Activity #93 - Five is the Limit

[tinny]

I'm not sure how practical this challenge is, but I hope it's at least inspiring. :D

The rule for this challenge is to make icons that have at most five layers (on Photoshop or other layer-based tools) and/or only take you at most five minutes to make.

Challenge yourself to both simplicity and speed! :D

Maybe this could be an opportunity to learn how to make photoshop actions or get some cool gimp plugins?



Some random icons and textures for inspiration:

~~~~~ icons ~~~~~

setsuntamew | abyss_valkyrie | narnialover7 | haebin


chacusha | crazycordy | longerthanwedo | picnicnic

~~~~~

~~~~~ textures ~~~~~

ai-generated | midnight_road | colorfilter | lookslikerain


yunhe x2 | Emil Nolde | innocent_lexys | timetobegin

~~~~~

* Since I have no way to verify this, I'm calling on your honesty: please don't cheat. Only submit icons that took you no more than five minutes to make and/or have no more than five layers. Using actions/scripts to automate and speed up your work is allowed.
* You don't have to limit both time and layers. You can enter icons that took you an hour as long as they only have five layers. Or you can enter an icon with ten layers if you manage to make it in under five minutes. Play around and have fun! <3
* You can make as many icons as you like (if you need a goal, five is a good number :))
* There is no minimum, 1 icon is enough to enter this activity
* Please submit your icons (and URLs!) to this post, all in one comment (if possible)
* Everyone can participate, you don't have to be a member of this community

* I will collect all the icons from the comments and make a result post
* Everyone can leave comments on the inspiration and activity result posts
* There is no voting

Deadline: Saturday, May 10 2025, your end-of-day

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

AI-generated texture? :(

[tinny]

Yes.

I'm not prepared to engage in a philosophical debate on ai at this point. The way they got trained is morally questionable, but they're here now, and using them for texture generation is fair game imho.

[breyzyyin]

I went with the "have no more than five layers" part of the challenge! :)



Final Fantasy VII Rebirth x5

1. https://breyzyyin.dreamwidth.org/file/972712.png
2. https://breyzyyin.dreamwidth.org/file/972434.png
3. https://breyzyyin.dreamwidth.org/file/972804.png
4. https://breyzyyin.dreamwidth.org/file/973253.png
5. https://breyzyyin.dreamwidth.org/file/973512.png

[tinny]

Gorgeous! I especially like #2 and #3, and the color-coordinated shadow-shapes look awesome in all of them.

[nondenomifan]

I really like the colors in 1, 2, and 3. The effect in 4 is cool, too!

[abyss_valkyrie]

How cool are these for such a short time frame! I love these!The girls icons are so perfect,they're like a whole set of paintings I would love to hang on my room!

[magicrubbish]

Beautiful set. I love the backgrounds and coloring of 1 and 3 in particular. Also, the framing of 2 looks great.

[littlemissnovella]

I love your texture use and compositions, these icons are stunning with five layers or less <3

[nondenomifan]

FYI: For MacOs users, we have to scroll down to gMic 2.10 and click the link to get the version for MacPorts (Terminal). Annnnd, I found out it didn't install. Darn it.

[tinny]

Oh noes, I'm sorry. I tried to find something non-PS-centered, I'm so sorry it didn't work. :(

(Also, of course you may define your own 5-things limit if that works better with the software you're using. <3)

[nondenomifan]

1. 2. 3. 4.

1. https://res.cloudinary.com/nondenomifan/image/upload/v1744942721/Icons/icontalking/093%20Five%20Is%20the%20Limit/F5_PoutySpike_fdzanr.png
2. https://res.cloudinary.com/nondenomifan/image/upload/v1744942721/Icons/icontalking/093%20Five%20Is%20the%20Limit/F5_InTheLight_hksres.png
3. https://res.cloudinary.com/nondenomifan/image/upload/v1744942721/Icons/icontalking/093%20Five%20Is%20the%20Limit/F5_AngelSunset_zwebnk.png
4. https://res.cloudinary.com/nondenomifan/image/upload/v1744942721/Icons/icontalking/093%20Five%20Is%20the%20Limit/F5_DoyleSunset_mhhidv.png

Angel, S1E3, "In the Dark," caps from screencapped.net

[tinny]

Ooooh, one of my faves! I really like the glowy coloring that matches the sunset behind them in #3 and #4.

