neonspider (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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neonspiderwebs2014-12-31 09:07 pm
neonspider) wrote in neonspiderwebs2014-12-31 09:07 pm
22 multifandom icons + 'progression' post
[14] Farscape
[2] Once Upon a Time
[1+1alt] LOST
[1 each] Fringe, Teen Wolf, I Am Number Four, Harry Potter
The last small icon dump of the year. This isn't much but I really want to get all my 2014 icons posted during this year.
This posts consists of the gifts I made for the
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wonderous_stuff activity, a reaaalllly old (made in March...) tmf remake activity that I just noticed hadn't been included in any of my icon dumps which bugs me so I HAVE to post them here even though it's ridiculous :p, and a few random icons of Farscape I made for no particular reason in October.Farscape
[01-05]
[06-10]
[11-14]
Misc
OUAT x2, LOST x2
[15-18]
Fringe, Teen Wolf, I Am Number Four, Harry Potter
[19-22]
[01-05] [06-10] [11-14]Misc
OUAT x2, LOST x2
[15-18]Fringe, Teen Wolf, I Am Number Four, Harry Potter
[19-22]And well, here's something that's trying to be a progression post but lbr neither my skills nor my style progressed at all. So this is more like just a selection of a few fave icons from each month.
January
I started the year with this inspired20in20 set. I was trying to set a style for this year with the second half of this set, but I'm not sure I followed it at all. But that Ben icon is one of my faves I made this year, even though it's super muted compared to my usual style. but I love the text. I also made some icons for the bestof_icons remake activity. Most of them were worse than the originals. I made a set for the7days too but it was really ugly except for that one icon I picked here :p February
I made some Hannibal icons for a missingfaction activity. I also started iconing Lost for watchnicon, but I'll include those as March icons so there's not much else for february.
March
I finished this batch for watchnicon. I loved that challenge, and had a lot of fun making them, I honestly really love this set even though it has some really bad icons too.
I entered the7days thrice that month which must be a record for me, and I was really happy with those icons too. March was a great icon month for me, I had so much fun with composition and text. Oh and I also made those tmf icons found in this post.
April
I made a Ben set for character20n20, and loved making it. I'm really happy with basically all of the Ben icons, but the icons I made for myt watchnicon lost project in April were mostly boring and/or bad. I like the ones I picked here but otherwise I really struggled with those icons, probably cause I was trying to icon so fast yet was also trying to do all sorts of complex icons in a minimum amount of time and with minimum inspiration (for these pre-Ben episodes...), so the results look really forced and awful. which they are. so. once again I should have remembered, quality over quantity :p
May
I didn't icon almost at all in May. I did enter the7days again as well as a tmf acitvity and each set mostly had icons i really like, probably because I focused on smaller challenges this month and really took my time with the icons. June
I still didn't have a lot of inspiration for watchnicon (still just trying to get to the Ben parts), BUT I got lucky and somehow managed to make a few really nice icons, I really like the style I used for the text/composition in the Jack icon.
In June there was this super cool round at 20inspirations, where we had to do unusual/crazy icons. I tried all kinds of stuff that I wanted to practise. There are some real messes in that set and wow that set was SO MUCH WORK I remember almost running out of time, but I'm proud of the end result, even though it's really not as ~creative as it could have been, there are elements in it that look just like my regular stuff, but I really tried my best and i even iconned something other than lost for a big set, so yay? :p
Text was my favorite thing this month.
July
I made lots of icons for watchnicon but again the same problems, was iconing too fast, so many of my July icons look rushed and fugly .__. I had almost no inspiration for composition this month (after doing so much with that last month) so I focused on colorings, mostly extra bright ones with some vintagey/pastelly ones in the mix. I like the examples I chose here a lot, and I think it's good that there are some months when I focused on simpler icons, but overall this was not a great icon month for me. At the end of July I reached the Ben parts of my watchnicon project so that gave me a lot of new inspiration and I like the Ben icons I made. I played around with text hoping to do something creative with it. it's a bit unreadable in these icons but I really like it!
August
In August I focused on this Sherlock battle. I'm not sure I made any other icons?? I can't seem to find any on my computer, but well I think I was busy at work. The battle was good, I liked the compositions I used in these and I had a lot of fun with text too, especially the first example here, I'm honestly so proud of that icon! That being said, i think the colorings in a lot of the icons in that set were really dull. Sherlock is sooo bad for coloring the way I like to color, lol. September
In September I focused entirely on the LOST battle. I'm really happy with the icons I made for it! I was just so inspired, and it was such a huge, awesome battle that I really put a lot of time and effort into every icon. I gotta admit I played it quite safe with most of these icons, i just used all my favorite/most overused techniques like pastelly coloring, monochromes, favorite fonts etc, so it really wasn't the most experimental month for me. But they still look good to me so idk if that's a bad thing. maybe next year I'll be more adventurous...
