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...an Icon Tutorial!

How I went from this to this:

My first decision was identifying why I liked this cap and what it said to me. I like thinking about this first so I know what approach to take with colors and the like.

My cropping choices were limited by the darkness of the cap, so I decided to keep the real action in the top third of the icon:

- but obviously, this was very dark and definitely in desperate need of some color.

I adjusted the levels. I would suggest never using the "auto levels" feature because it can result in harsh colors, and IMO lighting that is not part of your goal for the overall icon:

- much better! but that pallor is cast over everything. I decided I wanted to emphasize the difference between Wesley's living skin, and Angel's. I duplicated the layer and set the new layer to Blending Options>Soft Light. I then created a new blank layer between the two copies. Flood fill with #ffd1af (a lovely soft orange), and set that layer to Soft Light as well:

- amazing, eh? BTW, this step was shamelessly stolen from dtissagirl

[Unknown site tag][Bad username or unknown identity: If there are skin tones in your icon, this is almost guaranteed to make them look better! Unfortunately, this][Bad username or unknown identity: made Angel look just as healthy. So in the orange flood layer, I erased (at about 50% opacity) the orange][Bad username or unknown identity: covering Angel's face to show off his deathly color:]

[Bad username or unknown identity:  - very nice. Now I wanted to echo Wesley's desperation here, so I chose two different ][Bad username or unknown identity: brushes to show that this was not just a gentle feeding. My first choice was diagonal lines to give a feel of][Bad username or unknown identity:  back and forth. The color is a grey plum selected right out of the shirt Angel is wearing. I blended it at ][Bad username or unknown identity: 45% opacity on Blending Options>Vivid Light:]

[Bad username or unknown identity:  - but it needs more! So my second brush is also a motion/border brush. To contrast I ]used[Bad username or unknown identity: the caramely color of Wesley's skin and blended it at 45% Blending Options> Color Dodge:]

[Bad username or unknown identity:  - I loved the way this looked, but thought that it was a little too dark. So I went down to][Bad username or unknown identity: the original base and duplicated it again. I did Blending Options> Screen for this layer and turned the ]opacity[Bad username or unknown identity:  down to 25%:]

[Bad username or unknown identity:  - So there we go! The finished blank! But I want some words darn it. So I thought about][Bad username or unknown identity: what was going on in this scene and decided to go with "a heart grown cold" because it reflected the feelings][Bad username or unknown identity: of both Angel and Wesley:]

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[Bad username or unknown identity: So there you have it, my first tutorial. Feel free to comment with any questions, or general mocking ; )]