Ask the Maker Questions - Part 1
You can still ask me stuff at my ask the maker thread @ icon_talk :D
asked by afeastforme
Questions:
♦ how do you chose your caps? i mean, you keep in mind a particular scene you want to make icons of or you just go through the caps untill you see something that catches your eyes?
→ I generally pick my images I want to icon while sorting through my own screencaps. I make tons and tons of caps, and while I sort through them to remove blurry / bad caps, I copy caps I like into a seperate folder and try to icon them at some point.
I also do spot scenes in my favourite shows and make a note to icon them! Especially beautiful shows like Doctor Who, Merlin & Sherlock.
Finally, I often focus on a specific character (I have my faves, Morgana and Amy Pond to name a couple :p), and I just save as many caps of them as possible and randomly make icons.
I do however have a rather specific process... Not like look for a cap -> make icon, more like save hundreds of caps one day and make the icons another (and even my icon making process generally happens over a few days)
♦ and once you've a cap you like, what do you do? crop and color or color then crop?
→ I always colour first. I tend to go quite overboard with colours which sadly degrades the image quality, and resizing afterwards allows to tone than down. I also crop after since sometimes playing around with colour brings out something unexpected in a corner of a cap I may have missed if I had resized & cropped first.
♦ what pushes you yo write on icons? (your text on icons seems always part of the cap, like it was already there >_< and i don't get how's that possibile since i can't just use the text tool!)
→ First of all, thank you. I generally hate my text on icons. I have a rule though, if I have a doubt about text on an icon, I take it out, which is why most of my icons are textless. I do however have a few things I always do with text:
- use a simple font. Anything elaborate just looks wrong IMO. Here are some of my faves: League Gothic, Tw Cen MT, Myriad Pro, Goudy Bookletter 1911, Nouvelle Vague... I do try to use a font that suits the icon (for example, for a show like Merlin that has a somewhat historical/mythological setting, I use a serif font more often than not).
- play around with kerning (spacing between letters), uppercase, bold, italic... to give your text a little oommph.
- soften your text. I generally find the text to be too sharp, even when set on smooth, so I rasterise the text layer and use the blur tool (keep the strength low to keep your text readable).
- work with layer styles. I often use a gradient overlay and some glow or drop shadow to make sure the text stands out from the background.
- finally, if you use textures and gradients, try moving your text layer under various other layers, it can help make the text a proper part of the icon, rather than appear just slapped ontop.
♦ how to you "choose" your color palette?
- Well, I try to work with colours that I find suit the feel of the image or the scene it's from. Or I'll be lazy and just work with the colours in the cap or my fave colours :D As long as they are vibrant!
Tutorial #1
to
1. Duplicate base, set to screen
2. Duplicate layer, set to soft light
3. Create curves layer
4. Create Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +80
5. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Green / Green +100
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +100
6. Create a Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +70, Duplicate layer
7. Add colour texture (made by myself), set to Soft Light
8. Create Gradient Fill, White from the top.
9. Create Gradient Fill, Black from bottom
10. Create Levels layer, RGB +20 / 1.00 / 255
11. Create Colour Balance layer, Midtones: Yellow/Blue: -21
12. Create Channel Mixer Layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +100, Blue +25
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +76
13. Create Curves layer
14. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +100, Blue +16
15. Resize & crop:
* This is meant to be a guide, please do not copy the steps exactly as I did them.
Tutorial #2
to
1. Duplicate base, set to screen
2. Duplicate layer, set to soft light
3. Create curves layer
4. Create Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +80
5. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Green / Green +100
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +100
6. Create a colour balance layer, set midtones to:
Cyan/Red: +50
Yellow/Blue: -60
7. Create a vibrance layer, set vibrance +60
8. Create a channel mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +70
9. Add gradient fill layer, black at the bottom
10. Create new layer, with a large paint brush, paint in white over Morgana's face. Blur layer and set to soft light
11. Create a colour balance layer, set midtones to:
Yellow/Blue: +15
12. Sharpen, resize & crop
asked by sarisafari
Questions:
do you do anything special when you sharpen? Your icons always have the best balance between blur and sharpen
→ I try to sharpen gradually, for example, if I have a 2000px wide screencap, I'll sharpen once, resize to 1000px wide, sharpen again, resize and so on. Generally speaking, I always sharpen before resizing.
ex:
sharpened before vs. sharpened after
asked by afeastforme
Questions:
♦ how do you chose your caps? i mean, you keep in mind a particular scene you want to make icons of or you just go through the caps untill you see something that catches your eyes?
