My 2014 in icons
Not certain that I made any progress in skills but my coloring evolved a little towards the more vibrant end of the spectrum. Actually, just making icons was a surprise.
My first accomplishment was to icon! I had a three year hiatus. When I'd left off iconning, I had been feeling as if I'd finally developed an eye, was okay with text, and could manipulate images to be as I wanted. I wasn't the most talented maker out there but I felt competent. In the hiatus, I lost my hard drive, which meant my favorite textures, fonts, brushes, caps...everything was gone. Including Photoshop. Coming back? I couldn't remember the shortcut to stamp visible (one of my favorite tricks to preserve all layers). I had to set up all my favorite tool presets. Suffice it to say that there were a lot of reasons not to icon but I did it anyway so I'm counting that as an accomplishment.
April 2014
I wasn't confident about the crops or colorings I was creating; text became my ally in adding something as a new twist. I concentrated on color (1-3), texture (3, 7), dramatic shadows (4, 6), and creating parts of the icon (1, 8) from nothing when caps cut off at the wrong place.
May 2014
I liked only a few of the icons I made this month; mostly I was flailing. The previous month I'd heavily relied on icontests to identify interesting caps to icon. I'd lost my "eye" for picking interesting angles. I was back to choosing pretty close-ups of pretty faces. I stuck with text as a way to try to lift an otherwise "eh" crop/color job to something more interesting. Not having confidence that the image conveyed the mood/thought I was aiming for, I added text to spell it out.
June 2014
I'm very happy with these icons, which stand out amongst the over-topazed icons I made that month. In fact, I love these. I feel like the coloring is what I wanted. The shadows are dramatic when I wanted. Text was starting to bend to my will. Iconning a comic freed me compositionally. It's impossible to capture the fierce brilliance of C&H with just a crop and the comic as drawn & lettered is often illegible when cropped to 100x100. I was forced to work on my weakest skill, composition, in an attempt to convey the creator's intent. I worked on these C&H icons for months before posting them but I'm pleased with the results.
July 2014
I branched out into fandoms outside my mains and revisited old faves as an exercise. I thought the results mixed. Most icons were drably colored, although I was starting to figure out how to create more vivid coloring towards the end. I created a lot of close-up crops. Some of the things I was most proud of in that post are invisible. For example, icon #1 originally had an elaborate shower piping behind the character. I carefully created the background and was pleased with it; of course, nobody knew because it was literally not there!
August 2014
Stiles! His turn as villain yielded such delicious caps. Nobody seemed to love my pun "Migue-Hale" but I amused myself. I tried to move away from so many close-ups (#2 & #5) but I will always gravitate to pretty faces.
September 2014
Time was I HATED outdoors scenery caps but I've learned to love them. I love the first icon because the original shot was brown and dead. I ended up with an icon that looks autumnal, with pretty colors. My first (and only!) animated icon in the new PS environment. I struggled with the "gun to his head" cap multiple times. I knew there was an icon in it but it took me five different tries over a series of months to find it.
November 2014
Color. This post was about glorious, delicious color in various fandoms. Still lots of close-ups but also some outdoor scenery.
My first accomplishment was to icon! I had a three year hiatus. When I'd left off iconning, I had been feeling as if I'd finally developed an eye, was okay with text, and could manipulate images to be as I wanted. I wasn't the most talented maker out there but I felt competent. In the hiatus, I lost my hard drive, which meant my favorite textures, fonts, brushes, caps...everything was gone. Including Photoshop. Coming back? I couldn't remember the shortcut to stamp visible (one of my favorite tricks to preserve all layers). I had to set up all my favorite tool presets. Suffice it to say that there were a lot of reasons not to icon but I did it anyway so I'm counting that as an accomplishment.
April 2014
I wasn't confident about the crops or colorings I was creating; text became my ally in adding something as a new twist. I concentrated on color (1-3), texture (3, 7), dramatic shadows (4, 6), and creating parts of the icon (1, 8) from nothing when caps cut off at the wrong place.
May 2014
I liked only a few of the icons I made this month; mostly I was flailing. The previous month I'd heavily relied on icontests to identify interesting caps to icon. I'd lost my "eye" for picking interesting angles. I was back to choosing pretty close-ups of pretty faces. I stuck with text as a way to try to lift an otherwise "eh" crop/color job to something more interesting. Not having confidence that the image conveyed the mood/thought I was aiming for, I added text to spell it out.
June 2014
I'm very happy with these icons, which stand out amongst the over-topazed icons I made that month. In fact, I love these. I feel like the coloring is what I wanted. The shadows are dramatic when I wanted. Text was starting to bend to my will. Iconning a comic freed me compositionally. It's impossible to capture the fierce brilliance of C&H with just a crop and the comic as drawn & lettered is often illegible when cropped to 100x100. I was forced to work on my weakest skill, composition, in an attempt to convey the creator's intent. I worked on these C&H icons for months before posting them but I'm pleased with the results.
July 2014
I branched out into fandoms outside my mains and revisited old faves as an exercise. I thought the results mixed. Most icons were drably colored, although I was starting to figure out how to create more vivid coloring towards the end. I created a lot of close-up crops. Some of the things I was most proud of in that post are invisible. For example, icon #1 originally had an elaborate shower piping behind the character. I carefully created the background and was pleased with it; of course, nobody knew because it was literally not there!
August 2014
Stiles! His turn as villain yielded such delicious caps. Nobody seemed to love my pun "Migue-Hale" but I amused myself. I tried to move away from so many close-ups (#2 & #5) but I will always gravitate to pretty faces.
September 2014
Time was I HATED outdoors scenery caps but I've learned to love them. I love the first icon because the original shot was brown and dead. I ended up with an icon that looks autumnal, with pretty colors. My first (and only!) animated icon in the new PS environment. I struggled with the "gun to his head" cap multiple times. I knew there was an icon in it but it took me five different tries over a series of months to find it.
November 2014
Color. This post was about glorious, delicious color in various fandoms. Still lots of close-ups but also some outdoor scenery.