Creating Eyes in Photoshop for Second Life

Saw this on another site, but its gone now. So, here goes, enjoy!

1. Open a new document 256/256 pixels, 72.. leave that alone

2. Double click on the background layer, so that it wouldn't be locked. That would be the white eyeball layer. Make sure that is the top most layer.

3. Create a new layer. That would be your eyeball color. On that same color, choose two different colors to make a strip across the top and bottom. Say for instance, you had a light blue, you would use a dark blue strip or a white strip. Or if you want to do something funky, you could use a grey or a yellow, in the end, it'll mesh up and you probably won't see it.

4. Now, you go to your filters > Noise > Add noise. your settings should be 15/Gaussian/monocromic

5. Then Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. The settings should be 90/700 pixels. You should have lines that go straight up and down.

6. Now go to Filter > Distort > Polar Coordinates. Make sure its rectangular to polar, or else it won't look right. >.>

7. Now since you got that out of the way, go back to your white layer. You can use your ruler to drag down onto the picture, make sure that the lines snap to the middle so that you have a point to put your pupil.. (That little black thing in the middle of the eyes, yuh, I failed anatomy.) Now, once you've done that, go to your Elipictical Marquee tool. Make sure that you don't do a huge circle, or else you'll wind up with an alien eye. Nasty! Or not, depending on your mood >.> Once you've got your right circle, hit control X to delete the white space. Then you have the startings of your eyebawls.

8. On that same white layer, use your brush to draw veins. If you're good, you can use lightening tendrils, but I'm too lazy to fish my brushes so I just draw it. Make sure that the brush is set to pink, then draw the lines. (Brush size would have to be small, I use 7 so the veins could stand out.) Once you're done drawing, go to Filter > Blur> Gaussian Blur. The number on that is shady, so just blur it until it looks comfortable.

9. Now, create a new layer. Hold down the alt key to do that, and click on the new layer icon. An option will pop. Make sure that you choose overlay, and that the background is filled with the neutral color grey. By now, the layers should be in this order. White Background/Grey filled background/Eyeball color.

10. Make sure that ALL of the layers are visible, but make sure that you have the grey layer highllighted. You'll be working on that for a bit. Your dodge tool should be set to highlights/20%, your burn tool to shadow/20%. I use any density, because it doesn't matter really at the end. Begin shading, start at the middle or and go outwards towards the eye. Its best to use highlights first, because the shadows would only enhance the COLOR OF THE EYE. Use at your discretion also.

11. Now once that is done, you can make your pupil. That goes without saying. just make a black circle in the middle of the eye and your done.

12. For the outline, you just make a new layer. Say that your eye is the basic blue, you could either use blue or black to define it. I choose to use black since it stands out more. On that layer, just draw a circle, MAKE SURE ALL LAYERS ARE SELECTED WHEN YOU DO THIS. Because when you do, you can see how the outline is going. It doesn't have to be perfect either. Then you go to filter > Blur > Gaussian blur to blend the black/blue which ever color you chose to use into the eye itself.

(What wasn't on the site)

*Tips and tricks*

You can use a ton of brushes to add on to the eye, but if you want to add some color around the pupil, this is what I did.

I made a new layer which would settle in the middle of the layers.. don't matter where its placed, as long as it stays IN THE MIDDLE.

I picked a color that would look decent along with the blue, or if you want to go wacky, do yellow or green. I drew a circle around the iris, it doesn't matter, and I used the blur and the smudge tool to show speckles. I blurred it first, it didn't matter which setting, as long as it looked as if it were spread. Then I smudged the colors outward towards the ending of the eye itself. (Towards the white.)

Also, if you don't want to do that, its best to use reflections to give the eye a bit of character. All you need is a decent sized brush (I used calligraphy brushes, or just the basic circle brush.) And drew them in. Just make a half C, or make a jelly bean shape. Small little arcs here and there. When I do this, I make a new layer so that I wouldn't mess up the eye itself. Everything that you want to try, you use a new layer, so that you could easily delete it without damaging the half-finished product.