→ I generally pick my images I want to icon while sorting through my own screencaps. I make tons and tons of caps, and while I sort through them to remove blurry / bad caps, I copy caps I like into a seperate folder and try to icon them at some point.
I also do spot scenes in my favourite shows and make a note to icon them! Especially beautiful shows like Doctor Who, Merlin & Sherlock.
Finally, I often focus on a specific character (I have my faves, Morgana and Amy Pond to name a couple :p), and I just save as many caps of them as possible and randomly make icons.
I do however have a rather specific process... Not like look for a cap -> make icon, more like save hundreds of caps one day and make the icons another (and even my icon making process generally happens over a few days)
♦ and once you've a cap you like, what do you do? crop and color or color then crop?
→ I always colour first. I tend to go quite overboard with colours which sadly degrades the image quality, and resizing afterwards allows to tone than down. I also crop after since sometimes playing around with colour brings out something unexpected in a corner of a cap I may have missed if I had resized & cropped first.
♦ what pushes you yo write on icons? (your text on icons seems always part of the cap, like it was already there >_< and i don't get how's that possibile since i can't just use the text tool!)
→ First of all, thank you. I generally hate my text on icons. I have a rule though, if I have a doubt about text on an icon, I take it out, which is why most of my icons are textless. I do however have a few things I always do with text:
- use a simple font. Anything elaborate just looks wrong IMO. Here are some of my faves: League Gothic, Tw Cen MT, Myriad Pro, Goudy Bookletter 1911, Nouvelle Vague... I do try to use a font that suits the icon (for example, for a show like Merlin that has a somewhat historical/mythological setting, I use a serif font more often than not).
- play around with kerning (spacing between letters), uppercase, bold, italic... to give your text a little oommph.
- soften your text. I generally find the text to be too sharp, even when set on smooth, so I rasterise the text layer and use the blur tool (keep the strength low to keep your text readable).
- work with layer styles. I often use a gradient overlay and some glow or drop shadow to make sure the text stands out from the background.
- finally, if you use textures and gradients, try moving your text layer under various other layers, it can help make the text a proper part of the icon, rather than appear just slapped ontop.
♦ how to you "choose" your color palette?
- Well, I try to work with colours that I find suit the feel of the image or the scene it's from. Or I'll be lazy and just work with the colours in the cap or my fave colours :D As long as they are vibrant!
Tutorial #1
to
1. Duplicate base, set to screen
2. Duplicate layer, set to soft light
3. Create curves layer
4. Create Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +80
5. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Green / Green +100
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +100
6. Create a Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +70, Duplicate layer
7. Add colour texture (made by myself), set to Soft Light
8. Create Gradient Fill, White from the top.
9. Create Gradient Fill, Black from bottom
10. Create Levels layer, RGB +20 / 1.00 / 255
11. Create Colour Balance layer, Midtones: Yellow/Blue: -21
12. Create Channel Mixer Layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +100, Blue +25
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +76
13. Create Curves layer
14. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +100, Blue +16
15. Resize & crop:
* This is meant to be a guide, please do not copy the steps exactly as I did them.
Tutorial #2
to
1. Duplicate base, set to screen
2. Duplicate layer, set to soft light
3. Create curves layer
4. Create Vibrance layer, set Vibrance to +80
5. Create Channel Mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Green / Green +100
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +100
6. Create a colour balance layer, set midtones to:
Cyan/Red: +50
Yellow/Blue: -60
7. Create a vibrance layer, set vibrance +60
8. Create a channel mixer layer:
Output Channel: Red / Red +120
Output Channel: Blue / Blue +70
9. Add gradient fill layer, black at the bottom
10. Create new layer, with a large paint brush, paint in white over Morgana's face. Blur layer and set to soft light
11. Create a colour balance layer, set midtones to:
Yellow/Blue: +15
12. Sharpen, resize & crop
asked by sarisafari
Questions:
do you do anything special when you sharpen? Your icons always have the best balance between blur and sharpen
→ I try to sharpen gradually, for example, if I have a 2000px wide screencap, I'll sharpen once, resize to 1000px wide, sharpen again, resize and so on. Generally speaking, I always sharpen before resizing.
ex:
sharpened before vs. sharpened after