OMG, you did it!! I'm so happy now! YAY! And these are fantastic too!

I'm sure you can guess which one is my absolute favourite ;), but I'm telling you anyways (this is me, right?).

It's actually a close call between cropping #1, blending #4 and textures #5. Although blending #5 is sooo great too. Okay, I can't decide now, fatigue is setting in big time right now (wonder why ;)), but I promise I'll post more about these tomorrow.

And that's it for now as I'm not sure I can pry open my eyes for another minute. *yawn*

Just wanted to say how happy I am that you've finished them!

Yes I did itt!!!! :D they could have been better if someone hadn't kept me up that late with great icon talk, lol

and that's a LOVELY comment as it is so there's really no need to add anything to it unless you really want to :D

Thanks!!!

Amazing, just amazing: colors and hues and images...

My favorites:
Set 1: Guess Who - extraordinary light
Set 2: 4, because the contrast in color is arresting, and 5 because b&w makes a huge difference here
Set 3: 2 and 5 - the colors and the haziness (sorry for the non-technical term!) are quite special here
Set 4: 4 - completely different, unusual - incredible.

**loud cheering**

Thank you so much!! You're always so nice, I think one day you'll run out of compliments to give :D

The non-tehcnicality doesn't bother me at all, I actually love that you view them a bit differently from those who icon all the time and take it seriously. Like for example the haziness you refer to could be seen as bad sharpening, and I was a bit afraid it would be too, so I'm really glad and surprised that that was actually an aspect you liked in it! :)

Thank you so much, that was the most difficult but also fun set to make! :)

Love the colors - those blends are EPIC!

Aw, thank you so much :) I'm glad you like the blends since I'm not very experienced at blending at all!

Nicely done! Love Cropping 4.

The blends are really well done. Especially like 3 4 and 5.

Textures 2 is really nice. Love the color.

And AC 4 is fabulous!

Over all the colors are very bright and vivid. I really wish I could get that brightness in mine! Great work!

Aw, thanks! I'm glad you approve of the blends, since you have so much more experience in them than I :) I have to confess I made like twice as many alts too but got frustrated midway cause the blending just wouldn't happen, lol. Blocking is easier cause almost any cap works for that.

And I'm glad you also like the brightness, since vibrancy is something I love to use a LOOOOT :D I learned a *really* great way of achieving that from a tutorial by deternot that you can find here (specifically, the stuff with the brushes). I use that all the freaking time and I think it has really made my colorings better! :D

OOh, awesome. I am going to check out that tutorial once I have time. (i,e not before work. LOL) I've really been looking for a way to improve the color that is a bit more than screen screen soft light. And I SUCK and levels, curves and the like... (I really do not understand it, so I fiddle and usually overfiddle)

I tried boxy.. and the two icons I did... yeah, I didn't even post them as alts. I really should try it more.. but the tiny images make me twitchy. I'm SO used to giant sized, than when something is sized teeny tiny like that, I automatically think, I can't see who it is.. it's too small. So I scrap it. It's the tiny canvas that makes me crazy. LOL I need to attempt it for something...

I don't use levels and curves that much either, Color Balance I do love though :) but yeah the thing taught in that tut is my main method along with coloring by textures, color fills, gradients and gradient maps.

Oh don't be scared to block, at least if that's the reason - it's often not that important to even see every facial feature of the character - often you can identify the character from the hair and clothing for example, besides aren't most of your icons for farscape20in20 anyway where everyone's a hardcore scaper? :D we would know the characters even if it was a box of black, lol! anyway I don't think I've seen many blocking icons where I couldn't have made out what's in it. Too bad that you didn't show those alts, I would have been really curious :)

LOL It's getting used to the size of the canvas to work with. When I'm used to BIG and SEEING everything.. it's the tiny that drives me crazy. LOL plus with only 100x100, there's not a lot of room to work. Darn mental blocks. LOL

I can show them to you.. if you want...



Like the first one better.. the coloring is meh on the seocnd one, because I realied it was not working and gave up. LOL

Oh, I like the compositions and can see the characters as clearly as ever! :D I think there's a lot of room in 100x100, but not too much - if icons were, say, 200x200, I'd have like ten thousand blocks in each one to fill all that space o_O

But hey I find that opening a lot of mental blocks is only for the good! Like I had for months this block that I could only icon farscape, wouldn't even think of anything else or look at non-FS icons. o.O I think it was sayuri_x who told me I'd need to drop that if I want to actually go anywhere with this hobby, and she was so right, it opened up a lot of doors and most of all creativity cause the options are endless now as there's so much new raw material to work with, all shows have such different looking characters, different colors and lighting and settings! :)

well that was just one example of a mental block but I've had many, lol. And the day we have 5000x5000 HQ screencaps of Farscape I'll be more than willing to go for big things again! ^^

Edited at 2012-06-06 01:39 pm (UTC)

I do like the first one better than the second one. the texture makes the second one too dark.. but by that time I was like this isn't working.. and let it go as done.

I'm doing more and more experimentation with icons..it finally dawned on me a few months ago that I could actually blend on icons. LOL

I've done icons for various shows that I watch. (CSI, Stargate, FS, Remember WENN) I know I get into ruts.. so I change it up. I;ve got a couple wallpapers I did for a challenge that I ned to get posted. One is a FS animated one (because that's my new OMG I need to try that)and one is a CSI one.

I think my biggest thing for me is the tiny aspect. Because the second wallpaper I did, was blocking and I enjoyed doing it. LOL (I need to branch out from blends in Wallpapers too..)

Hey, you mention iconing SG, can I ask where you find caps? I've tried, and I'd like to make it my next claim at inspired20in20, but all I can find is small crappy caps and just from a few episodes o_O

Gateworld has caps for all the series and the movies. Admittedly not the biggest, but it's the best resource for Stargate caps.

I got a new laptop and your icons look amazing on it!!! Seriously, I think this is how they're meant to be viewed!

I adore the blending in #1 and 10, very skillfully done!I especially adore the equality between the two in #1 :)

I'm not sure if it's something different you've tried or if its just then new monitor but I really, really, love your colouring and lighting with this round. There's a great balance between shadows and highlights and while your colours are strong, they're not overpowering or oversaturated. #s 11 and 17 are particularly stunning, grat balance of colour and the vibrance of #11 is just and brilliant as the more muted nature of #17.

Great, great post!!

Thank you so much!! Can I just say that I love how you often comment even on entries that are not of your fandoms at all and also for comms you're not even following/a member of? It's always a really nice surprise!

Screens make such a difference! and that's the first time I hear a laptop actually making icons look better instead of worse - I remember how washed out they looked on a friend's laptop, so when I made icons with it and then viewed them again on my own screen they were freaking radioactive. o_O but I'm glad yours is that good at displaying color :)

and yeah, I bet it's the monitor cause this was a very quick post again so I didn't have time to try anything new with those aspects (I reaaally have to stop entering all the icon challenges that exist and just focus on a few!).

I have to disappoint though and admit that 1 was not a blend at all, it's just one screencap where they happened to be together already. still glad you like it though! :D

My faves: 1.01, 2.01, 2.02, 2.05, 4.01, 4.02, and 4.04. I love the use of textures to color the icons.

Thank you so much, especially about that last part - that's a technique I enjoy and use a lot :)