Activity #26 - Ask The Maker

[tinny]

this banner is featuring an icon by tinyumbrella

It's June, and that means it's time for Ask The Maker again!

Our poll decided that a good majority of our makers here would like to see this activity again, and I'm hoping for high participation.

Ask The Maker is where you can ask your favorite makers about how they do that thing. You can ask for tutorials, guides/"How to", or ask any other questions related to their work. Check out the Maker thread (below) for makers who have signed up and are ready to answer your questions.

You can also ask questions to the community at large, and hope that someone is able to answer them. Do this in the Questions thread (below).

By now this community has been active for over two years, and we've grown quite a bit, along with DW. This should make for an interesting mix. I for one am looking forward to interesting questions and discussions!

Please promote this activity!

You can use this code here:
<center><img src='https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/file/205196.png' title='Activity #26 - Ask The Maker 2019' alt='Activity #26 - Ask The Maker 2019' /> <user name="icontalking"> <a href="https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/34730.html">Activity Post</a> </center>

The more participants the merrier! I will promote it at an official promo comm.

Here are the rules:

1) Maker-Driven


Rules for makers who want to sign up

Sign up by commenting to the Maker thread.

Please don't sign up if you know that you can't or do not plan to fulfill the requests you get within a month.

If you are an icon maker and you're willing to write tutorials, guides or answer questions (Q&A's), please sign up here with your name and where you post your work. Please state what you're willing to do/answer and if people can hotlink your work or not. Use this posting template:

<b>Username + where you post your work:</b> <b>What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.)</b> --->(If you know of anything that you're not able to answer/do, please mention it)<--- <b>Can we hotlink your icons?:</b>

There is no fixed time limit in which the signed up makers have to write these tutorials or answer questions, but it would be nice if everyone managed to post their answers within the next month. I will make the master list post around mid-July (i.e. in six weeks). Even if you take longer than that, please try and answer your questions. Please let people know if you find out you cannot fulfill the requests. Try not to leave people hanging.

All tutorials/Q&A etc. need to be posted in your community/journal and be posted publicly. In-depth explanations on tutorials is not a must, but highly encouraged.

When you finish your requests, post a link to them as a reply to the original request comment here. That way, I and the person requesting will be able to see them and I can add them to the master list.



2) Question-Driven - I have a question and anyone can answer



If you have a question about techniques, a specific look, etc, but you can't ask any maker directly (e.g. because they didn't sign up or are not on DW or because your question is more of the general kind), you may ask your question in the Questions thread.

Be aware that there is no guarantee that you'll get your question answered. You will increase your chances by asking specific questions about specific techniques and by giving icon examples, from different makers if possible. Please don't ask about single specific icons, nobody should feel pressured into participating.

Please don't hotlink icons from other makers without asking them. Reupload the icons (e.g. to imgur.com or postimages.com) instead.



What's What


Question categories and examples

Guides - a guide is a general explanation post. The maker will make a post explaining how to achieve a particular effect, use a technique, use a tool, etc.

#1 - Text and typography in gimp by cool_spectrum
#2 - A guide lighten dark bases from last year by tinny

Tutorial - a tutorial is a step-by-step description of how to make a particular icon. Only the maker of an icon can make a tutorial of how they made that icon. If you ask for a tutorial, you must provide said icon with your question. This kind of question only makes sense in the Maker thread.

A tutorial by fueschgast
Example tutorial #2 by word_never_said

Q&A - everything that doesn't quite fit the first two categories. Ask away, hope for the best. :)


Maker thread

Questions thread

Comments

Re: Maker Thread

[seraphina_snape]

:D

Thank you! I've been trying to be a little bolder with my colours and it's mostly because of you and your beautiful colourful icons! I generally play it safe and colour everything to be as-seen-in-nature, but occasionally I remember that it doesn't have to be that way. *g*

Re: Questions Thread

[lutein]

For fake background icons, what are the ways you can get the cut out to blend in more with the background or vice versa?

I'm at a loss on how to make these icons better.


I didn't do any sharpening on the first icon but the edges of the cut out bugs me. The texture on the second icon was originally blurry, I like the colours and I know the icon could use more work.

[lavenderspark]

So apparently "selective coloring" is not an option in my program. :(

But I know I've seen a tutorial for how to do it, so I'll have to search their youtube and see what I'm supposed to use.

I've been playing around with saturation and think I might've figured out something that gives a similar finish, but I've got to play with it some more.

Re: Maker Thread

[tinny]

Thank you! That's so sweet of you to say! <3

I love the coloring aspect of iconmaking. Bright colors ftw! :D

Re: Maker Thread

[seraphina_snape]

Oh, give me a few days? I've been trying to find the file, but it's entirely possible it's on an external hard drive somewhere and I have no idea which one. If I can't find it, I'll write up a close approximation of how that icon came to be.

Re: Questions Thread

[abyss_valkyrie]

For icons like this usually what I do is,I add soft colours on top of the image and then erase it in a way to make the edges looks soft,like the edge of the sleeves or shoulders.

Re: Questions Thread

[tinny]

Okay, so I played with those a little.

My go-to softening techniques are:
- glow
- plain old blur
- paint over with the background color

I made the background white everywhere so it's easier to see - everything white is supposed to be transparent!

