Output: 41
Viberance layer: Viberance +42 Saturation: 0
Color balance: Midtones - +18, -7, -45
Viberance layer – Viberance +49
New gradient layer – Fill with THIS gradient and set to 'soft light' at 100%. Erase anything that covers her face.
Color Balance – Midtones: -2, -25, +34
Shadows: -33, -45, -40
Hightlights: +11, +13, +10
And this should be your final result:
You can finish off however you like, sharpening, topaz, whatever.
Like I said, this was probably the really, really, REALLY hard way of doing this, but it was the only way I could figure out how to create the look I was going for. If anyone has an easier way to do this, please show me so that I can point these nice people in the right direction, lol.
I hope I've explained this clearly, if not, you know where to find me.
Peace out
So, I did, but I can't guarantee it's gonna be any good or understandable, lol.
So, okay, today we're going to turn THIS:
This is done in Photoshop, but everything but the coloring at the end is translatable.
I don't remember the exact steps I took to get the original icon, as I pretty much just played around until I found something that worked, so this might be slightly different to the Lydia icon, but it'll be the same general idea.
To start with, we need to give our image a solid background. I've done this a lot of different ways over the years, but recently, I've decided that it's easier, for me at least, to make a solid colored background before I crop the image at all. Easier to see to erase and paint, if you ask me.
So, choose your color and create a new layer, on top of your chosen image, and fill it with that color. Then, using a mask or eraser, or whatever your preferred method is, remove everything covering the subject. My advice would be to go for a very, very light, almost white color, as it'll be easier for the next few steps. (At least, this is how I did it, because, like I said, I made this up as I went along)
You'll have something that looks like this (don't worry about the space between her arms):
This is where it gets stupid. I'm basically just playing here, so here we go.
Resize your image to a height of around 80 or 90px, width is less important. Copy the whole thing, and paste it on a new canvas, size 100px by 100px. Make a new layer UNDER the pasted image and fill it with the same color you used previously. I used #fffffe. Move your image close to the top of the canvas. (Told you this was gonna be stupid)
You should have something that looks like this:
Take THIS TEXTURE (sorry, I don't know who made it, any help would be wonderful) and paste it onto your canvas. Invert it (image – invert) and move it until the 'drips' are at the bottom of your subject. Set it to Screen and duplicate it.
You should have something that looks like this:
Next, create a new layer and fill it with your choice of color. I chose the same purple as Dawn's shirt. Leave it set to 'normal' and reduce it to 67% opacity. Then, VERY CAREFULLY erase as much of the color from your subject as possible, including – if you need to – the 'drips'. Then, create a new gradient layer with a black and white gradient. Set it to 'soft light'. I also erased across Dawn's face on the gradient layer, as I thought it made her too pale.
You should have something that looks like this:
After this, you can continue with your normal coloring techniques. If you want to know, this is what I did:
Curves layer, Input: 48 Output: 41
Viberance layer: Viberance +42 Saturation: 0
Color balance: Midtones - +18, -7, -45
Viberance layer – Viberance +49
New gradient layer – Fill with THIS gradient and set to 'soft light' at 100%. Erase anything that covers her face.
Color Balance – Midtones: -2, -25, +34
Shadows: -33, -45, -40
Hightlights: +11, +13, +10
And this should be your final result:
You can finish off however you like, sharpening, topaz, whatever.
Like I said, this was probably the really, really, REALLY hard way of doing this, but it was the only way I could figure out how to create the look I was going for. If anyone has an easier way to do this, please show me so that I can point these nice people in the right direction, lol.
I hope I've explained this clearly, if not, you know where to find me.
Peace out
Spanky
I always thought you did it by hand not using something as a mask!!
