Awesome icons!

Noranti's set.. I kind of love that they all look like they were cut out of a magazine. :) Resourceful is fun! love the texture use in it and the cropping is well done.

Pilot's set is interesting... love the text icon and I really like the sharp contrast of Peaceful. Gorgeous work there...

I also love the black and whit contrast of Dark Past. That's one thing I suck at mostly is B&W..it's hard to get such gorgeous contrasts with it for me. :/

Also, really love the battle icons! I thought about joining iconquest, but I have so many other things I'm doing. LOL

You do for text what I do for blending.. that's another of my weaknesses.. LOL :)

Over all fantastic job!

Aw, thank you so much for the detailed and awesome comment! :)

Lol, I don't often do b&w for the same reason you mention! I mean I combine bw with color all the time, but leaving it JUST black and white is really difficult for me cause the contrast has to be spot on, and everything else too, and that's intimidating really! D: But lately I've been trying some bw stuff, inspired by this awesome guide by absolutelybatty who makes some of the best bw icons there are. Glad you like the bw in that icon, but I know I still have a lot work to do to really nail b&w ;) maybe one day. In distant future.

And text! I have such a rocky relationship with it, sometimes (like in my previous set) I want to use it but can't come up with anything and everything I try looks bad D: but then sometimes it just happens on its own and I have so much fun with it, idek! There are tons of fantastic text guides around, but then again for me the best way has been to just stare at everyone elses gorgeous text icons (some of my text idols: phaust_, theotherayn, neversleeps, wickdshy, library_of_sex, calrissian18 and pamkips) in awe and try to sort of analyze which components about the text make it look good, and trying to apply that to my own stuff in some way, idek.
Also theiconquest has definitely motivated me to do more text cause I have this obsession to get even amount of points in all the classes, which are (roughly) icons that focus on coloring, simple icons, complex icons, and icons with text. It would be fantastic to see you there one day too, it has no deadlines so it's pretty laid-back, 'do when you have time' type of thing :) (can't say I've done that much for it this far either, but this battle was a good step forward!)

Edited 2013-03-03 11:22 am (UTC)

I checked out that B&W tutorial and I'll have to play with it. Those are some good ideas.:) I actually joined icon_talk but have yet to do anything with it other than set it for notifications so I get notifications if someone posts. (That's pretty much how I read my Flist these days, via email.)

I've been playing with a little more text, and fonts.. but I find text easier to use on wallpapers. I like my room. LOL But lately it's also a vision thing. I had a lot of issues doing those icons this time because they were so small. I literally had to take my glasses off and sit an inch from the screen. :/ I'm sure it looked lovely. LOL.

Maybe once I have a job and have somewhat of a stable free time, I can look into it. I do think it's very interesting. It struck me as a sort of landcomm for icons without really being a landcomm. I wish there were more out there for wallpaper and blend artists.. *grumble* LOL

love the dark/bright colors! Mask is pretty epic, all-around :D

Aw, thank you so much! I'm glad you like Mask especially, I had so much fun with it (well, after a ton of failed other attempts at the theme, haha :D)!

Things that are beyond the normal limit of awesome: everything in this post! I could go on forever about all the things that I like: coloring! text! composition! allllllllllll the composition! the cool color combinations! cropping! light use! ALL THE THINGS!

Instead I shall tell you all about my specific favorites:

Bound to Moya is so gorgeous. I am absolutely in love with the gentle light work going on in this icon, seriously. Be still my beating heart! I also love the purples. they are more delicate than some of your other colorings which makes this one a little unique. It stands out from the bunch in a very nice way, I think. Definitely the first one that caught my eye this time around! Likes to Read is also brilliant! I really love the crop here, and the coloring is so creamy and wonderful. The text is also amazing! It stands out without being overbearing which is really nice and fits the overall theme of the icon in a fabulous way. So looooove that one! Mask is also amazing!! I really like your way of interpreting the theme. It's very creative, and the execution is spot on as well. Love the contrasts between the smooth black and white (which is so gorgeous, by the way!) and the vibrantly colored background. Really nifty effect. And then opposites is really wonderful too! The color contrasts (red, green) are definitely what catch my eye with this one. it creates a really nice effect!

