GIMP Tut: Simone Simons
Another tutorial of mine.
Again, I use GIMP 2.2. This tut is intermediate as well.
It features Simone Simons of Epica.
We'll be going from this:
to this: 
Again, I use GIMP 2.2. This tut is intermediate as well.
It features Simone Simons of Epica.
We'll be going from this:
to this: 1. Crop and sharpen your base. This pic of Simone was great quality, so it didn't need much. That leaves you with this:
2. Duplicate your base three times. Set the top layer to Screen at 40, the next to Soft Light at 100, and the next to Multiply at 60. This makes it bright, but not too bright, like this:
3. Flatten your image and go to Layer > Colors > Color Balance. Select "Highlights" on the range and set Red to 15, Green to 5, and Blue to 15. Now it should look like this:
4. Brighten up Simone's hair and background by using efc0c0 as a bucket fill layer. Set to Soft Light on 100. Erase it from her face, and only her face. That should leave this:
5. Bucket fill layer; use ffffe3 and set to Burn at 100. Like so:
6. Now that the coloring's done, we can get complicated. Crop 45 x 25 from Simone's eyes. On a new layer, paste it on the top right corner of the icon. Set that to Grain Merge at 100. Then duplicate that layer and set it to 30. Like this:
7. Add some text (whichever font you prefer - I used Violation, the finished effect looks nice) right across the icon. Let it cover up everything - it'll make sense later. It'll look like this:
8. Now, put the text on invisibility. Flatten everything for a moment so you only have one layer. Copy that layer and UNDO the flatten. Now create a new layer and paste it on there. It should look like the icon without the text. Redo the visibility on the text and erase every part on the pasted layer but her skin and hair. Now, it should look like this:
9. Now, take this texture by
ewanism:
And set it to screen. Rotate it to your pleasing. I got this:
10. Add a pixel border around the icon. I used ba4700. Set it to Grain Merge at 100. Like this:
DONE!
Now, don't try to follow this exactly. Tweak it and play with opacities. Nobody likes to see the same icon. Originality wins! ^^
2. Duplicate your base three times. Set the top layer to Screen at 40, the next to Soft Light at 100, and the next to Multiply at 60. This makes it bright, but not too bright, like this:
3. Flatten your image and go to Layer > Colors > Color Balance. Select "Highlights" on the range and set Red to 15, Green to 5, and Blue to 15. Now it should look like this:
4. Brighten up Simone's hair and background by using efc0c0 as a bucket fill layer. Set to Soft Light on 100. Erase it from her face, and only her face. That should leave this:
5. Bucket fill layer; use ffffe3 and set to Burn at 100. Like so:
6. Now that the coloring's done, we can get complicated. Crop 45 x 25 from Simone's eyes. On a new layer, paste it on the top right corner of the icon. Set that to Grain Merge at 100. Then duplicate that layer and set it to 30. Like this:
7. Add some text (whichever font you prefer - I used Violation, the finished effect looks nice) right across the icon. Let it cover up everything - it'll make sense later. It'll look like this:
8. Now, put the text on invisibility. Flatten everything for a moment so you only have one layer. Copy that layer and UNDO the flatten. Now create a new layer and paste it on there. It should look like the icon without the text. Redo the visibility on the text and erase every part on the pasted layer but her skin and hair. Now, it should look like this:
9. Now, take this texture by
ewanism: And set it to screen. Rotate it to your pleasing. I got this:
10. Add a pixel border around the icon. I used ba4700. Set it to Grain Merge at 100. Like this:
DONE!
Now, don't try to follow this exactly. Tweak it and play with opacities. Nobody likes to see the same icon. Originality wins! ^^