[breyzyyin]

These icons are really eye-catching! ♥ I love how they turned out: amazing work on them! ♥

[magicrubbish]

I love this set. Especially the lighting and contrast of 3 and 4.

[littlemissnovella]

Love the background use (2 & 4) and listing in this set!

[littlemissnovella]

[abyss_valkyrie]

Love the 2nd and 4th icons!

[tinny]

Oh, these are great! I especially like #2 (great lighting!), and #3, it looks very unlike your usual style, which I take as evidence that the time/layer limit really pushed at boundaries - which is exactly what I wanted it to do! I hope you had fun with it! <3

[magicrubbish]

I love the 1st two icons, the backgrounds suit the subjects attire's perfectly. <3 Lovely lighting as well in this set.

[nondenomifan]

Love the colors in these--especially in the first two. I'm amazed you were able to do these in less than 5 minutes or steps!

[breyzyyin]

These icons are amazing! The second and fourth icons are personal highlights for me, but all four are incredible. ♥

[abyss_valkyrie]

WOW!This sure is a challenge...and I'm so in!

[abyss_valkyrie]

WOW!That was quite a surprise. I don't remember the last time I worked so quickly on icons,lol!
Icons 1 and 4 used 4 layers and the rest were done within the time limit. Icon 5 really cut it close because the initial screencap was a bit dark and quite yellow. Icon 3 took me the shortest amount of time because when I took these screencaps a few days back I had an idea on how I wanted to use it!:D There are a few I tried but they kept crossing over the time limit so I scrapped those.

2X Maxton Hall, The Gardener, 2X Black doves


https://i.imgur.com/AIl085C.png
https://i.imgur.com/xY76Xkr.png
https://i.imgur.com/PV7MAlt.png
https://i.imgur.com/EneNT6z.png
https://i.imgur.com/zmLV1uP.png

[tinny]

OMG these are amazing!!! I haven't even started mine, so I have no idea how hard/achievable the 5-minute limit even is, but you definitely blew my expectations right out of the water! Especially that the ones with the levels were possible in five minutes is absolutely incredible!

I love all of them, my faves are #2 and #3. (Maxton Hall! Such a great scene and a great representation for it! I'm looking forward to season 2!)

[tinny]

All of these took me less than (or actually pretty much exactly) five minutes to make, and they all have five layers (except one, which has six). That was fun but also really stressful! :D

For #1, I had to stop in the middle of the text work, so I prefer the one without text. The text is actually a text texture (in both #1 and #4), so it wasn't time-consuming. The text in #3 is actually real text, with shadow effects, I'm proud of that! The second row... eeeh, the coloring in #4 and #5 really needs improving, but I'm happy with #6. I found that close crops are easiest for this kind of challenge, because they don't require masking and look good without text.




HPI x3 | Engrenages | Audrey Fleurot | HPI


https://tinpix.de/2025/hip_french103_19.06.png
https://tinpix.de/2025/hip_french103_19.06o.png
https://tinpix.de/2025/hip_french205_02.26.png
https://tinpix.de/2025/engrenages_audrey06.png
https://tinpix.de/2025/sm2025_day8_audrey_00.35.png
https://tinpix.de/2025/hip_french102_35.32a.png


Here are the ones that I just couldn't resist fiddling with - of course that added a few minutes each. Worth it, though. :)
alts:

[magicrubbish]

Wow, great results! I love to read your explanation as well ! :D I also love how you add texts to your icons to rizz up the icons . Lovely crop in 3 and 5.

[magicrubbish]

Out of the furnace X10

My hands were itching to add some texts to the icons , as you know how much I love adding text to my icons. :D But I realized it's not possible to do so within 5 minutes because I've to spend a lot of time staring blankly at my photoshop before inspiration hits me , as I struggle with words. :D
All the icons are done within 2 -3 minutes , maximum 4 minutes. All of them are done using less than five layers. Some with just 3 layers of curve , Vibrance and brightness/ contrast.

[abyss_valkyrie]

The crop in 1 is so good. The last one too-so sweet.
Love the full body image in 5. 2 and 3 look great.