Wow, it's been so long since I posted here that I hope I remember how to do an lj-cut! I pop back in with offerings that are kinda gaudy. Eigthteen glittery and sparkly icon textures, for those moments when you need to get in touch with your inner diva. :)

Preview:



( the rest inside... )

Probably best used as a new layer set to screen at 100% opacity, but there might be other ways to abuse the sparklies.

My play time has been occupied lately with 3D stuff, and I've gotten much better at it since I started last fall. If anyone is curious, this is a preview of dark fantasy/horror character I created (just the character, not the clothes etc.), and a closeup. I have been messing around with making clothes textures and learning how to end up with realistic-looking images. And some projects I'm working on are just for fun.

A lot of things I learned from icon making have come in handy for this as well. :)

Download File

A set of 11 light beam textures in PNG format for when your icon needs a volumetric spotlight! Probably best copied and pasted as a new Multiply or Screen layer, between 90%-100% opacity. Basic stuff. A few examples:



Same image and texture, left Screen 100% opacity, right Multiply 95% opacity:

Download: JBR/Image Pack | PSP X | Image Pack, large (500x400)

( examples inside )

Use them on icons or to make textures from scratch. Again, despite what the preview image says, the PSPX version brushes are 500x400 -- and I haven't made an image pack for those yet (but soon!) Image pack added for the larger pspBrush version. BTW, if anyone would like one of the orginal textures, please email me. They're larger; most are 1280x960.

And just a little reminder to those who might be new to this journal and are making winter holiday icons, I have a bunch of bases in this post and text brushes here and here. I have a general gradient set and a little gingerbread cookie brush set (JBR only; it's an oldie.)

Assorted resources used on this experiment (yes, I've been playing with Daz Studio :) ) I found the photo edge tutorial here. If you don't have the Eye Candy 3.1 plugin, this site has a legal download.



Download: Photo Edge (mask)
Download: Picture Grunge JBR file (PSP 7; too lazy to make PSPX)
Download: Picture Grunge (brush image pack)
Download: Scratch Stuff (texture)

After listing all of those plugins, I thought it would be a good idea to show a few ways in which to use them. One of the projects I was working on recently was a sort of illustrated look, a little comic book, a little pop art. I have commercial filters which do some of these, but wrote up a tutorial that uses only free filters.



The filters you'll need for this are Xero's SuperSmooth, Xero's Lithograph, and Martin Koch's Dither FREE. This is the original image.

1. Apply the SuperSmooth filter. (All images are not created equal and may need different settings!)
2. This is the result.
3. Duplicate image to a new layer.
4. Apply the Lithograph filter to the duplicated layer, using the default settings.
5. Layer settings: Soft light at 100% opacity, and the image should look like this.
6. Merge layers, then duplicate merged image to a new layer.
7. Apply the Dither FREE filter at the default setting.
8. Layer settings can be: Burn at 50% opacity, Overlay at 50% opacity, Soft Light at 50% opacity, or Hard Light at 50% opacity.
9. Merge, save.

For a slightly softer look (as shown in the preview), duplicate the final image to a new layer, with the layer settings at Normal and 30% opacity. Then apply a Gaussian Blur set to 5 and adjust the brightness/contrast at 15/10.

( edited to add a few more... )

(( x-posted to icon_extras and psptutorials ))