My First Icon

[dakhun]

I was cleaning up my hard drive the other day when I discovered a discarded attempt to create my first icon for LJ. I was struck by the amount of time that I obviously must have wasted on this project because after all that work tracing out the stray hairs by hand... I threw the whole thing out, and went with a much simpler crop! I obviously had

Comments

[porsupah]

This all reminds me just how much fun hiking and photography are, and how well they go together. When special wildlife moments like that crop up, it's such a thrill - a moment to attempt to capture, to see if you can manage to catch maybe a special glance or leap, or even some socialisation, if there's more than just the one.

It's been rather a while since I made any new icons, ne? I ought to correct that. ^_^ It's perhaps a little surprising just how tricky it can be, sometimes, to come up with an icon that's just right - crop too closely, and you won't see much of the image. Too wide, and you won't see what's meant to be the star, once it's all shrunk down to 100x100

[dakhun]

My biggest challenge when it comes to making icons is that I really want to make them out of photographs of cougars and big cats. But they often look so glowery and serious, even when they are happy. :-< Every so often though, there is a flash of expression, like the icon on this comment, that looks like a slight smile, or this picture of a happy leopard who looks like he has such a grin on his face. ;-) I'd have to spend some time to do something about the bars if I wanted to make that an icon though.

My last really long photowalk was in 2011. Since then, every time I've had a lot of free time in the summer there's been a long list of things to do around the house. I have gotten out for several shorter hikes with my camera the past few years, but nothing really outstanding in the way of wildlife showed up, just waterfalls, lakes, and streams.

[geddcoon]

I was just shown, this morning, the "Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation" of Animaniacs. I either never saw it before, or I completely forgot about it. That kind of brought me back to those days past, and some of the folks I knew from that time. I briefly looked to see if there was an article describing any direct references between the characters in the episode to the usenet people, but didn't find one. How times have changed!

[dakhun]

That cartoon was written using tidbits of information assembled in the first CRGA (Cultural References Guide for Animaniacs) episodes 1-69. There is no specific document that lists which reference in PPPGALF belongs to which person, but you can figure it out by searching and cross-referencing if you so desire, or you might search Usenet archives for alt.tv.animaniacs just after PPPGALF first aired. The four geeks in the cartoon combine statements made by different people, so there are not just four people being referenced. Also, they are not exact quotes in most cases. The people are probably the same ones who attended Animania IV, plus a few others like me and Will Bell that drifted away from a.t.a before then. In my case, I drifted away from a.t.a because Warner Brothers stopped showing Animaniacs on Fox, so I had no way of seeing the show in Canada until it came out on DVD

[geddcoon]

Thanks for the resources. I had almost forgotten how much thought and detail went into the appreciation of these shows.

[dakhun]

Among all the ground squirrels and picas, marmots are relatively less common. Also, their larger size than the other rodents makes them somewhat more self-assured, I think. So that makes for a special experience when you finally meet one at fairly short range.