icontalking | Activity #61

this banner features an icon by abyss_valkyrie

May is always a bit low on traffic, let's see if we can make June more prolific! (If you want to make icons in addition to discussions, I have extended our May activity until the end of June, so you can do that, too, if you like.)

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).

I 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 (until the end of June).

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 activity result post mid-July. 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 activity result post at the end of the month.

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 or your dw account) 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 to picking textures (from our 2019 round) by

seraphina_snape

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.

Trippy Tutorial by

tinebrella
Tutorial (from 2020) by

abyss_valkyrie
Tutorial by

tinyumbrella

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

Maker thread

Questions thread

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Username + where you post your work:

novindalf at

split_loyalties
What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.) I only really have time for Q&As I'm afraid. I keep copies of all my textures and fonts used in icons so can certainly answer anything about that!
Can we hotlink your icons?: Sure

Compositional question for you. I always have a hard time with composition in that it usually feels really awkward say... having a subject floating in an icon.

Yet these two just look so right and natural, yet when I do it... I just kinda feel like something is off if that makes sense? Any tips on how to go about this sort of look?

Thank you for the question!

My go-to methods for those subject floating icons is to use a shape to frame the subject, a frame texture, or some sort of stock/half frame texture. For the Violet icon I think the cap cut off near her midline so I cut around her top half and positioned her so she was in the middle of the icon and then pasted the flower texture over where the straight line at the bottom of the cap was, and then erased any bits of her that were showing underneath the texture.

For the Jane icon, again there was a straight line at the bottom of the screeencap image so I drew a circle behind her where I wanted it to go, brought the circle layer to the front and then erased any bits of her that I could still see around the circle (only at the bottom though, I wanted her head to kind of be emerging from the circle at the top) and then put the circle back at the back.

I still try to use the rule of thirds (this is an excellent guide on that as a side note) - basically both Violet and Jane are positioned in the centre of the icon, but also the top of Violet's head is about a third of the way down and the flowers are about a third of the way up. It's not quite a third in the Jane icon, but her eyes are about a third of the way from the top, and the bottom of the circle about a third from the bottom. I think if you can balance out where you put the floating subject so they take up the middle third then that can't really go wrong.

If you want some more examples/inspiration for subject floating icons, we did a round on them at capspiration here and I uploaded loads of examples here too.

Or if you want to show me some of your own goes I can try and give some concrit if you'd like?

Hope that helps!

I thought I'd seen that guide, but I really hadn't! Thank you so much for linking, it's amazing. <3

Edited 2022-06-22 15:11 (UTC)

You're welcome! I'm a bit fan of their guides/tutorials :)

Hi, I would love tutorials on the following, if it's not asking to many that is:

Thank you!

Afraid I don't have time to do any tutorials, only Q&As, so if you can think of specific things you'd like to ask about any icon then feel free, but I can't do any full tutorials.

Activity #61 - Ask The Maker

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