potentiality_26

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I talked about making some new icons so my collection would better reflect my current interests back in January, and what do you know I'm still working on it. I really like the cap of Raffles smiling that I worked with during the Snowflake Challenge, but I wasn't quite happy with the icon I made, so I kept fiddling.

The original vs. the new version:

It's much nicer.

The irony, of course, is that having learned some nice tricks to make things less beige (thanks

firestorm717 for the levels tip, the 'set white point' tool in particular is a life saver), I ended up putting yellow and brown textures on it until it was... well... beige again. I do like it, though I wonder if it doesn't still need... something.

I also made an icon for The Terror that I'm pleased with:

(That show really came for my life y'all)

Idk. Some things work for me right away. Some things I poke for six months.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

firestorm717

Love the new Raffles icon! You should make it your default ^_^. As for what else it needs, you could try putting an overlay gradient. I have one that I like, which is kind of dark red/auburn to light yellow. I'd also brighten the eye area a bit if possible, since the shadows kind of obscure Raffles's expression.

The Terror icon is perfect! Did you finish the series yet? I got all the way through the Carnivale episode and then couldn't go any further. It was too depressing even for me!

From:

potentiality_26

I'll give those tricks a try!

Thank you! Yeah I did finish it. For some reason it wasn't too sad/dark for me, I just had really a lot of feelings. It's interesting that it was so popular, though, because it is tough to recommend to people. It's like "bad things happen constantly and everyone dies, but in... like... a good way."

From:

thisbluespirit

I like the improved version! As to further lightening it/making it less beige, soft light layers can help. (i.e. a light blue/cyan/light pink/purple fill layer, then set to soft light), also curves, and screen layers, adjusted as you please.

Do you already follow

icontalking? It's pretty good for icon chatting and experimenting with new ways of making them (with no voting). But they've just had an Ask the Maker activity, full of tutorials and resources and you can look at the tag to see the previous years.

I have some bookmarked icon resources here, too, although some of the LJ ones have vanished or lost the screenshots since. (I think I checked them last year, so the remaining ones should be working.)

I like the Terror one! Why are icons so much fun and so addictive...?

From:

potentiality_26

I use do curves a fair bit, but I'll give the colors on soft light a try and see why I get.

Those resources look great, thank you! ("Improve Matthew Macfadyen's right eye in seven easy steps" is such a great title lol)

I like to work on icons while listening to podcasts. It seems like the right amount of concentration for both tasks.

From:

thisbluespirit

I do a lot of work with 70s screencaps as well, and soft light layers (especially blue-coloured ones) are v good for counter-acting the eternal beigeness of cardboard telly - but the MM tutorial is actually a pretty good look at how you can build up colour using lots of different kinds of layers, which I should probably remember to try myself. (I tend to do the duplicate in soft light x2/3 then duplicate screen layers x2-3 and adjust and then work from there.) It's hard to get them lighter without things getting grainy or washed out, but it can be done!

From:

potentiality_26

Yeah, that tutorial looked promising that way!

Your icons from 70s caps look great <3 A lot of the tricks I've been using came from this tutorial post, and with 70s caps some of those methods seem to deepen the contrast too much? Like I end up with major shadows and blinding foreheads.

Idk. Experimenting is the only way to learn, and I'm having fun with it.