Chit-Chat: "L'art pour l'art" - DCC

Dante said:

That is true. Although I personally follow that route whenever I'm doing requests or being lazy. :p Serious icons, those that I actually bother to put effort in, are actually as hard to make as tags and take just as much time if not more than any regular tag of mine does.

But bleh, I'm always lazy so most of my icons are simple color enhancements and nothing more lol.

P.S - an average lazy icon of my contains at least 2-3 gradient maps, 8+ selective color adjustment layers and maybe one or two levels/curves adjustment layers and so on lol

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Haha, that's cute.

When I make them, I'm more like: lol CROP uh-oh forgot how to icon (´⊙ω⊙`)!!

I rarely use selective-coloring in icons. Instead, I would just make a new layer, fill it with a certain color, give it some mode (overlay, soft, etc.), and decrease its opacity to about 5 to 8 percent, I'd keep repeating this process until I'm actually satisfied. xD" From time to time, I would also use textures. It's hard to fit them into an icon, though.

No, what you said is cute, Jo. Because that's a joke if I ever saw one. :p

also @ashley - I actually think using a mixture of both would end up in a great icon. Using both your method and selective coloring, I mean. But tbh, I've used that idea a few times and it is very much a random process and involves a lot of trial and error. Even moreso than selective coloring does. So I'm not exactly big on using solely that method. Yeah, using it alongside gradient maps, SC etc is okaay sometimes for me. :p and I use textures when I'm not feeling lazy haha

Selective coloring is literally the holy grail of my photoshop.

Except not. But sort of. LOL I don't know, I've always been terrible with colors, so I always end up using a ton of gradient maps, selective coloring layers, and curves/levels on all of my works-- whether it be tags, icons, or drawings. Like Dero said, it allows so much more control over it, and makes it a lot more unique in my opinion because I think just spreading colors over a whole image makes it much harder to express what you want in an icon to stand out. Everything in your image just ends up being altered in too similar a fashion and in the end it won't look much different from the original....

Also, this discussion is actually one reason why I like, never make icons... /beardstroke I have this problem where I can't crop an image and color adjust it and feel right about posting it up like I actually did something worth a damn to it LOL-- so whenever I make icons I always make sure to do something that makes it recognizably different from the original stock, but-- that's not always easy in a 100x100 space, so I just....

Don't make icons! :D

/useless contributions 2014

This post is so true omg. Which is why, if you noticed in my signatures in the past 6 months or so, I almost never credit myself as 'I made the icon' in my signatures. It is usually 'color manip by me' along with 'art credit to ...'. If I haven't done much apart from altering the colors, it just doesn't feel okay to call it 'my work'.

That said, I do make them and post them in my thread so I guess I am indirectly contradicting myself idk haha. :p But yeah, I am very much in agreement with your sentimet, Loki.

Although there are some exceptions to this. For example, a pic that is mostly monotonous with verrrrrrrrry faint shades of color - so faint that eye isn't able to differentiate between colors and stuff - and I manage to turn it into a super colorful icon using like 20 billion selective color layers. Those icons I do feel that, yeah, I actually did something. An example would be genesis's request in my recent shop.

http://www.pokecommunity.com/showpost.php?p=8118242&postcount=13
Found it. :p

I love just focusing on color manipulation in icons, my tools being selective coloring, gradient maps, color balance, curves, levels, a little bit of anything over the years. Sometimes I erase certain parts so the selective coloring only applies to a specific area. It all makes a huge difference when you compare it to the original art, like above.

I'm too lazy to find textures and brushes though so I often avoid implementing them in an icon. Banners take like an hour of focus for me, and I'm distracted easily.

Lilith said:

I love just focusing on color manipulation in icons, my tools being selective coloring, gradient maps, color balance, curves, levels, a little bit of anything over the years. Sometimes I erase certain parts so the selective coloring only applies to a specific area. It all makes a huge difference when you compare it to the original art, like above.

I'm too lazy to find textures and brushes though so I often avoid implementing them in an icon. Banners take like an hour of focus for me, and I'm distracted easily.

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I often find that textures and brushes just muddy up what is an already decent image. I was just fiddling with that a minute ago, actually, and I ended up just messing with a perfectly good avatar with no real artistic justification for why I added such things. I mean, it's all well and good because I was just practicing; but the truth of the matter is that, more often than not, unnecessary edits become an image's downfall.

Anyway, yeah, working on a new batch of fairy icons right now. n_n; Wanted to pop in and agree unconditionally like always lol.

Well, like Gav says, when it comes to icons simplicity is the key. :p

But proper usage of textures can make for some beautiful icons. They don't always work with every stock but correct utilization can end up in an icon that makes me go all whoooooooaaaaa. Most of these kinds of icons are done by people at LJ. I've seen some beautiful ♥♥♥♥ there. *-*

As someone who roleplays on DW (Dreamwidth. before it was LJ) and makes icons for roleplaying simplicity is the key! After all while this doesn't say for the stock icons (which are still gorgeous because they use the same techniques that use on other icons) we use the icons for the expressions and actions. Anything fancy usually takes away from that and thus take away from the experience of roleplaying. And so in turn aren't used.

