#.tutorials

are requests open?

check the title of the askbox! theyre open most of the time, but i might close them when i get overwhelmed

even when requests are closed, feel free to ask me questions or anything else!! i love to chat

can i take inspo from your ponies?

yes!! that's always ok!

for unrequested ponies (tagged with #.originals), its preferred you don't completely copy mine as i likely made them for my own use but like. i can't stop you. do what you want forever. you can ask for screenshots if you like but i might say no

for requested characters, i can provide the screenshots to make them yourself if asked!! it just might take me a bit to get em. any i've already posted are under the tag #.tutorials

i have tips for filling out character tuts posted here

how did you do x?

just ask on the post or my inbox & i can show you!! the answer is "a lot of fucking around", most likely.

why are some parts green/white/tan?

this is the color of the grass in ponytown and therefore coloring parts of your pony that makes that part "invisible" when in game! like this ↓

who are the characters in your pinned?

in order of appearance, siffrin from in stars and time, bive from regretevator, aubrey from omori, and astro from dandy's world! the icon is my oc named angel utsumi :]

why did you go inactive?

okay now starting from scratch, i start with a 140 x 140 canvas. using my elliptical marquee tool, i make a circle shape within that box.

to fill in that box i go to layer > new fill layer > pick w.e color > enter. i then move the circle to the middle if need be.

next step, i find a pic of the person i want to use, open it and cutout the person from the bg of the picture and then i duplicate that layer into my circle file. so you’d right click the png > select duplicate layer > change the destination to the name of the document in which your circle is in. (if the picture has a plain background then i skip this step.)

this is now the time where i resize the picture. i resize it enough so that a "cute” portion of the person’s head can stick out to my liking, lmao. (also use this time to make sure that the picture is aligned the way you want over the circle. lower the opacity on the picture layer to make this easier.)

after that i right click my color fill (the circle) and i hit select pictures. then i go to select at the top of the screen and click inverse. without doing anything, i then click on my picture layer.

then i erase everything selected - but WAIT.

i don’t want to erase her head, that’s the part i want out! to make sure the bg is erased i zoom tf (emphasis on tf) in and i erase the rest of that h*e.

now to add coloring, i pop whatever coloring psd into that document and then going back to the picture cutout, i right click it and click select pixels. then i go to the coloring folder and click it. once the layer is clicked, i go up the window to layer > layer mask > reveal selection. this is to make sure that when you save the icon as a png, the coloring will only show up on your icon and it won’t dull the space around it, making it not a png. (wow did that make sense?? ok. cool.)

after i add doodles on a new layer if i feel like adding them, and since i want them to pop out of the circle too, i add a drop shadow to the doodles.

now if you have a picture that’s already cutout before you start or you want to fully cut the person from the bg before you start, that’s no problem. you’ll still have to follow the steps to resize the cutout and delete everything outside the circle minus the head or whatever you want to stick out. to add coloring select the cutout and follow the steps above, and to change the bg of the circle just right click that circle layer > blending options > color overlay.

so the first thing to do is open up the photo that you want to use.

the next step is to crop the picture into a square.

then resize it going to image > image size.

after that, open up the coloring/texture you want to use on the icon and duplicate the folder into the doc that holds your icon, and then that’s it! you have your first rp icon. save it as a jpeg. 

to add your own borders you can do this in different ways:

go to image > canvas size and increase the canvas size to about 130-140.

if you’re keeping the square shape the next step is to make sure that the coloring stays on the image only. right-click the image layer and hit select pixels. then click the folder containing the coloring making sure it’s selected. next go to layer > layer mask > reveal selection. it should look like this:

for borders: right-click the image layer > go to blending options > and add a drop-shadow or add a stroke. play around with the settings to get the border you want then save it as a png: (the pngs look different then the ss bc i forgot to save them each after and i had to redo them soz)

now for a 3D profile photo you just need to crop your original photo into the shape of your desire then go to image > image size and adjust the size to 100. then go to image > canvas size and make it at least 130, (i do 140). after that right-click your image layer and go to blending options and select drop shadow. below are my settings but you can play around with it to your liking.

and you can also add bevel & emboss if you want. 

1. DIRECTLY FROM PHOTOSHOP

so you want to start with a photo or gif with the timeline on (if you don't have it in your workspace, you can put it in window > timeline). for this example i'll use one of the iconic vlad seb pics.

after that, you need to add a new layer on top of the picture/gif and select the brush tool. now adjust the brush settings to your liking. in my case i decided to go with the hard round brush size 4 px at 100% hardness. now you can write your text like so:

then you need to lower the opacity of that layer. here i would recommend a 25% opacity:

so it looks like this:

now what you want to do is, in another layer, write the same text on top of the previous text. it doesn't have to be perfect because that is what makes the doodle effect, but i wouldn't change too much of it either

repeat this (each time in another layer) the times you want. i usually do 3 layers but you could do 2 or 4. when you're done, make sure to turn the opacity all the way up again for the first layer, and to make all layers visible.

then we have to change the duration of each layer to around 0.4 - 0.5 seconds, and then put one next to the other like so:

now what i do is i put the layers in a group, then select the 3 layers and duplicate them, then grab those three and put them next to the original 3 layers. do this as many times as necessary (in gifs make sure the text is the same length as the gif)

now we export it and it looks like this:

if you feel like the text moves too fast, i would recommend opening that gif and change the speed, otherwise it's too much of a hassle.

it works the same with gifs, for example i used this method for the outline of this gifset:

2. WITH AN EXTERNAL TABLET

this method is basically the same, but if you want more precision with the doodles, i would recommend using a tablet using a layers based app. i used the app Sketchbook for the charles gifset.

to make this easier for myself i start with a black background and write the words with a white brush. i follow the same steps as with photoshop, making three layers and then exporting each layer without the black background, but rather a transparent one.

and then you follow the same steps as the photoshop version! make sure these exports are all in the same folder in photoshop, so if you need to shrink the doodles, you shrink them all