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

[tinyumbrella]

Your texture use is really cool and interesting, do you have any process on how you pick and apply textures? I know that's really broad, let me know if you want me to be more specific!

Re: Maker Thread

[seraphina_snape]

Well, the super vague answer is "whatever looks good". :p

But I've been thinking about this for a couple days now and I think I either go for matching colours or contrasting colours.

Matching colours:
I like using matching colours because it makes the icon look more harmonious.

Here the background picks up on Eve's lavender shirt


And this one picks up on the green dress


IDK, it just makes the icon more cohesive.

Contrasting:
I like creating contrast by using a dark texture with a light-coloured focus object, or a light or bright-coloured texture to offset the dark focus object:


Also great are textures that somehow "frame" the focus object, like these:


All of the above I use for my negative space icons (60% or so of all my icons are negative space icons). If an icon is not negative space, I use mostly light textures or colourful ones that I can add to the icon to make it less boring.


The actual process is as follows:
1. make basic icon
2. think "this needs some kind of texture"
3. open "favourite textures" folder on pc (note: this folder is like 87% textures by lookslikerain and 13% other, because I LOVE textures by lookslikerain - they're super colourful and I've never not been able to find one that works)
4. scroll through the textures and try out whichever texture catches my eye
5. if it's difficult to decide, duplicate the icon and look at them side-by-side
6. pick the one that looks best and save
(sometimes there is a step 5a. decide it looks great but needs something more, so repeat steps 4 and 5)

And that's about it!

Re: Maker Thread

[tinyumbrella]

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