That said a lot of people who make icons actually don't use Livejournal anymore! A lot of 'em use Dreamwidth now so maybe check around that site for icons next time you're searching. :D

I myself am actually making a lot of simple icons for roleplaying purposes and putting them on dreamwidth + a lot of my old icons that I have made for other people to use. I don't know if I can just link them to my gallery or anything though so they just stay there haha.

Sora said:

As someone who roleplays on DW (Dreamwidth. before it was LJ) and makes icons for roleplaying simplicity is the key! After all while this doesn't say for the stock icons (which are still gorgeous because they use the same techniques that use on other icons) we use the icons for the expressions and actions. Anything fancy usually takes away from that and thus take away from the experience of roleplaying. And so in turn aren't used.

That said a lot of people who make icons actually don't use Livejournal anymore! A lot of 'em use Dreamwidth now so maybe check around that site for icons next time you're searching. :D

I myself am actually making a lot of simple icons for roleplaying purposes and putting them on dreamwidth + a lot of my old icons that I have made for other people to use. I don't know if I can just link them to my gallery or anything though so they just stay there haha.

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See, now that's something I'd like to see. You should really be posting them here, hon. Icons that are literally supposed to be representations of human emotions sound so awesome and genuine in a way. Like, I imagine you need to be super picky when choosing what to use, because you're not just resigned to the work of the artist, you need to take the emotions of yourself and other people into account. And you know, I always thought that our icontests that had "happiness", "excitement", or "depression" as a theme produced the best icons, to be honest. Kinda makes sense haha.

Well lately I've made like 50+ of the same character so I wasn't sure if I should put them all here haha. They're all under one entry on my dreamwidth journal though so if I can link them then perhaps I will sometimes! But yeah they're nothing more than an expression + me coloring the panel (since they're manga scans). The Sora icon theme that I had earlier are actually the icons I'm talking about haha. Just simple icons of the character's expression with some minor editing (such as coloring) to make the icon look better/brighter/etc but nothing further than that. Almost no text, fancy designs, etc.

But yeah! I do tend to be super picky with which icons I'm choosing! Because I have to have icons that expression a broad range of emotions and unless you get a paid account you only have up to 15 icons to work with. Which can be feasible but at the same time very limiting!

I thought your sora icons were done really well. Then again, you've always been great at coloring, Tara. :D

http://imgur.com/gallery/I02PB
I think this needs to shared and seen.

There's one thing that bugs me with icons (and sigs to an extent) and that's the vast underuse of the plethora of Photography actions and effect tutorials out there that can be universally applied to a lot of what we do and use.

^I think one of the problems is that those effects are so seldom used well, that it's better not to use them at all. Baring a professional setting.

@Dero that ♥♥♥♥ is ridiculous. Although it's not that surprising that anime is based on real life locations. Still, the way it was captured is just.. ah so nice to look at. :) Do you know which anime they're from?

It is from this anime, Jo. 5 centimeters per second. Actually it is a 1 hour long movie. A tale of lovers who drifted away over time due to physical distance between them. I thought it was a beautiful experience. ;p seemed very realistic too in that not every love story in real life is a success and the sweet ♥♥♥♥ everybody wants. The visuals alone make it worth watch an hour long movie lol

ughhhh that art is like orgasm on the eyes i swear. Maybe I'll watch it sometime just cause it's just so gorgeous.

right now i'm going through a 'how do you icon' phase since it's been a while since i've iconed outside of making 'em for roleplay hhhh.

There's actually a few anime with photo realistic backgrounds kicking around, although they are few in number.

A tag contest. Signature of the week. Winner get's emblem and gallery stickied.

Thoughts?

Any artists out there able to help me with some banners? I'm a member of several clubs, but the banners are all different sizes and they look terrible together.

Was hoping someone could help me with cranking out a few banners of the same rectangle size

After asking around (on some incorrect threads and PMs to moderators) I have found myself here. Even though I am only a member of 5 clubs, I was thinking it would be a good gesture to the whole community of club members if a set of banners were crafted for each club.

For the size, I think the rectangle shape of my flying club banner would work best.

Superstrength79 said:

Any artists out there able to help me with some banners? I'm a member of several clubs, but the banners are all different sizes and they look terrible together.

Was hoping someone could help me with cranking out a few banners of the same rectangle size

After asking around (on some incorrect threads and PMs to moderators) I have found myself here. Even though I am only a member of 5 clubs, I was thinking it would be a good gesture to the whole community of club members if a set of banners were crafted for each club.

For the size, I think the rectangle shape of my flying club banner would work best.

Click to expand...

I'd suggest looking through the threads labelled [SHOP] to find someone whose style you like and then post in their thread of pm them.