Getting Started:
First you'll want to start off by creating a new canvas. For the purpose of this tutorial, I've made mine at 400 pixels by 400 pixels at 72 ppi with a black background.
Next, make a new layer and, using the marquee tool, draw a circle approximately 375 pixels in diameter and fill it with white. This will serve as the white part of the eye or the "sclera". In fact, go ahead and name that layer "Sclera".
Now we want to give it a more three-dimensional look. In the layers pallet, add an inner shadow from the layer effects dialogue. These are the parameters I chose:
Now we have a sphere:
The Iris:
The Iris of the eye is what comes next. You can choose any color you like but I chose brown (#50280e) because that's what color mine are. So on another new layer draw another circle approximately 190 pixels in diameter and fill it with your color.
Now here's the fun part. With the iris still selected, create a new layer and choose a soft paintbrush with a diameter of 170 and give it a setting of "dissolve". click once right in the middle of the circle selection with a lighter color (In this case I chose #FF6600).
With the circle still selected, go to the top drop-down menu: Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. In the motion blur dialogue box, choose "zoom", set the amount to 50 and click "ok".
Now duplicate that layer, lock it in the layers pallet and fill it with black. Then move it below the light colored layer and, using the drop-down menu, choose Edit > Free Transform (Ctrl+t). Rotate it just a little.
Now merge these two layers together and name the layer "Zoom". While still maintaining the circle selection on the iris and with the "Zoom" layer selected, choose the ZigZag filter from the drop-down menu (Filter > Distort >Zigzag). In the dialogue, set the amount to 3 and the ridges to 5.
To the brown iris layer, add an inner shadow effect to darken the edges on the iris. Here are the settings I used:
Add another layer above the zoom layer and make a black circle about 90 pixels in diameter for the pupil.
Now you have a pretty good eyeball but it lacks realism. We need to add lighting and more detail.
Reflection:
Since the surface of the eye is supposed to be shiny, we need to add some light reflection. Add a layer above the pupil layer and draw an ellipse using the round marquee tool and fill it with white.
For the next step, you can use a mask, but I'm lazy so I just used a soft eraser brush to make the bottom of the ellipse fade to transparent.
Now use Free Transform (Ctrl + T) to rotate the ellipse and position it toward the light source (in this case, upper left).
The cornea of the eye sits on top of the iri and is filled with clear liquid that creates magnification. In order to acheive the illusion of light refraction through the cornea we only have to complete three very simple steps...
First, duplicate the ellipse and move it to the opposite side of the iris from the first ellipse.
Second, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussion Blur from the drop-down menu and give the layer a 3 pixel blur.
Last, on the layers pallet, change the layer setting from "Normal" to "Overlay".
Blood Vessels:
That looks pretty good, but there is one thing that just doesn't look real. The first layer we made called "sclera" is too perfect. There is not enough Viseen in the world to make an eye that clear. So we need to add a little bloodshot.
There are a few different ways to do this, but the best and quickest way that I've come up with is to utilize the old Photoshop lightning effect. That's the one where you create a gradient, hit it with Difference Clouds, invert it and adjust the levels. But for this we'll forego the invert part and add a couple of twists...
Create a new layer above the sclera layer. On this you'll want to create a black and white gradient with multiple frequencies. Be sure to end your pattern with the same color you started with. Here is the way I did it:
Be sure to set your gradient type to "angle" and draw from the center of your canvas to one of the corners. You'll get something that looks like this:
Now go to Filter > Create > Difference Clouds in your drop-down menu.
Now its time to adjust your levels (Ctrl + L). Here are my settings:
And that gave me this:
Now adjust the hue and saturation of this layer (Ctrl +U). Make sure you have "Colorize" checked and adjust until you have a nice red color instead of black.
Go to Filter > Distort > Ripple in the drop-down menu. Select a size of "large" and set the amount to 45% and then hit "ok".
Duplicate that layer, rotate it a little and hit it with the same Ripple filter. You can do this with Ctrl + F, which applies the last filter you used.
Now merge these two layers together and set them from "Normal" to "Multiply" on the layers pallet.
Now, using a soft brush, erase some of the blood vessels until a more natural appearance is acheived.
If the spacing of the blood vessels still looks a little too uniform you can duplicate the layer and rotate it as I have done here:
Finishing Touches:
Now we're almost done. There is just one last thing to do to the slera to give it a more realistic feel.
Create a new layer above the blood vessels and, with the paintbrush tool, select a brush called "spatter 59". This is in the default Photoshop brushes.
