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:

tinny, I post everything to my personal journal, the tag is:
https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/tag/art-icons

What can we request from you (tutorials, Q&A, guides etc.)
Anything you like. I keep all my psds, and I like writing tutorials. Just please check out the tutorials and guides I've written in recent years, so you don't accidentally ask me a question I've already answered.
https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/tag/art-tutorial

Can we hotlink your icons?:
Sure.

This is a really cool composition. I really like how the background is done! Would love to know what sort of technique you used for it. :)

Thank you so much for asking everyone questions and livening up our activity! <3

I'll go check what I did for this icon.

ETA: Looks like I chose a very dark-background cap and set it to Linear Add in the background, masking away the people in front of it.

If I find the time, I'll write up a proper tutorial for it this week.

Edited 2022-06-16 14:26 (UTC)

It looked so empty! I had to do something and honestly, it's not a bother, because everyone has really cool styles and I'm sure I'll learn some really cool tips. I'm only just dipping my toes back in after not iconing in years so learning new things or even maybe being reminded of things that I knew and forgot? Priceless.

Linear Add is one of those layer settings I think I usually ignore. Clearly I need to expand my horizons!

It's always hard to predict how much interaction will happen in activities like this. Thank you!

Linear Add is one of those layer settings I think I usually ignore. Clearly I need to expand my horizons!

I sometimes feel like Linear Add is the largest hammer PS has, and I sometimes use too large a weapon for things that don't really need it. I'm sure Screen would have worked just as well. I just always go with Linear Add and then reduce the opacity, instead of using more subtle instruments. Oops. :)

Although I see that in this icon's case, I actually used it at full opacity, probably because the cap was really dark. :D

I had fun writing it up! Here's the full tutorial:

https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/691712.html

Hi! I would love tutorials on the following, if they are not to much. I can always just pic a few, but these are the one's I love the most. Thank you! :)

Edited 2022-07-01 02:46 (UTC)

Thank you for commenting! I already made a tutorial last month, I'm all tapped out right now. But I can do it sometime later, if you can wait a while. Not for all of those, though. O_O

If you pick two, I'll make those. If you let me pick, I'd probably go for 1 or 3 or 6, because those are unusual for me.

Hi, no worries. Figured it be a long shot, but had to ask lol. Could you do some for 1 and 2? If not 2 then 6. Thank you.

Okay, so I did 1 and 2. The only reason I wouldn't have chosen 2 is because it's relatively easy, I thought. But if you want to see it, it's not a problem.

Here are the two tutorials:

https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/693197.html

Awesome, thank you so much. And that is fine, just glad you were able to do one or two. :) Thank you again, you got such awesome icons to learn from. :)

hi hi, I have two requests if it isnt too much to ask! :D

a tutorial for this painty fellow!

images

and a more general guide for composition, with some of my faves for example :D

images

I'm still working on the tuts from the above commenter, but, yes, sure! Thanks for asking! <3

For the guide... I'm really not aware that I'm doing anything special as to composition - I feel like my compositions are always the same, pretty much. :D I wrote a composition guide a few years ago that still applies: https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/508943.html - but it's not really clear how that would lead to above icons. :D

Honestly, my process is always the same: cut out person, make portrait/bust crop, do lots of coloring and lighting, slap on a ton of textures, add text if there's space (I always make central crops and forget to leave space for text), call it done. I am not consciously aware of anything else? (I have a much easier time writing tutorials than guides. /o\)

I can try and think about it a little more, if there's any aspect of my iconmaking that I haven't made guides for yet. If you have any particular aspects that interest you, or have concrete questions that might help me, I could go collect more examples and see if I have something coherent to say about them?

Ah okay, so basically like, what is the thought process behind approaching an icon? Do you how have a certain idea about how you want to construct the icon? and say you want it to be complex - how do your approach that?

I'm not sure if I am explaining myself very well but I think what I am trying to ask is, how do you genrally explore icon making, where do you take inspiration from and what are some of your favourite techniques to try. Hope this helps! :D

Thank you for clarifying. I always feel like my process is "oh he's pretty" and that's it. I don't consciously think about it. :D

But I have resolved to try and reiterate what I thought when I made some recent icons, so maybe that'll make the process less subconscious for me, too?

I'll try? :)

Okay, I wrote the tutorial for the first one:

https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/695012.html

I'll tackle the composition guide next.

All right! I finished the guide as well.

It's more me babbling about the thoughts I had during the creation of a selection of icons than anything coherent. I hope it's something like you imagined it would be?

https://tinny.dreamwidth.org/695198.html

Activity #61 - Ask The Maker

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