And then, okay, I am beyond amazed with 24 and 25! I saved those immediately when I saw the battle. Such great compositions in both, and the text work is stellar! And the cut outs are so smooth! you are so good at that! 45 is also a stand out star, in my opinion. A more subtle composition, but really well done never the less. And the blue is really pretty too!

Another really genius post! ♥

OMG asfsdfsdfdf thankyousomuch ;__; whoa, I'm SO glad you like Bound to Moya so much because I totally shamelessly used some tips from your awesome tutorials in that one (and also some of battle icons). And then I was like 'uhh this doesn't really look like her results but let's go with it anyway', so it's beyond awesome that that one caught your eye in a positive way :D

Lol, I have this unfortunate tendency to almost always cut out my subjects. (Maybe that's why I'm so sloooow.) So it's good to hear you think I do that part well. One day I'll learn to make some decent stuff with the natural backgrounds in the icons... :p

You're just too awesome and generous, thank you so much for all the sweet words!! ♥

these are awesome! i really like the coloring and texture use on 34 and 50. they are all great though. =)

Aw, thank you!! So glad you like those two, they're among my favorites as well but a bit risky so I wasn't sure they'd work for anyone else :D

Yay! More pretty icons! My faves for farscape_20in20 are... in no particular order...

'Likes to Read'... because the placement of the text works so well with the image behind it! I can almost never get text to look natural on icons, so I'm really jealous that you can (this goes for all the other icons with text too)

I also looooove 'to see the stars'. It's just... ugh... so so pretty.

I like 'sleep' because of the quote you used to go with the picture... and the use of the color purple!

Other faves are: 'Opposites' and 'dark past'.

Hope you don't mind if I snag 'sleep' to use every now and then :)

Oh wow, thank you so much for the awesome feedback! :) Of course, all of my icons are 100% snaggable, and I'm so flattered and glad you'd like to use one! ♥

omg, don't be jealous of my texts though, I've struggled with text A LOT. it's been called both a strength and a weakness before so I'm not really sure which it is right now :D but I do know that I have a lot of fun with it so even if some results aren't that stellar, I'd say experimenting with it is worth the risk!

Gorgeous!

Thank you!! :)

all the colors!!!!! just ::ugh:: I can't find the exact word so I'll have to go with amazing!! ^_* these are amazing!
and now onto my favs ;) because you, they're the greatest of the great ;p and you know it ;D

Likes to Read (omg) this has to be one of the greatest icons you've ever made because damn but there isn't a single thing I don't like in it! the color, the fact that it's muted and then there's the text. I love that text!! Multitasking's composition, the colors ... beautiful! And then we come to "To see the stars" I love the depth the blackness and then there's that muted white or light gray or whatever really, it's f! amazing!!

and now we come to my favorite set! Your Stark set is magnific!!
ragged - the contrast in the image, in the colors you choose are so fitting, so beautiful!!
dark past - so smooth and elegant, gorgeousl!
mask - how the hell did you come up with that one it's so damn gorgeous! ::stares:: I can't even ... !!
in your face - I'm in love!

and now for the rest of the post ;D [man I looooove this post] because I can't resist (:
my favs are 21, 24, 31, 34, 38 (oh those levels .. and that green!) 49 and 54 (sweeeeeet)

now that I've your attention ... how do you do it?! how do you manage to take that 300 px images and make them look so smooth and utterlly gorgeous because I tried and failed so many times until I came up with mine!?

