Talk? Talk?

[tinny]

I will post the last activity roundup soonish (probably tomorrow). We haven't had a discussion post in a while, so... wanna talk?

Also: do you have a suggestion for an unusual activity? There's still about a week until the next one, and if you have ideas for things you've always wanted to try, let me know!

Activity ideas thread:
Suggest activities

And our regular discussion threads:
Last icon you made
Favorite icons you've seen lately
Share your currently most-used resources

Comments

Suggest activities

[tinny]

Ideas welcome here!

Re: Suggest activities

[tinny]

My own ideas include:

a chain - the first person posts an image and the next person makes an icon from it and posts a new image for the next person.

a small rumble - maybe with anonymous concrit?

a "battle" where everyone provides a cap and a theme (might be a lot of effort depending on the number of participants?)

Re: Suggest activities

[sheliak]

The chain idea sounds interesting, although also tricky!

I don't actually know how rumbles or battles work, and I think there are a couple other very new iconmakers in the community. Could you explain how those work?

LIYM

[tinny]

Share the last icon you made, indicate if you'd like concrit or not.

Re: LIYM

[tinny]

I made it for elitesimplicity, but it wasn't accepted because the clothes aren't formal enough (which I totally get).

Re: LIYM

[sheliak]

I like the softness of the coloring on this one.

Re: LIYM

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

It took me what is like a thousand tries to get it right, but finally I'm okay with it

And of course there's my overused red blob which is like my signature.

Re: LIYM

[delacourtings]

i was attempting to do the one by five challenge with this cap for fandom10in30 but that is not going according to plan, ha.

Re: LIYM

[sheliak]

First try at an icon for the comm I am probably definitely going to make. Concrit very welcome.

Re: LIYM

[lavenderspark]

This took most of the afternoon to make because my brain completely spaced on how to do a mask. ::sigh::

I was going to enter it in the iconthat challenge, but looking at the challenge on my computer, the color scheme is off. On my phone the teals looked green. :/

BUT I really like how it came out, so I'll share it here! Concrit is always welcome. :)

FIYSL

[tinny]

Share great icons by other makers you've seen lately

Re: FIYSL

[delacourtings]

there have been so many great icons lately!




timetobegin x 2 | tinny x 2 | abyss_valkyrie x 2 | applepips x 2 | magical_sid x 2

SYR

[tinny]

Share your favorite resources! Fonts, textures, inspirations...

Re: SYR

[sheliak]

In my somewhat ill-advised search for new textures, I've found some new-to-me makers whose stuff I really like! For example, kaelien has some really nice print style ones (they remind me of fabric prints or maybe wrapping paper? Very cheerful!) and queen-bartonia has some great vibrant textures.

[sheliak]

I've been organizing my textures! Slowly. Using tags. (At least I already had them marked with the makers' names.) I really underestimated how much work this was going to be. It's cut into my actual iconmaking a bit, I'm afraid. (That and exhaustion from my last big post; I need to start breaking them up into smaller chunks.)

I should really have started this before I had seven thousand of the things. (And then I went and downloaded a bunch more, because shinies, and now I have even more work to do...) I mean, it does help, though; paging through thousands of images to find the circles, or whatever, was getting to be pretty much impossible.

I've also been sort of idly wondering about creating a book icons community (book-icons? icon-library?), but I'm not sure that anyone but me would use it...

[alwaysbeenasmiler]

I would fangirl a book icon community quite hard-- since there are so many awesome literature, I was actually thinking some Valdemar icons-- or trying to figure what I'd like to icon from that series

[tinny]

Yay for organizing! I still have about half of my textures and stock images untagged. I tag all the new ones I add, but for the old ones, I just add tags once in a while, and it's been slow going. Tagging 7K at a time seems absolutely impossible to me! Great job!

[fueschgast]

What would be the rules for the book-icon comm? Would illustrations be allowed that didn't come directly with the books? Because in that case I'd have icons to post, as I'm making icons from old Pottermore's illustrations (a much better source than the movies, the illustrations are a faithful depiction).

Book icon community?

[sheliak]

I've been thinking of making one for a little bit, and apparently at least one other person is interested, so I would like to make it happen! I have never done this before, though, so I would appreciate any thoughts or advice anyone has to offer.

I'd probably stick with the three icon teaser + link or cut format that fandom_icons uses, since it seems to be fairly standard.

Potential names: icon_library, iconlibrary, book_icons, bookicons, something else entirely? (I'm leaning towards one of the first two.)

Thoughts on what should be allowed? Icons based on book covers/illustrations/quotes, obviously, but what about adaptations or fanart?

Should links to old icon batches be allowed?

Is there anything else really obvious that I'm missing?

