Icon tutorial using PSP 8

I made this (fairly simple) icon tutorial using PSP 8 for my friend, and thought I'd post it here. It's my first one, so I hope it's helpful.



(The first part of the tutorial I learned using a tutorial by teh_indy. Very helpful!) I started out with this base:



First, you duplicate the layer and set the top layer to 'Soft Light'. Create a new Raster layer and set it to 'Exclusion'. Using the Flood Fill tool, fill the layer with a dark blueish color, I used #110A6A. It should now look like this:



Create another Raster layer on top of the exclusion layer, and set it to 'Color (legacy)' and the opacity at 50. Flood Fill the layer with #F5C095. Merge all the layers. You should have this:



Now, duplicate the layer. Set the top layer to 'Soft Light' and the bottom to 'Screen' (a tip I learned from syndarys). Create a new Raster layer above the Screen layer, and set it to 'Darken'.



Doesn't look much different, does it? Still on the Darken layer, I applied a gradient:



The icon should look something like this:



Merge all the layers again! (I hope you are also saving periodically :)

Time to add the border! Create a new Raster layer (again) and set it to 'Soft Light'. I used this brush set to a dark redish purple color, I'm using #730539.



It should look like this:



Still on the Soft light layer, I added the text 'Miki' and 'Sama' on either side of him. I used the Georgia font with a dark navy color (#000040), size 6, all caps, and the kerning at 450.



The text is a little hard to see, so I duplicated the Soft light layer to make the text and the border darker. Merge all the layers.



And that's it! Hope this is helpful!