28 February 2022 @ 09:35 pm
20 Farscape icons for somein30 + 10 misc  


Fandoms:
Farscape [20]
Once Upon a Time [2]
The Avengers (2012), Legend of the Seeker, LOST, Mahou shoujo madoka magika, The Shannara Chronicles, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Zootopia (2016) [1 each]

Here's my entry for [livejournal.com profile] somein30 round 15, which was all about music! I went with Hard mode, which meant taking inspiration from music genres. I used my two absolute favorite genres: steampunk and dark cabaret. These are two obscure, closely related genres (many artists do both, and musically they sound similarish, the biggest differences are the visuals and themes in lyrics).

Steampunk music is obviously all about the steampunk aesthethics: vintage, tech-y, muted colors, lots of neutral tones like brown and beige, grunge, with some ingredients from scifi and westerns and the Victorian era. The songs are often funny and tell stories about crazy inventions and imaginative adventures.
Dark cabaret is a slightly darker genre where the lyrics are often about death and decadence, but as opposed to other dark genres like goth rock or black metal, it doesn't take itself seriously at all, it's kind of like the "dark humour" genre of music. The visuals are very often b&w with a vintage, burlesque look with some creepy/dark elements thrown in. Both genres also have some circus/carnival vibes to them. Musically both of these genres usually fall somewhere in the folk range, the songs tend to be catchy and even sound a bit like children's songs. The dark cabaret genre is particularly fun in that the creepy vibe comes from the clash of fun, catchy melodies combined with dark themes in the lyrics.

I ended up making an entire set of Farscape this time, because there are at least some visual elements in it that work for both genres, so my goal was just to twist the show even more towards these genres using suitable fonts and colors and lots of grunge. Some of these are more literal and some a bit more subtle, but the inspiration was strongly there in each icon. I had a ton of fun with this set, I really hope you like these results, I'm just happy to have a cohesive set after the last one which was all over the place.

This post also includes a few other icons that I've never posted before. They're not exactly new, but I've tried to include them in some post for AGES but they never fit :p but this time I think the somein30 entry is close enough in style that I can sneak these icons in without ruining the post, it just bugs me so much knowing I have these unposted icons that I quite like but never had the chance to share.

Hope you'll find something to like here! As always, take any you like, and please let me know what you think :)



SOMEIN30 ROUND 15
STEAMPUNK
[01-05]
[06-10]
DARK CABARET
[11-15]
[16-20]


Some song recs/examples of these genres:









OTHERS
[21-25]
[26-30]


 
 
Current Music: The Cog Is Dead - Life's a Carnival! | Powered by Last.fm
 
 
( Post a new comment )
[identity profile] agirlahaunt.livejournal.com on March 3rd, 2022 10:47 pm (UTC)
also sorry to ask such a stupid question but what textures did you use to get that gorgeous grunge effect? i've been meaning to experiment with some grunge lately!!
neonspider: shangela[personal profile] neonspider on March 6th, 2022 08:45 am (UTC)
Thanks so much, I'm super flattered you liked the set!! :)

With better time (maybe in the summer) I could write a tutorial for one of these, but just to give some quick answers...
- the coloring on 3 is how I do most of my colorings: just individually coloring every part (all the pieces of his clothing, including the metal mask) to make sure there is enough clear color distinction between all parts of the icon. The coloring methods vary cause the same thing won't work for everything, but I mainly use things like Variations, Gradient maps (my favorite), Color balance, Selective coloring, basic color layers on various different blend modes (often Soft light or Color, but Multiply is surprisingly useful as well), and just everything, I always want to keep things varied just to make sure I don't get stuck with any routine. The important point is that all coloring layers are masked to only affect one part. This is super super slow and painstaking and will look like a mess unless the masking is precise, but I don't currently know any better way to get the effect I want.
- the coloring on 27 was mainly done with various gradient maps on soft light first to get to a type of contrast that I wanted, and once that was achieved I just put another masked gradient map over his hair (on normal but a low opactity) to get a little bit of color difference there. This was an easier icon to color since only one part needed masking.
- as for textures, I used different textures in all of these cause I wanted slightly different types and levels of grittiness in each one. A few of the ones I found especially useful are this and this by NYVelvet for the gridlike effects, and then there are tons of general grunge textures like this and this by [livejournal.com profile] innocent_lexys, but it really varies a lot (usually I try at least a dozen different textures on every icon until finally I just have to accept one... or five :P).

I know this is vague but I hope this helped a bit!