FULL ICON TUTORIAL for PS 7: Viggo and a kitten

Making this:


in PS7. Very short and simple, and I'm pretty sure that it's easily translated into PSP and older PS versions.


The lovely leprechaun_ posted a beautiful picture of Viggo with a kitten. I cropped it to get this base:



Then I created a new document, took this texture that I made myself (very simple - make a layer, fill with it a gradient, and apply some brushes over it) and set it as the very bottom layer, Blend mode Normal:



Then, I created a new layer above the texture and pasted the Viggo base over it. Blend mode Overlay, opacity 100%. I duplicated this layer. So, now I have a texture base, and two Viggo & kitten layers set to overlay. I sharpened the middle layer (Filter -> Sharpen -> Sharpen), and got this:



It’s too saturated, so I put in this gradient in between the two Viggo layers and set it to Screen, opacity 27%:



Then on top, I added a border brush in #BCC5DA and an ellipsis in #8E97B2, because I couldn’t find what to say, and thought that it’s a pretty adequate reaction to the photo anyway. :D Voila, the end:



Here’s the layers palette for reference:



I hope you found it useful. Comments solicited. :D