Icon 1:

a) reducing the contrast by painting over the edge with the background color:

set to Normal 60% (This is not a mask, just a black brush stroke!)

->


b) reducing the sharpness by blurring the whole image:

Duplicate the image, use the normal "Blur" filter on the whole image, then mask:


This is the mask -> only blurring the edges

->


c) reducing the contrast by adding glow behind them:

This is a simple red blob with the subjects masked away, set it to Normal 55%
The edges are not completely masked away, so the glow bleeds into the edges of the subjects.

->


Icon 2:

Painting over it with background colors:

Color blobs with the subject masked away. Like with the Lucifer icon, the subject isn't completely masked away so the color goes over the edges. Set to Normal 55%.

->


Now the edges look a little too soft compared to the rest, so I blurred the whole thing (in addition to painting over with the color). Not sure that's better?

Re: Questions Thread

[tinyumbrella]

I have an older tutorial here on cutouts: https://oh-crime.dreamwidth.org/32608.html

textures help, and a line around the subject and then blurred is also good, i think the ones you've given aren't so bad (we are our own worst critics) and have great colouring!

the other thing i do is to cut it out at size, or 200x200px before resizing it down - it makes it better in general

Re: Maker Thread

[tinyumbrella]

thank you for that!! I need to get more experimental, and this was helpful :)

Re: Questions Thread

[lutein]

Thanks! I will try out your tip.

Re: Questions Thread

[lutein]

Thank you so much for the examples and explanations! Now I feel more confident on selectively blurring. :)

Re: Questions Thread

[tinny]

You're welcome! Selectively blurring (or sharpening) is one of my most important steps in iconmaking.

I'm glad I could help!

Re: Questions Thread

[lutein]

Thank you! I'll be sure to check out the tutorial you linked.

Re: Maker Thread

[seraphina_snape]

Okay, I cannot find the original icon file or the texture, so I'll just have to wing it. I do remember thinking that this icon was a lot simpler to make than the end result makes it look, so this isn't going to be super long.

There are three basic components: the full-body shot of Parker, the silhouette profile, and the background texture.

The prompt was "two-tone & full body", meaning I had to use at least one full body image and two colours. I started by looking at full body screencaps. My go-to fandom is Leverage, so I eventually picked a cap of Parker from The Girls Night Out Job where she wears a lovely gold dress. I started by cropping the image (I usually crop to 100x100 straight away - I can always make it smaller later, and the smaller the size, the less I have to erase from the image) and colouring it to my liking. Then I erased the background until I only had Parker's body left. That took care of the first step.

I have no idea where I found the texture - I'm almost sure it was an example texture for some other challenge around the same time, but I honestly don't remember and I can't find it again. I do know that I picked it because it fit the "two-tone" part of the prompt, being shades of gold like Parker (her dress and her hair and her skin). That sorted out step 3.

I added the texture as the background and thought: that is not enough contrast. I felt like the full body image of Parker didn't really stand out enough. She pretty much disappeared inside the texture. Plus, I still needed a second colour for my two-tone icon, and I decided it needed to be a darker colour in order to make the gold (and Parker) stand out more and the one with the most contrast was black. I played around with various shapes first - a rectangle (didn't look good), a broad vertical stripe behind Parker (clashed with the horizontal stripe of the texture, no matter at what angle I put it), a black circle (added yet another geometric shape but looked a little odd on its own). Eventually - I can't remember how - I thought maybe it needed to be an irregular shape and immediately thought "it could be ANOTHER PARKER!" (You can never have enough Parker in an icon or your life. *g*)

So step two was me trawling for screencaps that showed Parker in profile (to make her recognizable because from the front or back she looks a lot like other long-haired women). I don't remember the exact cap I used, but from the collar it looks like it was FBIAgent!Parker. I cropped the image, used the pen tool to colour every part of Parker black and then erased everything that wasn't black. I pasted this image between the texture and the full-body image.

And that was it.

EDIT: If you want me to, I could write up a proper follow-along tutorial with screencaps and whatnot, but it wouldn't be the same icon since I can't find the texture.

Re: Maker Thread

[seraphina_snape]

I wrote up a basic guide here, but if there is interest, I could do a full tutorial.

Re: Questions Thread

[goodbyebird]

The ways I blend cutouts with backgrounds is to either

A) get colors from the cutout and use them in the background, or

B) drop colors/blobs/textures/gradients on top, usually set to soft light.

You can also copy/merge the whole icon, blur it, and set it to soft light on top, then sharpen the end result.

Re: Maker Thread

[goodbyebird]

/

Would love a coloring tut on this. SO pretty!

Re: Maker Thread

[goodbyebird]

hee, I don't think monochrome is a particular strength of mine, but I do believe I have the PDF for the Villanelle icon, so I'll have a look at writing something up (after I'm done with the comics battle eep!).

For the Batwoman icon, I remember doing a lot of individual sharpening where I felt it was needed(tips of cloak, weapon, boots, hair), and then highlighting the red parts with some soft light to make them stand out more.

Hah, and for cropping it's about squishing as much as possible into every corner and side of the icon? Combined with my eternal lust for hand and hairporn? *hands* Oviedo did a cropping guide way back when, so you might as well go learn from the master.