#totalnerdstutorials

okay so I use photoshop for my editing 

once you have your image all set up your document should look something like this:

first I use the paint bucket tool to fill in the background behind Daisy:

and behind the paint bucket tool is the gradient tool which is the main point of the tutorial (the keyboard shortcut is G):

the key to this tutorial is to use layers, I find that my gradients always look better when I have each step on a different layer:

I typically end up using three layers, one for the highlight, one for the color, and the third for the main background:

on the very bottom layer underneath daisy I use the paint bucket tool and from  the swatches pick out a nice shade of blue:

your document should look something like this:

now I do the highlight, to find the highlight for the icon I look at the character and with the white swatch and the gradient tool I recreate where the light is coming from on the layer above the background:

then I go and do something similar on the layer above that with a different color to get that gradient look:

feel free to experiment with colors! this is the main reason why I put the gradients on seperate layers so that I can experiment with color combinations 

blue and a dark pink:

yellow and that same dark pink

purple and green

okay now comes the coloring part

I always just do a new adjustment layer and play around with things until it looks good, I really wish I could add specifically what works best but I found that for the best icons to just make a new PSD for every single one

be sure to click on that small arrow in the properties box so that you are editing the picture to go with the gradient and not the whole canvas the arrow is pointing down to indicate you are only working on that one particular layer

Daisy looks much better now!

now I select parts of her clothes to do some additional coloring fun;

I chose to do her shirt underneath the vest and using a new adjustment layer I did color balance and now I just slide around  the bars till it looks good

then experiment with different colors and different gradients

finally, I just find a white texture (usually on google images) and I open it to the document and put it above all the gradient layers but underneath the character layer and change the mode to color burn

and that leaves you with: