guess who’s still alive ? debatably me, woah ! anyways, i’ve been super busy with work and organising muses recently hence why i haven’t been around, but i’m here again for a quick second ( i’ll be back on my upcoming harley reboot hopefully sometime this week ! ) to ask for your opinion on a new url for harley.
you can vote here !
guess who’s still alive ? debatably me, woah ! anyways, i’ve been super busy with work and organising muses recently hence why i haven’t been around, but i’m here again for a quick second ( i’ll be back on my upcoming harley reboot hopefully sometime this week ! ) to ask for your opinion on a new url for harley.
you can vote here !
this is random but how do YO go about making a psd? i've looked around and while people provide psds they don't exactly say how to make it so i was wondering if you could share how you go about it ?
thanks for the great question ! though i’m probably not the best person to ask, as i’m entirely self-taught and i’m still learning new things all the time, i’m going to try my best to explain my approach to making a new psd from scratch !
firstly, and probably what i’d consider to be one of the most important things to keep in mind when making a psd, is what look / aesthetic are you going for ? think about the character you’re making it for and your overall taste on what you like in a psd ( after all, it’s your psd so your opinion is the one that matters most ! ). what i tend to do at this point is pull up reference photos of the character, perhaps work on a pinterest board to really get a grip on the aesthetic i’m going for and even have a look at other peoples psds that you like for inspiration ( inspiration being the key word here — using other peoples work as inspiration is fine as long as you make it your own and don’t copy. also don’t be scared to do something completely different for a character than what others have done ! ).
once you’ve established a desired look ( keep this vague and open incase things don’t go as planned ) and you’ve got that in mind it’s time to open photoshop ( or whatever editor you’re using ) and get started ! what i do at this point is pull up a couple of icons for the character in different lighting, it’s important to consider that some lighting will be darker / lighter or may consist of cooler or warmer tones and this can drastically effect your psd, especially ones that are quite harsh on colours.
make sure to choose one that has pretty neutral lighting to focus on / leave as your example and make sure to check how your psd looks on the others every few layers. now that you have something to reference to it’s time to start building up your psd. i keep mine in groups just to keep things neat and tidy so now would be the time to make one to put all your layers in !
at the bottom of your layers menu there’s a bunch of symbols that include making layer masks, new groups, layers and deleting layers. for now we’re just going to worry about the half shaded circle ( the worst description ever ik ik ) which creates ‘new fill or adjustment layers. in this category there’s a lot of options as to what you want to do, and when your first learning this can be really really overwhelming.
because i’m a simpleton who likes to keep things as easy as possible for myself i tend to go from the top down and add ones that i find useful and just tweak as i go along. i recommend doing a little test run of each just so you get familiar with what they do and the effects they have on your images ( i’m not going to go into too much detail on all that now bc this is already getting rather lengthy ).
from there the possibilities are endless and i tend to end up with around 50 layers per psd ( for reference harley’s is made up of two psd’s and an adjustable group for different lighting ). feel free to layer psds, something which i’m personally rather fond of just because i’m lazy and i don’t like doing things from scratch. it’s also important to keep in mind that as you add layers and do your little adjustments here and there it may not look like much is happening and you’re not making much of a difference but don’t worry, you are. it’s super easy to go along and think you haven’t gotten far but that’s just because you’re getting used to looking at the image step by step and most of the steps are rather small ( like when the optomitrist asks you which lens you prefer and they both look pretty much identical ), at times like this i find it’s helpful to take your psd off ( far easier if you’ve grouped it ! ) and take a second to compare the original image to the psd and just appreciate the difference. another important thing is to keep an open mind ; you may think you want to achieve one thing when you first start off but once you get into it that might be really hard or it just doesn’t work with your icons and that doesn’t mean you should give up or that you’re not good enough ! that just means try something new ! and though i said it’s important to go in with an idea of your goal sometimes it’s less overwhelming to just go in and see what happens. and last little extra snippet of info, some of your icons may need a bit of adjusting so that they work with the psd ( making them darker or lighter so you get the perfect look ) and that’s fine. there may also be times when everything in your icon looks perfect but, for example, the eyes are too dark and you can’t see the whites so now your muse looks like they’re possessed or perhaps it’s washed out their nose too much and now they look like voldemort. when this happens what i tend to do is just lasso the area that needs fixing and adjust it individually until that’s no longer a problem, this also works the other way if you’re going for the possessed voldemort vibe, just make sure to blend out any harsh edges you may get afterwards ( lil note, make sure your layer is rasterised before you go changing it so it adjusts the actual image and doesn’t just mask it ! )
and that’s about it really ! this has been a pretty brief description of how i make one idk, i hope i answered your question. it went on for longer than i expected and it’s probably a bit rambley here and there, but oh well. if anyone has any more questions regarding psds or editing in general feel free to ask and i’ll try my best to help out !
it took two days but i’ve finished harley’s new psd and i gotta say i am super pleased with it ! i, as you can see, decided to go with something a little bit brighter than what i usually go with, i just thought it would be nice to play around with something more colourful, especially considering the new url i have saved !
guess who’s started the painstaking process of screencapping . . . this guy !! but on another note i’ll probably get some writing up tomorrow along with sorting out my psd for harley ( her being my priority, then cassie and abigail atm bc most muse ).
in celebration of raoul silva’s birthday, i will now begin my live stream of Skyfall (2012) on rabbit. join me here while i get set up, and please spread the word so everyone can join in on the shenanigans–!
updated version of my poll for muses ! bc i forgot some ( ty for the not so subtle reminder bones ) and also to narrow things down a bit.
so please do vote ; top five or so will be the ‘winners’ i guess.
updated version of my poll for muses ! bc i forgot some ( ty for the not so subtle reminder bones ) and also to narrow things down a bit.
so please do vote ; top five or so will be the ‘winners’ i guess.
hcirofsalazar replied to your post: updated version of my poll for muses ! bc i forgot...
But you already have a Harley Quinn.
ahh yes, but i’m on hiatus on her and plan to reboot if ppl want that, i’ve listed all my muses ( including jane as well ) bc i want to know which to continue / invest in and which to scrap as explained in my original post.