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Rainbow Mystery Box

One of the few challenges that wasn't part of the round 100 free-for-all was the Mystery Box challenge, so we'll rectify that now. Welcome to our second Mystery Box challenge!

I created seven different themed boxes, and since I didn't manage to limit myself, they're actually kind of huge... Each contains 30-40 textures and color palettes with one predominant color. You can choose from:

purple

red

orange

yellow

green

blue

black/white

You can also request a random box, then I'll choose one for you.

There's a comment thread where you can leave a comment to request a box. I will send you the download link for your box as a dm.

Note: I also need a box, and when I was assembling them, one in particular seemed like it would be very challenging for me personally, so that's the one I'll pick.

Special rules for this activity:
* You have to use at least one of the provided textures OR a palette for every icon you make
* You don't have to use all of the provided materials - if you want, you can make all your icons with the same texture
* It would be nice if you mentioned which resource you used for each icon, but it's not absolutely required
(the maker name is enough for me to identify it and link it in the result post - you dont have to link it yourself)

The usual rules:
* 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 this post and the activity result posts
* There is no voting

Deadline: Saturday, January 17, 2025, your end-of-day

Can you believe that we're already on our 100th activity? I certainly can't. O_O This will be our second celebratory activity. You can make icons that fit any of our previous challenges! I left out the texture activities, the ask the maker ones, the new year activities, the cap chains, the mystery boxes, and the wishlist. Everything else is fair game! Have fun!

( all the rest )

* Your icons must adhere to the rules of the activity you choose
* Please mention the activity when you post your icons
* You can make icons for more than one of our previous activities
* 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
* 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, December 13th 2025, your end-of-day

Icontalking Header #99 Hair

I can't believe we haven't had this theme here yet! Focus on hair, that's it. You can go wild and paint the hair, and I looked up two tutorials for you, but painting is absolutely not a requirement. Just have fun!

This is a free inspirational challenge.

( Some inspirational icons under here )

plus two tutorials:

how to get a painted look without painting anything by

afeastforme
hairpainting by

naive_astronaut

* 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, November 15th, your end-of-day

Icontalking Header #98 Checkers

This is a pretty straightforward theme: show some kind of checkered or grid pattern in your icon. The pattern can be there in the source, e.g. someone wearing a plaid shirt or standing in front of a wire fence or playing a game of chess, or you can add it using textures.

( Some inspirational material under here )

* 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, October 18th, your end-of-day

Icontalking #97 Love is in the Air

I've watched a lot of romances lately, and I thought, why not turn this into a theme this month?

Icon things that you associate with love or romance! Any interpretation is fine, this is a free inspirational challenge.

( Romantic inspiration material under here )

* 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, September 20th, your end-of-day

Icontalking #96 Around the Block

We're going to try blocking this month! Use any rectangular shape to cut off/obscure/divide your icon. Text is roughly a rectangular shape, too, so it counts. You don't have to use more than one image to achieve blocking. Textures or even single color shapes can be used to great effect.

This is a free inspirational challenge.

( Some inspirational material under here )

* 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, August 23rd, your end-of-day

Ask The Maker Header 2025 featuring an icon by breyzyyin

this banner features an icon by breyzyyin

With a little bit of delay because I didn't feel up to it three weeks ago, here's this years Ask The Maker activity!

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 )

2) Question-Driven - I have a question and anyone can answer

( rules for questions to the community )

What's What

( question categories and examples )

Maker thread

Questions thread

This activity will run to mid-July, maybe the end of July, depending on how many requests there are.

If you want to work on a challenge while Ask the Maker is running, you can find currently open challenges in our sticky post. And our previous activity, Technique Waterfall, is also still open until the end of Ask the Maker.

Icontalking Header #94 Waterfall

I don't feel up to Ask the Maker yet, so first we'll have a short activity until mid-June (and then Ask the Maker).

Now we'll make sets of icons following water down a waterfall! Under the cut, there is a list of techniques in the shape of a waterfall.

( technique waterfall! )

Rules:

* You have to start at the top (on any square that has no other directly above it, not necessarily the top left) and then go straight down or diagonally down. Make one icon for each square you come across (of course using that technique). It's your choice where you start, and whether you go straight down or diagonal on each step. You can go both left-down or right-down. Just never go horizontally or up.

* Each set of icons has to be of consecutive squares you come across on the way from top to bottom. You don't have to go all the way down - you can start at the top and only make two icons, that's okay. Minimum set size is two icons.

* If you want to make more than one set, you can. You can choose a new starting point (has to be one of the top squares) for each set.

