138. Icon Progression 2015
( coding by rocketgirl2, previous progression posts here)
2015 ResolutionsWaay back 12 months ago, I made the following icon resolutions:
1) Make more text icons
2)Try something other than centre crop+gradient negative space
3) Generally be more adventurous
4) Icon stuff I haven’t iconned in a while, like Ashes to Ashes, Merlin and Robin Hood
5) Icon new stuff more, like Atlantis, The Hour and The Musketeers
January
January featured some attempts at more creative negative space construction, as well as some close crops and text experimentation. I took part in the bestof_icons Remake activity, the Resolutions challenge at the7days, and also began my entries for the OUaT battle I ran at icontalking.
# of icons: 30
Icon posts: One
February
Again with the negative space, close crops, and text for this month. I finished my entry for the OUaT battle, some of which I’m still happy with, and I still love the Belle icon. After iconning Game of Thrones a lot in 2014, I think the Sansa icon was actually the first time I iconned GoT in 2015, which was a bit weird.
# of icons: 43
Icon posts: One
March
Worked on my icons for the icontalking Harry Potter battle which had some absolutely incredible themes (each theme was a different spell) but was made ultra difficult by the provision of screencaps which we had to mostly use. Definitely cemented my animosity towards provided screencaps, but I do like some of the results! Also started working on my entry for the icontalking Disney battle. Overall this month had a bit of text experimentation, and playing around with more textures and more creative negative space.
# of icons: 39
Icon posts: None
April
Finished my set for the icontalking Disney battle, and also the battle at musketeerstills. I iconned Outlander for the first time, having gotten hooked with the show (and books) from January/February.
# of icons: 14
Icon posts: One
May
Very pleased with a lot of the icons I made for the ‘7 Shows You’d Bring Back’ challenge at the7days, especially this Morgana one which happened completely by accident. Also very happy with several of the other negative space icons I made this month, such as the Elsa, Cora and Claire ones above. I played around with solid colour (as opposed to gradient) negative space backgrounds, made more Outlander icons (in part due to the ‘7 Consecutive Episodes’ challenge at the7days), tried to work on text and more creative negative space use, and towards the end of the month I made a few more muted coloured icons.
# of icons: 35
Icon posts: One
June
More Outlander icons, and lots more muted colours in June. I worked a fair bit on cropping, particularly more obscure crops, and tried using textures I hadn’t used before, such as in the Iron Man icon.
# of icons: 16
Icon posts: One & Two
July
A very slow iconning month for me, although I have no idea why since I’d finished my degree at this point! I mostly produced pastel and/or negative space icons, although I did try to be more experimental with the negative space and use textures I hadn’t before.
# of icons: 7
Icon posts: None
August
The first of the two busiest months for me in terms of iconning! I entered a set of Outlander icons for 20inspirations (my second ever set there), and yet more Outlander icons for the7days, as well as a set of Downton Abbey icons for the Underappreciated Fandoms battle at icontalking, and a few entries at musketeerstills. There was some experimentation with lighting, text, textures and cropping, and I’m overall pretty pleased with the results from this month!
# of icons: 57
Icon posts: One & Two
September
My September icons were basically all for the Game of Thrones Icon Tourney at icontalking. I had been planning this battle for literally months so I was so happy to finally get started on my icons! Not so much technical experimentation but I’m happy with how I interpreted each theme, as well as the lighting and text work.
# of icons: 31
Icon posts: One & Two
October
I got massively addicted to Castle in September/October so this was the first time I ever iconned Castle! I also iconned Doctor Who for the first time in ages, which was a bit of a déjà vu moment for me. I admit I did get a little lazy this month and mostly did icons with light textures and/or colouring, but very happy with some of the other results like the crop on the Kate icon above.
# of icons: 21
Icon posts: None
November
ouatchallenge opened its doors so of course I had to participate! I also submitted a set of Kate Beckett icons for character20n20 where the themes were amazing but really challenging, so I ended up running out of time and making some icons very late/while very drunk, but for the most part I don’t think you can tell :P Mostly this month I made icons with solid colour/gradient backgrounds, but later on I tried to use the original backgrounds more creatively.
# of icons: 40
Icon posts: One
December
My other joint-busiest icon-making month! Most of the icons in December were fills for the holiday requests I offered, but there were also some entries for ouatchallenge, and a couple of misc icons. There was a lot of work with lighting and colouring, also some attempts to refine my negative space and close crop icons, but again I think I got a bit lazy towards the end and just fell back on what I can do.
# of icons: 57
Icon posts: One & Two & Three
Overall# of icons: 386
# of icon posts: 14
Busiest month: August [57] & December [57]
Quietest month: July [7], April [14], June [16]
Most iconned: Once Upon a Time [103], Outlander [55] & Castle [39]
Main new fandoms: Outlander & Castle
Total number of icontests I placed in: 32/25!
Biggest achievements/progress made/observations: More creative negative space/fake background icons? Maybe? I no longer run away screaming from text, but I don’t exactly use text in every icon so not sure if that counts as progress or not :P I was asked to make a text guide though, so I think that's progress! I tend to make vibrant coloured icons much more than I did before, but I still favour negative space icons over any other style. Also, I’m very pleased with how the two battles I ran turned out!
My personal favourites:
[I am so bad at narrowing things down]
2016 Resolutions1) Make more text icons
2) Be more creative with negative space
3) Be more confident with colouring - if I'm going for a vibrant icon, then actually go for it properly, and the same with muted
4) Experiment more with cropping (close crops, obscure/creative crops) - don't just resort to centre crops all the time!
5) No more lazy iconning!
Tune back in next year to see if I actually managed to achieve any of these :P