Edited 2013-03-03 10:45 am (UTC)

Oh wow, thank you so much for this amazing comment!! *___*

whoa, Likes to read was the last one I made and it was a quickie really so I didn't expect people to like ti that much, but I'm glad they seem to :) (I can't really take much credit for the text style though, as it was totally ripped off from inspired by theotherayn, so all due credit to her :p)

Hee, if you like my muted icons like Likes to read, you might enjoy playing around with this set of gradients - they're the secret behind all my vintage-colored/muted icons, true fact!
As for Mask, the cap was hideously dark and badly lit to begin with but I liked the crop I got with it, sooo I decided that trying to brighten it up would ruin the quality so why not go all the way dark and make it look intentional, haha! Sometimes difficult caps are a good thing cause they make you try something different :)

Omg I honestly have no idea what you mean with the last part though, because I struggle SO much with image quality myself (all my main fandoms have pretty crappy cap quality tbh :D). Usually my solution is just a combination of slight Topaz use and manually smudging the worst pixellated parts. This sometimes works better than other times but I have to manage, since my favorite seasons of both DW and FS are the ones with worst image quality .__. idk if this answers your question but feel free to ask more if it didn't, I like to ramble about icons :)

Really, thanks for taking the time and effort to write this!!! ♥

I have not commented on your awesome icons for some time now - and I beg forgiveness... They deserve constant, unflagging praise.

Agreed on the wicked humor in "No Shame": that is the quintessential Aeryn for me :-)
"Mask" is simply arresting: something about the dark colors, or the shadows, or both reaches out of the screen to catch my attention and keeps it there.

Being the J/A shipper that I am, it will come as no surprise to you that I *love* "Likes to read": the combination of image and words could be the perfect summation of their journey together.

Great work. **BOW** & **APPLAUSE**

Aw, thank you so much!! ♥

My posts have been much more centered on Doctor Who than FS lately so I don't blame you if they haven't sparked your interest - now was a great time to icon more Farscape though, so I'm really glad they work for you and I'm so thrilled to get such a generous and awesome comment!! :) I'm particulatly flattered by your comments about Mask, I had no idea how people would respond to something that experimental :>

(psst, 'Likes to read' is actually John/Katralla... ;D those were her words to John at the ceremony, but hey that quote totally fits J/A too and the crop shows so little of Katralla that it's easy to see her as Aeryn, especially through your shipper eyes, so if that's how you choose to see it that's totally cool too! :D)

(psst, 'Likes to read' is actually John/Katralla... ;D

Oh my goodness!!!!! You're so right! Those were Katralla's words, indeed...
But yes, I was looking at the icon through my J/A glasses and totally misinterpreted the whole thing!

**hides in shame** :-D

Lol, don't worry, had it been made by someone else my shipper eyes would have probably automatically seen Scorpy in Katralla's place ;D at least your interpretation is a lot more plausible!

These are gorgeous.

aw, thank you!! :)

omg yayyyy new icons from you :D even if they are from a fandom i'm not a part of, i can always appreciate pretty icons C:

i really like resourceful! the composition is fantastic and i think the lines of the texture used go so well with how you outlined him. and then the text, just spot on composition. yay for no shame. you know how excited i get by vibrant icons and this one is so qt, with the bright colors and the boxing. likes to read reminds me of something theotherayn would make and uehiug i love their text work and coloring so that's supposed to be a huge compliment *Q*

i love how you have these 2 distinctive styles that are so opposite - both muted, vintage coloring and also the vibrant magenta with blues and yellows. it's so refreshing to see it, because like most iconmakers have only 1 ~signature style and here you are with two badass ones :D

i really like the color combo of multitasking. purple is love and that dark yellow just fits so well with it. and i like the texture use on there, borders are an ultimate win. mask is so pretty wiugergnjekg look at that neg space *____* i've always wanted to make an icon with 2 close up faces and neg space in between but i've never managed to, but you have killed it!!! the coloring of in your face is breathtaking. such rich and diverse purples. it's like christmas for my eyes C: and i like how his surroundings are so dark and just everything in the icon is black, while the person just ~*pops*~ with that coloring. i really adore opposites as well, because i love boxing in icons and the orange + yellow + dark brown in the icon that you've brought out just stuns me.