Please ask me if you have any questions. Let me know if there's a problem with the graphic, I can also provide the techniques as plain text.

* You can make as many icons as you like (if you need a goal, five is a good number :))
* In this round, 2 icons is the minimum 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, June 14 2025, your end-of-day~~ This activity has been extended through the duration of this year's Ask The Maker round (mid-July/end of July).

Icontalking Header #93 Five is the Limit

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 )

* 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

Activity #24 - Song Set

Music is good for the soul... and I love making song sets. Since we haven't had this activity in five years, lets try our hand at it again!

A song set consists of icons with the lyrics of one song. Lyrics should be continuous within the song from one icon to the next.

example set by

breyzyyin: ("Don't Say A Word" by Ellie Goulding)

example set by

thisbluespirit: ("What About Everything?" by Carbon Leaf)

We have a ton more examples from previous activities. Check them out here:

https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/31977.html
https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/45420.html

Rules:

* Every icon should contain at least one word.
* If you can't make a part of the lyrics work:
** not all words have to be readable!
** you can leave out short connecting words (like "and", "that",...)
* You can choose any song, or more than one song if you make more than one set.
* If you want to leave out parts of the lyrics, just make separate sets.

* There is a minimum of 2 icons: the smallest set is a set of two.
* You can make as many icons (and as many sets) as you like.
* Please link the song lyrics, and/or put the parts you used of them in your comment with your icons

* 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, April 05 2025, your end-of-day

Icontalking Activity #91 February is a blur

I haven't been able to come up with anything unusual for our next challenge, so lets do something traditionally well-liked: a color challenge! All icons must use at least two colors from this color palette.

~~~~~

Februarys_a_blur

palette colors

oops this palette doesn't actually exist anymore, so here are the colors:

#f8e795

#d36f4c

#5c323f

#2d053b

#238194

~~~~~

Bonus challenge (optional): In addition to the colors, if you like to incorporate a theme as well, icon something inspired by at least one of these themes:

~~~~~
themes

fast
adrenaline
cool
blur
getaway

~~~~~

( Inspirational icons and textures under here )

* Icons must use at least two colors from this month's palette
* You may use the bonus themes, but you don't have to.
* 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, March 01 2025, your end-of-day

Time to look back on 2024 with a focus on iconmaking, to draw some conclusions, and get some feedback! \o/

1) ICON PROGRESSION

Tell us what icons you made last year, select the best/the most extraordinary/the most representative, and tell us about them.

Tell us about your progress, your fandoms, your ideas and techniques. What changed over the course of the year?

If you want, you can make resolutions about your iconmaking: what you would like to do this year, techniques you want to try, goals you want to achieve - for resolutions, also see bestof_icons below.

There are quite a few progression posts made by our members in previous years, where you can look for ideas how to go about it:

=> https://icontalking.dreamwidth.org/tag/progression+post

( more examples and layout code links )

* You can post your progression/resolution posts as new posts directly to this comm
* If you post(ed) a progression post to your journal, you can make a new post here and link to your journal
* If you have more than 5 icons in your post, put them under a cut
* Note: you must be a member of this community to be able to post

Deadline: any time you want! These things take time. Post them to the community any time you like!

2) BESTOF_ICONS

bestof_icons has already opened its doors on DW again this year:

Activities currently in progress:

Remakes

Resolutions

Nominations NOW OPEN

The more the merrier!

3) ICON FEEDBACK/CONCRIT

When this comm was new, there was a concrit/feedback thread on every post, but it wasn't used by many people, so I stopped making them. In case you do miss getting feedback on your icons, there's a concrit/feedback thread in this post again!

Have fun, and be nice!

p.s.

If you'd rather participate in a challenge this month, I'm right now updating our List of current active iconmaking communities. It's a sticky post at the top of this comm, and you can also find a link to it in the comm's sidebar. I update this list about once a month. You're always welcome to let me know if there are new comms I should add to it.

Icontalking Activity #89 Hat on it

Santa Hats! Or... any other funny decoration, really. There's this tradition to decorate your user icons with Christmas-y elements in December. I've seen hats, red noses, reindeer antlers, sparkly stars, and falling snow, but there's no limit to the things you might want to add to your icons *for fun*. :D If you're not into Christmas, feel free to use anything else decorative that you find funny!

You can make new icons including these decorations, but you can also take old icons (please only use ones you made yourself, unless you have the permission of the maker) and add decorations to it. Modifying old icons is allowed this round!

