march 2010
These are from the first few batches I was willing to ~share with the world~ although I've gone back and looked at the old posts, still with 0 comments. I was having lots of trouble with sharpening and getting a coloring that wasn't absolutely disgusting or mind-blowingly boring. I almost like that first one though...
april 2010
I joined two lady gaga themed icontests, so that was all I made the whole month. Ugh, these are all either too bright or way too dark. I remember being INCREDIBLY proud of the last four, lol.
may 2010
OMG, I thought I had hit the big leagues because I finally managed to make a text icon that didn't look like a gross remnant of 2002. I was ECSTATIC about these icons, thought I was pretty hot stuff. You can tell I was trying to create some interesting colors, but... ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
june 2010
This is when I learned about the joys and wonders of textures and light blobs, and I abused them all over.
july 2010
I started to play with coloring a lot more, and I think this is when I chucked every crop out the window, EXCEPT for center crop. :\
august 2010
This was the highlight of my iconmaking career for a looooooooong time. IDK, I guess August was a big month for me because I'd just gone on summer break and was really bored. I was still doing those gross light blob smudge things.
september 2010
Pretty much everything was brown and gross. I was just starting to try my hand at screencaps, and I had NO idea what I was doing.
october 2010
When I first made
this post, I thought that I could retire then and there, because I would never be able to improve upon these ~glorious~ icons. I started making my own textures around this time though, and it encouraged me to work with them more, resulting in me figuring them out a little bit better. Believe it or not, I didn't know anything about masking until this time. At this time I was also using a PSD I'd created for EVERYTHING, trying to recreate my coloring from my one
gaga20in20 entry.
november 2010
I was still doing these gross brown icons, but during this month I had created a set of really colorful icon textures, and I was determined to use them ALL, so I learned how to color screencaps!
december 2010
Still experimenting with lots of color!
january 2011
I was really lost at this point, and reading a lot of Q&A's by other makers, trying to find what I liked, and what I didn't. EDIT: I just realized how lost I was... I had made a fake account for myself to post model & stock icons, because I thought I was going to single-handedly bring back fashion icons, lol. I only made one post,
here, and then promptly forgot the PW to that account, and realized what a lame faux-hipster P.O.S. that community was. I still have the coloring PSD's I made for that set of icons, if anyone wants them. Here are some samples:
february 2011
LOL, IDK, I tried to be all thoughtful with these. I got really into Justified, which I still love, but OMG so many dark, indoors caps, too hard to color!
march 2011
Hmmm, somewhere along the lines, I started to join elite communities, which may have influenced my icons for better or for worse.
april 2011
IDK, gradients.
may 2011
I broke out my tablet and went to town coloring different sections of the icon in soft light to try to bring out the colors, and TBH I really liked the results.
now
Yet again, I'm lost and I don't know what I want with my icons anymore. I just know that I need to improve.
If you like my icons, you can find them at
aquatilitis. ♥