16 is totally creative like whoaaa O: i also enjoy the unique color scheme you have gone with. 17 weughgej;esfusbg holy beautiful blocking batman *___* i love how parts of the icon are black and white, while others are light blue. my fav from this entire post however has to be 21. everything about that icon is so perfect i want to cry ;___; the texture use is mind blowing. like.... mind blowing. 24 is yet another composition genius. jfc i need a photoshop lesson in composition from you! next time you do (if you do) ask the maker i definitely would like to ask for a guide on how you go about picking the textures and how you position things for a complex composition and stuff :3 that is ofc if you do it haha

34 and 35 have awesome vintage feel to them. i wish i could pull off that look, because it's fantastic. aaaand then 37 iwesbfgisrgnre that is my other favourite from this entire post. gah it's just..h o w. how does that icon even exist i don't understand ???? the texture use is so perfect and vibrant and i love how she is in b&w omg such a beautiful contrast ;A;

man you have truly killed me (yet again) with this post ♥

asdasdfsdfdf how are you so awesome???!!!! I just don't deserve all this love from you ;__; ♥ ESPECIALLY for a fandom you don't even know, omg. I always feel so silly even pimping my FS posts anywhere cause I know that nobody has any interest in the show, even though everybody totally should give it a go cause it's aaaawesome and quirky and fun and has a billion good ships and characters but ok I'll shut up now :D

THANK YOU SO MUCH THOUGH for another awesome and fantastic comment! I feel much much better about this set than the previous one in general so I think my mojo is returning now and it's so awesome that you like so many things here too :>
Yep, likes to read was definitely inspired by theotherayn :) I tried to make the coloring more like me with the vintage gradient map, but the text composition is definitely all stuff learned from one of her awesome tutorials.

Hehe, I think this is the second time you've said you'd ask something if I did Ask the Maker - is this perhaps some subtle hinting that I should be less of a chicken next time and give it a try? :D Maaaaybe.

You're giving too much credit to me re: 37 though, it doesn't actually have much texture use at all but the stripey background was already in the cap :D I just tweaked the coloring a bit. And since the chartacter is already kinda black and white sooo it wasn't very ingenious at all to make her completely so, haha. But i'm glad you enjoy the overall look so much :>

again, thank you so much for all the encouraging and awesome compliments!!! ♥

Ahhh the colours in this post are simply stunning! 2, 7, 21, 24, 31, 35 and 52 are my favourite :)

Oh wow, thank you so much for the lovely comment! ♥

Can I just say that your composition and text work on this batch is incredible?
Nobody else combines blocking and blending quite like you do and No Shame is a perfect example of this. Also the text on 24 and 48 is stellar! I could go and on and ramble about practically every icon in this post (and if I had the time I totally would) but for now can I just say that your creativity seems to just grow exponentially with every post and I don't know how you do it. #50 for example is so damn gorgeous I wanna build it an altar and worship it :P

Also, words cannot express how much I adore the subtlety and simplicity of 30 and 36 :). Just so you know.

xx

Edited 2013-03-07 10:40 am (UTC)

wow, thank you so much!! Especially for using that icon omg ♥

I'm so glad you like both the composition-y and text icons, and the simple ones like 30 and 36. I don't think I ever want to pick just one style to be 'my thing', I enjoy making all kinds of icons so much!! :) I'm particularly happy to hear you see some growth from set to set, cause I sometimes worry I'm just doing the same things over and over again :p

It's an absolute stunner, I love it so much!
Also, one of the things I love the most about your posts is the way it's kind of like a mix-bag of techniques and styles. There's something for everyone's tastes and you've been doing it for as long as I've followed you anyway (probably longer):D

There is so much to love about this post! Everything is gorgeous and spectacular and moving between beautiful and soft and minimal to pop art insane which is just, awesome.

From the Noranti set I adore Age and Sleep. The first has this absolutely flawless crop, and stunning, stunning use of light and shadows that create such a beautiful icon. And the second, just wow. Everything from the colour scheme (you totally, completely and flawlessly rocked purple here) to the text to the composition just works together so well. From the Pilot set, I love the text work and colour combinations on Likes to Read. Everything just fits perfectly together, especially with the different text sizes and the text combinations and just, wow. And Multitasking is beautiful. Love the muted yellow and deep purple colours working together, and the blending and texture work is simply flawless! I think Peaceful has some beautiful depth and darkness to it as well. From the Stark set, Mark is just sheer perfection in an icon. The colours are amazing, and the shadow work with the slight outlines? Just wow. I also think the sharpening is just about as A+++++++ as you can get. It's crisp and intense and works so beautifully against the monochrome background. I'm also getting a very absolutelybatty vibe from Opposites which is just awesome - the slightly more intense colours without the as intense pop art just works very well for you, and the lighting is freaking ace.

