Wow, it’s been forever and a day since I last posted. Apologies, hopefully I’ll be posting more this summer.
For now though - a tutorial! I’m not sure how much I like it or how coherent it’ll be, but I’ll give it a shot.
to 
-PSD included.
-Involves selective colouring.
1). So for this particular icon, I filled the background with #1F2123, which matches the general background colour of the cap I used.
2). I took this cap of Quinn from ‘Glee’ and resized it so that it fills about half the canvas.
And that’s pretty much the basic canvas, now we can go on to colouring.
3). Create a new levels layer -
RGB - Input levels : 20, 1.37, 255
4). Create a new curves layer with two points -
RGB -
1 - input 79, output 81
2 - input 153, output 170
This makes the colours bolder and stand out, making them show through more when we add textures later :).
5). Fill a new layer with #130C05 and set it to softlight at 100%.
6). New selective colour layer with the following settings -
Reds -
-12
+17
0
0
Whites -
0
0
0
-100
Neutrals -
-6
+5
0
0
7). Add a new gradient layer/ simple black and white texture and set it to soflight at 100%.
8) New layer and merge together all that you’ve created so far (ctrl, shift, alt, e).
Then smudge away any lines between the background colour and the picture, as well as gently smudging around the head to make it appear slightly blurred. Now you should have a smooth, coloured base.
Following that sharpen everything to make the facial features appear nice and crisp and then fade sharpening to 70%.
9). One last levels layer. This will darken the colouring slightly, making sure it still pops through when we add textures in the next step.
RGB -
Input - 10, 1.00, 255
10). I took this lovely sky texture by
emonet25 and set it to hardlight at 100%. I then used an eraser on the middle part of the icon, which allows her face to show through, whilst maintaining the nice sky background.
11). I wanted to add a bit more brightness to the face, so I used a soft white brush and created a shape that fell across the right hand side of her face/ head.
- the shape I used, only without the background :)
I set this to normal at 78%.
12). To frame the icon on one side, I used this lovely texture bynoisettee
I flipped it horizontally and set it to screen at 100%.
13). Annnd…I personally like it how it is, but I added this last texture, again byemonet25 , to finish it off.
Set to screen at 55%.
We are done! Hopefully it wasn’t too longwinded. Every picture’s different, but maybe this helped people somehow?
Anyway, that’s it, here’s the psd :).
PSD here
Feedback is lovely and feel free to join.
For now though - a tutorial! I’m not sure how much I like it or how coherent it’ll be, but I’ll give it a shot.
to -PSD included.
-Involves selective colouring.
1). So for this particular icon, I filled the background with #1F2123, which matches the general background colour of the cap I used.
2). I took this cap of Quinn from ‘Glee’ and resized it so that it fills about half the canvas.
And that’s pretty much the basic canvas, now we can go on to colouring.
3). Create a new levels layer -
RGB - Input levels : 20, 1.37, 255
4). Create a new curves layer with two points -
RGB -
1 - input 79, output 81
2 - input 153, output 170
This makes the colours bolder and stand out, making them show through more when we add textures later :).
5). Fill a new layer with #130C05 and set it to softlight at 100%.
6). New selective colour layer with the following settings -
Reds -
-12
+17
0
0
Whites -
0
0
0
-100
Neutrals -
-6
+5
0
0
7). Add a new gradient layer/ simple black and white texture and set it to soflight at 100%.
8) New layer and merge together all that you’ve created so far (ctrl, shift, alt, e).
Then smudge away any lines between the background colour and the picture, as well as gently smudging around the head to make it appear slightly blurred. Now you should have a smooth, coloured base.
Following that sharpen everything to make the facial features appear nice and crisp and then fade sharpening to 70%.
9). One last levels layer. This will darken the colouring slightly, making sure it still pops through when we add textures in the next step.
RGB -
Input - 10, 1.00, 255
10). I took this lovely sky texture by
emonet25 and set it to hardlight at 100%. I then used an eraser on the middle part of the icon, which allows her face to show through, whilst maintaining the nice sky background. 
11). I wanted to add a bit more brightness to the face, so I used a soft white brush and created a shape that fell across the right hand side of her face/ head.
- the shape I used, only without the background :) I set this to normal at 78%.
12). To frame the icon on one side, I used this lovely texture by
noisettee I flipped it horizontally and set it to screen at 100%.
13). Annnd…I personally like it how it is, but I added this last texture, again by
emonet25 , to finish it off. Set to screen at 55%.
We are done! Hopefully it wasn’t too longwinded. Every picture’s different, but maybe this helped people somehow?
Anyway, that’s it, here’s the psd :).
PSD here
Feedback is lovely and feel free to join.
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