October
November
I entered the 20in20 special round at watchicon and I was very motivated again and it shows, those icons are much nicer imo than the ones I made in October. I like the compositions and colorings and Bens :3
December
I had a lot going on irl so i didn't get to icon very much, except for the gifts I made for the lovely people at the wonderous_stuff gift battle thing. I tried my best and I like all of them myself BUT I'm always super anxious about having to icon for other people cause I'm already super critical towards myself so knowing I'm trying to make someone else like the icons too triples the pressure, lol.
Also, I've been making a set for mmcbattle but it's not finished and not posted yet so I can't post those here...
All in all, 2014 was an ok year for me but I feel like I still haven't been able to top the icons I made during the first half of 2013, so every icon has been a little disappointing ever since :/ this year I made a lot of icons I'm really happy with, but not even one that would have made me SUPER excited about having just made that icon. I want to feel like that so I know I gotta find a way to add that something extra, instead of always doing the same things. But there are things I really like in my 2014 icons, so it wasn't all bad; I like how much I used text (I tried to make half of my icons with text; I didn't quite reach that but I made enough to keep myself from getting rusty with it, and I got more confident with it, even though it still takes an awful lot of time for me), annd I like that my icons seem to have gotten a bit more vibrant and contrasted during this year. But there's a lot of room for progress so hopefully next year I'll make some :p
Happy new year to all our lovely watchers!!!
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Hope you have an excellent New Years and a terrific 2015!
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Nicely done, all around!
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♥
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Happy New Year to you too!!!
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I have been thinking about doing one of those iocn progression things, but I haven't had really any progress this year, so I dunno.
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I saved alot in my inspiration folder. XD Although, I don't watch Lost (never manage to watch it), I can tell your icons tell somekind of story? They aren't just pretty, they tell a story too.
Also, Happy New Year!
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Thanks, I hope you'll have an amazing 2015 as well! ♥
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and I found the mood of the original really drab which didn't really fit the crazy episode at all, so for the remake I wanted to use the same cap but make it more colorful and fun like that ep :D
Thanks so much and have a great 2015!!! :>
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Oh, you should definitely do a progress post if you want to - it's pretty common for the maker to think there hasn't been any progress but then when you actually make the post you might see it more clearly, or even if not, maybe someone else will. I think these posts are often interesting to make and look at anyway, so I say go for it! :)
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Wow I'm super flattered by the inspiration folder thing and that you see some sort of story elements in my stuff - I've really tried using a lot of the context of the episodes for a lot of those Lost icons, and I definitely overuse quotes from the show so maybe it's just that :p buut I'm super glad to hear you think so! ♥ Fantastic new year to you too!!
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PROGRESSION POST, YAY!
IMO you've been consistently awesome BUT like I probably told you before, I'm in awe of your 'storytelling through icons' skills, and those have gotten even better this year. I'm also a massive fan of the fact that your icons have gotten brighter and even more vibrant, and your lighting has become a thing of beauty, especially on your far crop/neg space icons (because it already was superb on the close crop icons), it's subtle but shiny and very much there - how do you do it?? All the love for your work and happy new year to you :)
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Haha, I still don't believe my lighting even exists :D I guess I've tried using some gradients and light textures lately cause my usual matte stuff can get boring cause it doesn't work with a lot of textures very well. But mostly I just use the veeery basic technique of drawing a bw gradient somewhere and setting it on screen, so that's how advanced my lighting is :p
'consistently awesome' is such a lovely thing to say, especially since I always feel like half the time I open PS the result is crap, so, not consistent at all. it's so frustrating when sometimes you can make icons you're really proud of and the next time you try nothing works!
happy new year to you too, hope the year has started well!
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imo, your progression has continued to improve exponentially, but I admire your work so much because you have so many iconing strengths, and there isn't a technique that you can't turn into a stellar icon. I mean, your compositions this year have absolutely blown me away, and you move so beautifully between those soft, subtle lighting icons which can be quite minimal, and the crazy (but honed) blocking/blending/texture/text compositions that it's just, you have your own style that is uniquely yours and that is freaking amazing, and something you should be proud of, even if you don't feel your icons are as strong as they were at some stage in the past! I'm looking forward to seeing what you do this year, and where your icons go <3
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You managed something amazing last year, your complex icons got more complex, with more and more details, but at the same time more...structured? No idea what to call it, but it's just a pleasure to look at them :)
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Nice job! Can't wait to see what you come up with next year!
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Happy New Year to you, too. :)
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Also, Happy New Year to you too!
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But wow, thank you so much for the super lovely comment. ♥ I'm really thrilled and a little surprised that you think I've continued to progress. I do hope that this year there will be progress even i can see, but then again it's entirely possible that time has messed with my memories a little and if I actually went back to look at my earlier posts they'd look much worse than i remember, haha. I mean I'm pretty sure I didn't like them that much at the time, so maybe I'll feel the same way about my current stuff at some point in the future :p
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