The Farscape battle icons are utterly spectacular, and I think showcase perfectly how much you are nailing all sorts of iconing aspects. #16 is just, what I envision you in a nutshell being an icon. Perfectly insane colours (BRIGHT PINK AND LIME GREEN!!!) working so cohesively together with black and white and some crazy, insane beautiful text. It's just such a unique composition that works so well because you made it so. #24 and #25 are amazing examples of how your text use is getting better and better. The different shapes and sizes and colours in #24 and the awesome symbol use in #25 both just work so well with the icons. #29-#31 just show how well you can work with lighting, shadow and simplicity to craft an evocative icon as well. I especially admire the shadow work in all three - I think you've used it to the best of the ability within the icon to really place emphasis on other areas and it just works so beautifully in all three. The contrast and sharpening in #29 is spot on as well. Everything is legit stunning there. The texture work in #35 is insane. I love how everything is kind of muted, but then the yellow just stands out even more and the effect is all kinds of wow. And I think everything about #45 is stunning as well. The colouring is amazing, I love the lighting and the text work just blows me away. Its such an intense icon.

Ah, this post at missingfaction was SO AMAZING, and I must get on over there and comment to everyone because it was so perfect! #50 is so completely perfect. The vibrancy is stunning, along with the colour combinations and the composition, everything being all boxy and stuff. So amazing. I love #54 as well, because it's just pop art perfection. The black and white with colour and textures and composition and just, beautiful. Seriously, everything works so well.

THIS POST THOUGH. Such gorgeous, gorgeous stuff!!

OHMYGOD, hoooow did I miss this comment??? What a wonderful surprise it was to find this here, after being notified about the comment below. Aw, I'm just so happy about everything in this comment :)

...and moving between beautiful and soft and minimal to pop art insane which is just, awesome.

I've probably said this before but I really, really admire the way you seem able to appreciate icons regardless of their style. I mean, sometimes it feels like a lot of iconers mostly only like icons close to their own style, and sometimes I even see this sort of unfortunate thinking in myself, but it's never like that with you - I can never predict which icons will be your favorites and that's pretty awesome :D

Really, just huge thanks for everything in this comment (especially about 16 being me in icon form, haha, the icon is definitely weird enough for that :D, and also about 29 because I'm totally dependent on colors usually, I only made myself try b&w here inspired by absolutelybatty's awesome guide, so it really means a lot if you think it worked ok in this case :) )

These are fantastic !!!!! I love these, like always! :D

Resourceful (Very vreative ! Love the background, text, everything :D)
No Shame ( This is awesome, LOL! :D Funny and beautiful. The colorings is stunning and I like text so much)
Sleep (So, so beautiful. This is breathtaking, the colors are fantastic and the sharpening perfect!)
Likes to Read (Wonderful crop and text is excellent)
Peaceful (The contrast here is stunning and I really love the shrapening)
Ragged (Braca love<333 The crop is great and I like the colors)
Mask (Amazing! Love the colors and the crop)

My other favorite are 16, 17, 21, 25, 27, 31, 32, 36, 37, 38, 44, 46, 48, 50, 54, 55. :D I take slpee, likes to read, 25, 31, 36, 38, 48, 50 and 55 :D Will credit, THANK YOU !! :D

Oh wow, thank you so much for the lovely and detailed comments! :>

Haha, I couldn't resist that quote in No Shame, I'm really glad you like it! Also it's really awesome that you like Ragged, cause I was kinda inspired by your lowish contrast+grungy texturing style in that one (I mean, it was a Braca icon, so the link was natural :D). Also I'm really glad and a little surprised that you like the sharpness in Peaceful - I struggled with it a lot, and some parts still look a bit too sharp or blurry or topazed to me, but maybe I'm just being too critical to myself, as always.

I can't even tell how thrilled I am that you found so many to snurch! ♥