tutorials: 2

[longerthanwedo.livejournal.com]

to
to
both requested by erzsebet at ask the maker

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This is the base. I chose it because I knew I wanted an icon for the "coloring" section
of theiconquest, and outdoor Winterfell scenes are always gorgeous, not
to mention the colors in the furs they wear.




To bring out those colors, add two vibrance layers, both at +100 and 100% opacity.
Mask over his face with soft black brushes where it gets too magenta, and set both
layers to color mode (a lifesaver when it comes to vibrance, it keeps the quality of
the image while adding the color unlike vibrance layers on normal, which tend to
degrade the image).


Obviously it's too dark, so add a brightness/contrast layer with +33 brightness and
+34 contrast, and then stamp the layers into a new one (ctrl+shift+alt+e), gaussian
blur it (set to around 2? Not sure about the exact blur radius, just enough blur so that
you can see the colors, shades, and general shapes, but no detail or defined edges),
and set that to soft light. Both of those layers are at 100% opacity.


Then add this dark blue texture set to screen, 100% opacity, and duplicate it twice
(ctrl+j) so there are three screened textures. This gives some nice blues to
the shadows.

Now I want some magenta back in his face where the blues took it away.
Add a selective coloring layer and change the white section to +53 magenta, +28
yellow, and -30 black.

To compliment the magenta, add a color fill layer of dark purple (#3b1336) and set
it to lighten at 100% opacity.





Add another vibrance layer set to color, but mask away the layer from everywhere
except his cloak, lips, and the left strip of the icon where the cyan and green is,
so that those sections pop but the rest of the icon is left alone, and the quality of his
skin isn't changed.

It just needs texture now, so set this texture to screen at 100% on top of all the
previous layers for sort of a snowy/dreamy feeling.





I want to frame the icon somehow and draw attention to the bright greens and
magentas in the cap, so I use CS6's "watercolor build-up" brush and my tablet with pen
pressure turned on, and paint along the top in a green taken from his cloak, and along
the bottom in a magenta taken from his lips.

Add three more selective coloring layers, changing the white section to +100 cyan, and
mask each layer away wherever his face gets too blue or looks unnatural. This makes
his face the lightest part of the icon, while the whites in his cape turn to cyan. And that's
the finished icon!

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This is the base. A pretty nice quality, light cap with lots of colors already present, and
negative space already part of the image.





Obviously it needs to be brightened, so add a brightness/contrast layer with +96
brightness and +28 contrast.





Add a vibrance layer, +100, set to color to make everything pop a little more.






The sky needs more depth, so using a soft round default brush in a shade of blue slightly
darker than the sky, paint over the top of the icon.

Add a selective coloring layer with +25 yellow and -35 black in the red section to change
the shade of his skin (this step will be kind of negated later, he won't stay unnaturally
yellow forever).




This is kind of a weird step. Add this gradient texture and set it to subtract (this may be
exclusive to CS6, but other blending modes near the bottom of the list can do similar
things, or you can invert the texture (ctrl+i) and try darkening blending modes). Set the
layer to 62% opacity.

There are interesting colors now, but everything is dark, so add a brightness/contrast
layer at +150 brightness and +40 contrast.





I don't like the green on the left or the darker water on the right, and I know I'll cover up
those areas later with textures, so I paint over them quickly with a small, soft round brush
(I think I used my trackpad for this, nothing fancy) in shades of blue pulled from the sky
and the water.

Next add this texture (cropped from a larger texture for convenience because I use it a
lot), set to lighten at 100% opacity.

Playing with colors and details now. Add a selective coloring layer with +100 cyan in the
cyan section and -52 yellow in the yellow section.





Black to white gradient map, set to soft light at 32% opacity for a little contrast.






I think the white bits at the bottom take the focus away from Jack, so I paint over those
with a small brush in a light blue and set the layer to darken.

There are some pretty jagged and ugly edges going on now, so I stamp all the layers and
smooth some of the edges out with the blur tool set to 40% strength or so, and using a 2
or 3 pixel soft round brush.




Add some more light blue brushes on darken to even out the whites in the icon.

A selective coloring layer with +100 cyan in the whites and -41 cyan in the reds.






The pink lines of texture on the right are distracting, so I stamp all the layers, flip the
stamped layer vertically and horizontally, and erase so that it looks like this and is
positioned over the pink lines in the right lower corner.










The last thing is small, but the icon looks slightly off-center, so I stamp all the layers again and move them a couple pixels to the right. Finished!

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This is the first installment in my answers to the questions I was asked. Let me know if you have any questions about any of the steps in these tutorials, and look out for (many) more in the near future!