( Some example icons and useful resources under here )

* You can make as many icons as you like (if you need a goal, five is a good number :))
* You can reuse icons you've made before and add decorations to them, feel free to post before+after if you want
* 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, December 28th, your end-of-day

Icontalking Header #88 Guide

I don't know what it is, but I'm coming up with all these weird ideas lately. :D This month: pick a guide (or a tutorial) and try to make icons using these instructions. I've picked a few old ones from lj for you, plus of course you are always welcome to use the ones created by our own members during our Ask The Maker rounds.

( a selection of guides and tutorials )

* Every icon you make must be based on a guide or tutorial of your choice
* If you used one that isn't directly linked here, please provide a link to it
* You can use as many guides as you like. One icon per guide, or lots of icons for the same one
* Consider leaving a comment on the guide/tutorial if you used it, feedback on resources like that is always appreciated

* You can make as many icons as you like (since understanding the guide or the tutorial in the first place may be time-consuming, don't fret about the number of icons <3)
* There is no minimum, 1 icon is enough to enter this activity
* Please submit your icons (and URLs and descriptions!) to this post, all in one comment (if possible)
* Feel free to talk about the process - if you stuck to the tutorials or if you changed things, I'm sure it'll be interesting for us
* 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, November 23 2024, your end-of-day

Icontalking Activity #87 OcTexture

As suggested by our members, we'll have a texture-making activity this month! \o/

I collected some ideas around the month of October: the colors, the weather, and the holidays that take place in this month. I hope they inspire you! This is a free inspirational activity, you can make textures any way you like!

( October Inspo )

Some texture tutorials - I always link the same ones, but they're timeless, really. :) (If you have other texture tutorials that you like, please share!)

Difference Cloud Textures by

unreal
Photography Textures by

fuuurs
Twirl Art Tutorial
Difference Blending Mode Tutorial

Here are two I haven't linked before:

Simple Texture Tutorial by

tiger_tyger
Textures tutorial by

evansyhelp

* You can make as many textures as you like
* Your textures have to be at least 100x100 in size, but they may also be larger.
* Please submit your textures (and URLs!) to this post, all in one comment (if possible). If they are very large, please use preview thumbnails.
* If there are more textures than you would like to submit to a comment, you can submit them to your journal or to the

icon_resources community and link them here with a preview.
* Everyone can participate, you don't have to be a member of this community.
* by participating in this activity, you agree to share your textures for use in iconmaking

Deadline: Saturday, October 26 2024, your end-of-day

Icontalking Activity #86 Descriptions

I just uploaded two new icons to my usericons and when I had to fill the "description" field, inspiration struck me:

Lets make icons based on descriptions. There are no visual inspirations this time, only words. Some of the descriptions are very specific, some are very vague. I hope there'll be something inspiring for everyone!

( Descriptions and textures under here )

* Every icon you make must be based on the above descriptions.
* You can use as many descriptions as you like. One icon per description, or lots of icons for the same description, or even more than one description in one icon if you want.
* You may icon other people than those mentioned in the descriptions! I.e. above descriptions often mention specific people/characters, but you may use different characters of your choosing instead. The banana counts as a character and may be changed, too.
* Please put the descriptions you based your icons on in your submission.

* 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 and descriptions!) 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, September 28 2024, your end-of-day

Icontalking Header #85 Text Me

During our Ask The Maker activity,

wickedgame wrote a text guide, and my fingers are itching to try it. So our new activity focuses on text.

The only requirement is to use text on your icon. It should be text, not a premade text texture, but otherwise every kind of text is allowed: large, tiny, walls of text, single letters, in any language, readable or not.

( Some inspirational material, including a link to the text guide, under here )

* 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, August 31st, your end-of-day

Ask The Maker 2024

this banner features an icon by bold_seer

Several people have already asked me if there's going to be an Ask The Maker activity again this year, and here it is!

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 )

2) Question-Driven - I have a question and anyone can answer

( rules for questions to the community )

What's What

( question categories and examples )

Maker thread

Questions thread

This activity will run approximately until the end of July, maybe mid-August.

Icontalking Header #83 All Dressed Up

I may be a tiny little bit preoccupied with Bridgerton season 3 right now. ;) This activity is all about dressed-up people. Crowns, hats, hair-dos, dresses, suits, fancy glasses, formalwear, shoes, people looking smart, however you want to interpret this challenge!

( Some example icons under here )

* 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, June 15th, your end-of-day

Icontalking Header #82 April Showers

The weather has been going completely crazy over here these past two weeks, with everything between snow and 30C, rain, high winds, hot sun and blue skies.

You can take the weather theme literally and icon the weather, or you can go for a more abstract interpretation of the crazy swings and contrasts.

This is a free inspirational challenge.

( Some inspirational material under here )

* 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 18th, your end-of-day

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