Re: Book icon community?

[tinny]

I like it when icon communities allow people to add their own tags. I forget how the tagging system on dw works and how many tags are allowed for free comms, but it works kinda well at icons. (I've gone through posts there and added tags, just because I like organizing. :))

It is definitely easier to maintain and gives people agency. You just have to go over the tags once in a while and wrangle them a bit, but people don't have to ask you every time they need a new tag. But starting with a logical tagging system is important, so you should invent a few for the start that people can adhere to.

Potential names
I am for icon_library, because it is a really catchy name and a bit easier to read than iconlibrary.

Thoughts on what should be allowed?

My first thought was to allow as much as possible in the beginning, and if you see something taking over that doesn't fit, maybe restrict it then.

But the longer I think about it, I don't think adaptations should be allowed - those belong in fandom_icons. If I'm looking for book icons, I don't think I would appreciate finding a ton of Game of Thrones, for example. Adaptations tend to be more popular and might take over your comm, I don't know?

Fanart, otoh, seems to me to be definitely more related to books. It is nice to get permission from the artist (or at least obvious linked credit) before you turn their art into icons, though, so that should be in the rules.

You already know about comicbook_icons, and I guess it makes sense to provide clear rules about comics/graphic novels etc, so people know where to post what. I personally don't like it if every icon post turns up in three communities, but of course you can make the rules any way you prefer.

Listing all similar communities in the profile is a good idea. And maybe link the icontalking community listing post, so you don't have to maintain your profile as much?

Old icon batches should totally be allowed, since dw hasn't had specialized communities so far. So at least for now, linking old batches makes sense. I would just generally allow them. The "library" should be a place where you can find everything, and I think that includes older posts. (Maybe you could even make special months/events where people can link other people's icons, from lj or so, to add more content? i.e. rec posts. The possibilities are endless. ;))

Re: Book icon community?

[fueschgast]

D'oh, I should have kept reading before asking my question above.

- I like icon_library best. Or call it lex-icon! XD

- Hm, adaptations or fanart, good question. Adaptations, yes, I'd say. But fanart could be tricky. Making art from private people's art doesn't sound cool, so I'd only allow the icons if the iconmaker is also the maker of the fanart or they have the okay of the artist. I'd also allow icons of reading books.

- Links to old icon batches: Yes, for the start that would be fun to get the comm going.

- Anything you're missing: Can we offer icons/headers? That'll give you things to choose from and I get to make something from the idea that gave me. :oD

Shame on me, I have no book-containing icon to go with this comment.

Re: Book icon community? - rules draft

[sheliak]

This is a rough draft, so I'm definitely open to changing things at this point.



- This is a community for book icons! If you make icons based on covers, illustrations, or quotes from a book (or poem, or short story), they’re welcome here! So are icons of books, icons about reading, and anything else book-related.

- Move and TV adaptations should go in fandom_icons rather than here. Comic book and graphic novel icons should go in comicbook_icons. Beyond that, use your best judgement!

- Icons based on fanart of books are allowed only if you have the artist's permission, or if you drew the art yourself.

- If you have an old batch of icons that you would like to post here, feel free! As long as it hasn't been posted to this comm before, it's fine.

- Post up to three icons as a preview, and put the rest either under a cut or behind a link to your journal. Please don’t use a NSFW or spoilery icon in your teaser.

- Comment and credit if you take any icons.

Icon Library

[sheliak]

icon_library is open! It currently contains a very basic welcome post and one icon link post to demonstrate the provisional tagging system. (Let me know if the tagging seems unintuitive, or if there are problems with the rules--at this point I could change the system without much trouble.)

If anyone could join the comm and let me know if the tags that haven't been used are visible or not, that would be great! I can't see them when I'm logged out, but I'm hoping they're at least visible to community members. Also, I have tried to set things up so that members can create new tags, so hopefully that works.

I've also whipped up a couple of really basic banners, although I'm not terribly happy with them--the one of them is both fandom-specific and an image I've already used for an icon, and the other one is kind of a worse version of the community icon I did. If anyone else wants to make one to advertise the community, I'd definitely appreciate that.

Re: Icon Library

[tinny]

If anyone could join the comm and let me know if the tags that haven't been used are visible or not

I don't think I can see any tags that have not been used in posts yet.

I will advertise the comm in my next post here and repeat your request for headers.

p.s.: as you asked in a thread above: afaik you can't use the comm icon for making posts, even if you're an admin. The comm icon is only displayed on the main comm page and the profile. But of course you can also upload the comm icon to your personal account and use it for posting. I've done that for comms before.

Re: Icon Library

[fueschgast]

I can only see tags that have been used.

What's the widest you'd be cool with for a banner?