With white as your forground color, click once in the shaded area of the sclera then give the layer a gaussian blur of one pixel. This gives the illusion of a second, lesser light source.
Now you can add another, smaller relection to the cornea, like we did earlier, to help account for the second light source.
And you're done!
First you'll want to start off by creating a new canvas. For the purpose of this tutorial, I've made mine at 400 pixels by 400 pixels at 72 ppi with a black background.
Next, make a new layer and, using the marquee tool, draw a circle approximately 375 pixels in diameter and fill it with white. This will serve as the white part of the eye or the "sclera". In fact, go ahead and name that layer "Sclera".
Now we want to give it a more three-dimensional look. In the layers pallet, add an inner shadow from the layer effects dialogue. These are the parameters I chose:
Now we have a sphere:
The Iris:
The Iris of the eye is what comes next. You can choose any color you like but I chose brown (#50280e) because that's what color mine are. So on another new layer draw another circle approximately 190 pixels in diameter and fill it with your color.
Now here's the fun part. With the iris still selected, create a new layer and choose a soft paintbrush with a diameter of 170 and give it a setting of "dissolve". click once right in the middle of the circle selection with a lighter color (In this case I chose #FF6600).
With the circle still selected, go to the top drop-down menu: Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. In the motion blur dialogue box, choose "zoom", set the amount to 50 and click "ok".
Now merge these two layers together and name the layer "Zoom". While still maintaining the circle selection on the iris and with the "Zoom" layer selected, choose the ZigZag filter from the drop-down menu (Filter > Distort >Zigzag). In the dialogue, set the amount to 3 and the ridges to 5.
To the brown iris layer, add an inner shadow effect to darken the edges on the iris. Here are the settings I used:
Now you have a pretty good eyeball but it lacks realism. We need to add lighting and more detail.
Reflection:
Since the surface of the eye is supposed to be shiny, we need to add some light reflection. Add a layer above the pupil layer and draw an ellipse using the round marquee tool and fill it with white.
For the next step, you can use a mask, but I'm lazy so I just used a soft eraser brush to make the bottom of the ellipse fade to transparent.
Now use Free Transform (Ctrl + T) to rotate the ellipse and position it toward the light source (in this case, upper left).
The cornea of the eye sits on top of the iri and is filled with clear liquid that creates magnification. In order to acheive the illusion of light refraction through the cornea we only have to complete three very simple steps...
First, duplicate the ellipse and move it to the opposite side of the iris from the first ellipse.
Second, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussion Blur from the drop-down menu and give the layer a 3 pixel blur.
Last, on the layers pallet, change the layer setting from "Normal" to "Overlay".
Blood Vessels:
That looks pretty good, but there is one thing that just doesn't look real. The first layer we made called "sclera" is too perfect. There is not enough Viseen in the world to make an eye that clear. So we need to add a little bloodshot.
There are a few different ways to do this, but the best and quickest way that I've come up with is to utilize the old Photoshop lightning effect. That's the one where you create a gradient, hit it with Difference Clouds, invert it and adjust the levels. But for this we'll forego the invert part and add a couple of twists...
Create a new layer above the sclera layer. On this you'll want to create a black and white gradient with multiple frequencies. Be sure to end your pattern with the same color you started with. Here is the way I did it:
Now go to Filter > Create > Difference Clouds in your drop-down menu.
Now its time to adjust your levels (Ctrl + L). Here are my settings:
Now adjust the hue and saturation of this layer (Ctrl +U). Make sure you have "Colorize" checked and adjust until you have a nice red color instead of black.
Duplicate that layer, rotate it a little and hit it with the same Ripple filter. You can do this with Ctrl + F, which applies the last filter you used.
Now merge these two layers together and set them from "Normal" to "Multiply" on the layers pallet.
Now, using a soft brush, erase some of the blood vessels until a more natural appearance is acheived.
If the spacing of the blood vessels still looks a little too uniform you can duplicate the layer and rotate it as I have done here:
Now we're almost done. There is just one last thing to do to the slera to give it a more realistic feel.
Create a new layer above the blood vessels and, with the paintbrush tool, select a brush called "spatter 59". This is in the default Photoshop brushes.
With white as your forground color, click once in the shaded area of the sclera then give the layer a gaussian blur of one pixel. This gives the illusion of a second, lesser light source.
And you're done!
Jason Quinten Kincade
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Superb!
Great work---I hope to see more from you,
JQK
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