tinny: Fack Ju Goehte - Zeki Mueller wearing glasses, labeled "Geek" (fackjugoehte_zeki geek in glasses)
tinny ([personal profile] tinny) wrote in [community profile] icontalking2019-06-01 06:41 pm
Entry tags:

Activity #26 - Ask The Maker

Activity #26 - Ask The Maker 2019
this banner is featuring an icon by [personal profile] 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:


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:



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 [livejournal.com profile] cool_spectrum
#2 - A guide lighten dark bases from last year by [personal profile] 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 [personal profile] fueschgast
Example tutorial #2 by [personal profile] 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
sheliak: Handwoven tapestry of the planet Jupiter. (Default)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] sheliak 2019-06-01 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Username + where you post your work: Sheliak + https://sheliak.dreamwidth.org/tag/icons
What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.) I'm up for anything!
Can we hotlink your icons?: Sure.
tinyumbrella: (lot [ zari green ])

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-02 01:07 am (UTC)(link)
Username + where you post your work: [personal profile] tinyumbrella (previously [personal profile] timetobegin) and i post at [community profile] oh_crime
What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.) I'll give anything a shot! I don't save my psds, so i will recreate anything rather than showing the exact same icon
Can we hotlink your icons?: sure
Edited 2019-06-02 01:07 (UTC)
tinyumbrella: (hp [ harry potter ])

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-02 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
What are your favourite fonts? I'm always on the hunt for new and interesting fonts!
tinyumbrella: (hod [ lemon ])

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-02 01:33 am (UTC)(link)
I always struggle to make comic book icons look normal, do you have any tips and tricks for colouring? I like your colouring on these:

goodbyebird: Comics. Catwoman looking out over her city, cats by her side. (C ∞ I know who I am)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] goodbyebird 2019-06-02 12:05 pm (UTC)(link)


Username + where you post your work: [personal profile] goodbyebird @ [community profile] spankulert
What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.) I probably won't be able to do a tutorial for a specific icon unless I saved the PDF, but ask away.
Can we hotlink your icons?: Yup :)
Edited 2019-06-02 12:10 (UTC)
seraphina_snape: Parker from the TV show Leverage. She is wearing a white shirt and is smiling. (Default)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] seraphina_snape 2019-06-02 05:49 pm (UTC)(link)
Username + where you post your work: [personal profile] seraphina_snape | [community profile] raptor_inc (icon tag)
What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.) ask me anything
--->(If you know of anything that you're not able to answer/do, please mention it)<---
Can we hotlink your icons?: sure, they're all up on imgur anyway, so there's no point of reupping them
lavenderspark: (Default)

[personal profile] lavenderspark 2019-06-02 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooo! I have a question for this!! I'll have to get on my computer later so I can pull example icons.
seraphina_snape: Parker from the TV show Leverage. She is wearing a white shirt and is smiling. (Default)

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] seraphina_snape 2019-06-02 06:19 pm (UTC)(link)
I always struggle with text in general, but I do have some favourite fonts that I use a lot.

For small text, I like A Love of Thunder - it's an all caps font that looks good even in really small size.

I like God Bless America for anything cursive, but it can be a struggle to make it legible on something icon-sized.

Fox in the Snow is something I feel looks best the bigger the font, so I use it mainly for wallpapers and sig tags. It works great in contrast with a more blocky font.

Other fonts I like:
Moon Flower
Another Typewriter
Hearts (for when you need a heart but don't want to draw it or find a heart texture *g*)
Tall Dark And Handsome
Lemon Milk
Reklame
Federation Starfleet
sheliak: Karis G'deon, with anvil (industrious)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] sheliak 2019-06-03 01:25 am (UTC)(link)
I think that first one was just a crop from a page, unaltered. (So the answer for that one is “start with a scan with coloring you like, and don’t mess with it.” Probably kind of disappointing? Although it might be worth mentioning that comic book coloring has changed a lot over time; I work mostly with older comics, stuff from the 80s and modern digitizations of it, and the colors there tend to be a lot flatter than stuff from the last two decades or so.)

The second one is pretty similar, just with a texture for a background.

The basic thought process on most of my icons like that is:
- Pick a scan you like the coloring on.
- If you’re using a texture as a background, match it to the coloring and quality of the scan. (If the scan is an old, faded comic, especially one that uses halftone/dotted coloring, you want to use faded/papery textures rather than the kind of bright/smooth texture I used for the second Corsair above.) I can pull up some examples if that’d be useful?
- Upping contrast can help a lot with faded scans, although you have to be careful not to overdo it. If you do this, fiddling with the brightness as well is usually a good idea.

