somein30 round 9

[neonspider]

Fandoms:
Prison Break [3]
Buffy the Vampire Slayer [2]
Doctor Who [2]
LOST [2]
Orphan Black [2]
Sherlock [2]
Carmilla, Farscape, Once Upon a Time, Suits, Supernatural [1 each]

Here's my set for round 9 at somein30! The challenge was to create a set of style coordinates that would determine the style used for each icon. I did extra hard mode with x = contrast, y = brightness, z = grittiness and/or shininess.

Why these axes? The point of the round was practising range, and I already keep changing styles for each set so much that it's hard to think of any technical dimension I don't already vary a lot. But I'm not that adventurous when it comes to the basics - brightness and contrast, and maybe lighting. Most of my icons are bright and contrasted, yet I love the results when more skilled makers combine brightness and contrast in various different ways, and I think mastering these techniques is probably among the most important iconing goals (along with image quality and sharpening), since if they're off, the icon can't be good, yet any combination of brightness/contrast can be used well, as long as the result looks intentional.

I almost lost my mind trying to tell if an icon is bright enough or contrasted enough to fit a placement, so I made the brightness axis measurable: I used the Average/Mean color filter in PS to see what the average color of each icon is, and I looked at the value of Brightness that the eyedropper tool gives for this color. I decided that for the bottom rows this value must be 0-33%, for the middle row 34-67% and for the top row 68-100%. I did achieve that (just barely!), you can see the mean colors under the cut. For the contrast I just used subjective judgement. For the last column I used bright highlights and dark shadows in each icon, in the first column the difference between highlights and shadows had to be minimal (whether it's bright shadows, dark highlights or all midtones). The middle column was a pain in the ass: either highlights or shadows are toned down, but not both (or in some cased both could be a little bit toned down, but not by much). This column gave me so much trouble cause every little thing I did seemed to either increase or decrease the contrast too much, but I settled somewhere that I think works??

I wanted brightness, contrast, lighting and grittiness be the main focus in this set so I left these a lot simpler than usual when it comes to text and composition. There's absolutely nothing effortless happening here though. Also I tried to do more muted colorings again just to balance out the neon in the previous set, but I kinda slipped towards more vibrancy in some of the shiny icons, oops :p

Anyway, hope you find something to like! Please share your thoughts if you do, any comment would make my day ♥ Feel free to use any of these. Hover for fandom!

	GRITTY/MATTE
				[01-03]
				[03-06]
				[07-09]

	SMOOTH/SHINY
				[10-12]
				[13-15]
				[16-18]

Mean color of each icon that I used to measure brightness:

Comments

[aravishermione]

Gorgeous set! I especially love icons 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, and 10 ♥

[tinebrella.livejournal.com]

I was about to turn off my pc and then I noticed this post in my friends feed and OH MY GOOOOOOOD YOU ARE CRAZYYYYYYYY \o/
THE EFFORT IN THIS! JESUS! THE MEAN COLOR SQUARES!
Please know the engineer in me appreciates the scientific approach you used here.
(a more coherent comment will come tomorrow, now the siren call of the sofa is too strong)

[violateraindrop]

I always have a hard time commenting on these somein30 posts because I always just think "WOW!" and yours is no exception. Wow! ;)
These are so impressive and you made a science out of it! I love your icons, your style(s), and here are perfect examples for a lot of them. I really like all the close crops. I also love the compositions, especially on 4, 10, and 11. The texture use on the gritty icons is awesome, too <3

[emiels.livejournal.com]

Oh man I love your scientific approach to brightness :D Now I wish I'd done that, instead of just using the 'ye that looks about right' method in my sets...

But that aside, those are some lovely icons! Honestly hard to pick favorites, but it's gotta be 10 & 17, maybe with a little bit character bias because it's always great to see icons of the best boy Moriarty ♥

[abyss-valkyrie.livejournal.com]

OOHH!!How cool!I love that you used those colours to compare the brightness and they worked!:D
It's so much fun to see a different style from the same maker. The muted colouring is amazing!Love 1,3,4,6 and 8!The crops in 1 and 5 are great!
I love the level work in 12. 14 is really cute. That dark red with the character being visible in 16-wow,what an awesome effect!

[alexia_drake]

Great icons, my faves are: 5, 9, 11, 13, 15 and 18.

[n-iinza.livejournal.com]

Omg, I love that you made two sets! They both look absolutely great, although I think my fave would be the gritty one.
The close crops, especially on 1 and 4 are so great. I love the creativity of 7 and the blending of 9. The gritty textures work really well and don't block the subjects at all!
From the shiny set, I love EVERYTHING about 11, the composition of 12 and the lighting in 15 and 17!

[kitamikeita.livejournal.com]

Wow so many wonderful icons! In general I really like how all the colorings turned out. And my overall favorite grid is the gritty/matte one.

As for my individual favorites: 1 (love the crop and the shade of pastel lilac), 5 (maybe my overall favorite; I love the crop, warm tone, contrast and the general feeling), 6 (so simple yet so pretty and interesting), 15 (lovely warm reddish lighting and contrast) :D

Also you were very clever to find a way to measure brightness (I might have tried it too for the saturation, but not too strictly lol).

[agirlahaunt.livejournal.com]

these are beautiful! love the texture use on 7, 3, & 4!

[sietepecados]

Awesome sets! I love the crop on 1, 2 and 4, also light and coloring on 13, 16 and 17 loos great. I also really like the composition on 12 :)

[tinny]

Omg you *measured* them? :DDD That's some dedication!

I love your shiny/matte split. And I never really thought about how different dark icons look when they're low-contrast to light icons. I feel like I need to do something like that again, it's such a great tool to discover and practice less-used styles. I love 3 and 7, 13, 14, and 18. (Scorpy! <3) Of these, I feel like only 14 really looks like your style - like I would have recognized it as yours in a line-up. That alone proves how much you went out of your comfort zone with this set.

Amazing! <3