Tutorial: Noir Graphic Novel Wesley
I accidentally arranged a look similar to a noir graphic novel, so I've tried to backtrack and record the process. I'm using Photoshop 7. Image intensive!
I began with this screenshot of Wesley, episode "Shells" from Angel:
This first portion will be vague for two reasons: 1) The methods have been thoroughly covered in previous tutorials from others posting here, and 2) I've absolutely forgotten what my precise actions were.
I cropped, resized, etc. Sharpened. I recolored the shot with a series of duplicated layers set to Screen, Soft Light and a single Saturation layer at the end. This resulted in a lightened shot with a slightly desaturated cast. I smoothed the skin via smudge tool. I also selected a small portion of his eyes, adjusted the color balance with +100 midtone blue and upped the brightness/contrast. This resulted in the following icon.
Duplicate layer with Screen, an Opacity of 86%. I applied the Ink Outlines filter (Filter, Brush Strokes, Ink Outlines) with Stroke length of 1, Dark Intensity of 10 and Light intensity of 2. Resulted in:
I applied this light texture, #41 from WickedRipePlum at http://www.livejournal.com/users/wickedripeplum/228094.html , as a layer atop the base at an opacity of 15%.
Resulted in:
I made a duplicate layer, Overly 100%, of the background and placed it atop the light texture and the Ink filter layers. Resulted in:
To add interest to the background, I applied a horizonal lines brush to a new empty layer. The color is a green, #50632F, that highlights the light texture. Layer opacity is 50%. I erased the layer from the face/figure so that it only covered the background. Resulted in:
A quick border, same green, full opacity. Finished icon base.
To clarify, here is a screenshot of my layers menu.
Hope this is of use!
I began with this screenshot of Wesley, episode "Shells" from Angel:
This first portion will be vague for two reasons: 1) The methods have been thoroughly covered in previous tutorials from others posting here, and 2) I've absolutely forgotten what my precise actions were.
I cropped, resized, etc. Sharpened. I recolored the shot with a series of duplicated layers set to Screen, Soft Light and a single Saturation layer at the end. This resulted in a lightened shot with a slightly desaturated cast. I smoothed the skin via smudge tool. I also selected a small portion of his eyes, adjusted the color balance with +100 midtone blue and upped the brightness/contrast. This resulted in the following icon.
Duplicate layer with Screen, an Opacity of 86%. I applied the Ink Outlines filter (Filter, Brush Strokes, Ink Outlines) with Stroke length of 1, Dark Intensity of 10 and Light intensity of 2. Resulted in:
I applied this light texture, #41 from WickedRipePlum at http://www.livejournal.com/users/wickedripeplum/228094.html , as a layer atop the base at an opacity of 15%.
Resulted in:
I made a duplicate layer, Overly 100%, of the background and placed it atop the light texture and the Ink filter layers. Resulted in:
To add interest to the background, I applied a horizonal lines brush to a new empty layer. The color is a green, #50632F, that highlights the light texture. Layer opacity is 50%. I erased the layer from the face/figure so that it only covered the background. Resulted in:
A quick border, same green, full opacity. Finished icon base.
To clarify, here is a screenshot of my layers menu.
Hope this is of use!