The third one is where it gets a bit fancier. I didn’t save the .xcf file (if you like I can try reverse engineering the icon to be more sure of the steps?), but this is approximately what I did, starting from the cropped panel and working in GIMP:
1. Used Free Select to get a layer of just the character I wanted, erased the background edges.
2. Copied just the glasses for a second layer (and erased around them in that layer).
3. Went to the character layer and used the Colorify tool to convert it to grayscale. (NB: I might’ve first copied the layer again, and used color to alpha to get just the linework and layer that on top of the grayscale. I don’t think I did that in this case, but I did it in some of that batch.)
4. Added a texture as a background.
5. …. Saved. I thought I was done at this point. Then I noticed that the background was a bit too orange, so I went back and upped the contrast a bit so that it’s redder. This had the effect of also losing some of the grayscale effect on the character, though there’s still some gray in his jacket. The first version of the icon is here: https://i.imgur.com/Bmy0fOF.png

I hope that was of some use! And if you've got any follow-up questions I'll do my best to answer them.
ella_rose88: (Villainelle/Eve :: Addicted to you)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] ella_rose88 2019-06-03 09:52 am (UTC)(link)
I really love what you did with these icons: https://i.imgur.com/34IGnom.png
https://i.imgur.com/aC6J3Ju.png
https://i.imgur.com/mjfaO3t.png

I just would love to know how you work out the composition (re. what textures to use, what images, the text and placement etc). Hope that makes sense *fingerscrossed*
Edited 2019-06-03 09:58 (UTC)
goodbyebird: Wonder Woman: Diana in a blue ball gown, sword sheathed down her back, “what I do is not up to you”. (ⓕ a woman’s place)

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] goodbyebird 2019-06-03 10:55 am (UTC)(link)
Do you participate in icontests? If so, what is most likely to make you want to participate? (themes, provided caps, fandoms, seeing other entries, open or anonymous makers, inspirations, etc.)
Edited 2019-06-03 10:59 (UTC)
goodbyebird: Community: Britta is turning it into a snake. (Community turning it into a snake)

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] goodbyebird 2019-06-03 10:57 am (UTC)(link)
What are some of your favorite tutorials?
extrapenguin: Northern lights in blue and purple above black horizon. (Default)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] extrapenguin 2019-06-03 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
How do you do text so that it looks so ... un-blocky and fluid? Like here:

Relatedly, do you have any fonts you would recommend?
extrapenguin: Northern lights in blue and purple above black horizon. (Default)

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] extrapenguin 2019-06-03 07:58 pm (UTC)(link)
For the first example, the letters aren't completely monochrome, but have some sort of texturing; is that part of the font as well?

Thank you for the tip and the font recs! I'll definitely put them to use on the next icons I make. :3
tinyumbrella: (marvel [ hope ])

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-07 07:35 am (UTC)(link)
I prefer themes and techniques, because finding caps are hard enough i'd rather be able to make it easy on myself. I do love entering things as it gives me purpose.

But sometimes caps or fandoms are just that good

i like seeing the entries as we go, as i like to comment on them but i'm not picky!
tinyumbrella: (teen wolf [ allison ])

Re: Questions Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-07 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
I don't have any favourites but here are some of the ones i bookmarked to look at:

https://ultraviolence.livejournal.com/29282.html < interesting colours and effects
https://psychedelicats.livejournal.com/37253.html < trippy effects
https://accios.livejournal.com/74150.html < muted, yet vibrant
https://bel-perdente.livejournal.com/45380.html < working with less than ideal caps
https://good-tutorial.livejournal.com/28869.html < in depth colouring
https://bel-perdente.livejournal.com/45589.html < interesting colouring
https://good-tutorial.livejournal.com/31133.html < vibrant colouring
tinyumbrella: (lot [ zari ])

Re: Maker Thread

[personal profile] tinyumbrella 2019-06-07 07:42 am (UTC)(link)
I've been loving your glow lately, any tips or tricks? I find sometimes my glow overpowers or underperforms

eg.


i adore that last icon too, if you feel up to a tutorial?

oh and maybe any info on how you blend your textures to make it look like a normal background/foreground, it's not one of my strong points. eg

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