Distressed Icons

18 Icons

Sat, 02 Dec 2006 20:27:28 GMT

Yes, finally updating. Took me long enough. Stupid job. Anywho.

13 Philosopher's Stone
5 icontest entries
three icontest banners

Rules

Credit if you take
Comments are appreciated
No hotlinking
Textless are not bases

Teasers

01	02	03	04

05	06	07	08

09	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

	17	18

Screencaps for the PS icons all came from dj_capslock. For the rest of my resources, go here.

I save the PSD files of all my icons, so if you want to know how I did something, just ask. :)

Banners for wizard_icontest and wandless_icons:

And finally, a little announcement:

I'm now co-modding an icontest. i_con_this is a brand new general icontest with a twist: the winners of each contest get to post a batch of their icons to the community. It's a great way to promote your icon journal/community. Obviously since the contest is just starting, we need members. Badly. Check it out. We'll be doing pretty much any subject you can think of. Should be fun. *begs* Please join!

i_con_this i_con_this i_con_this i_con_this i_con_this

The end.

20 Icons

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 14:12:25 GMT

017 PS icons
003 old icontest entries

No hotlinking
Comments are nice
Textless are not bases
Please credit if you take

Teasers

I realize that a lot of these are on the mediocre side. I'm used to doing actor icons, so I'm afraid you'll just have to bear with me while I learn. :\

01	02	03	04

05	06	07	08

09	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

17	18	19	20

Screencaps (except the PoA one) all came from dj_capslock
The rest of my resources can be found here.

Tutorial #3

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 09:24:25 GMT

Yes, yet another tutorial. And once again, a very simple colouring one. Oh well. I was bored, so you get to be tortured.

Go from to .

Done in PS7. If you have any questions, leave a comment.

This tut is based on the last one, with a couple of changes.

.

	1. Get a base and sharpen once.
	2. Duplicate your base and set the copy to screen. Flatten the image.
	3. Duplicate your base twice. Set both duplicates to screen, 100%.
	4. Make a new layer. Flood fill with #CDDAEA. Set to colour burn, 100%.
	5. Another new layer. Fill with #D4B192. Set it to colour, 50%.
	6. New layer again. Fill with #A74923. Set to pin light, 50%
	7. New layer. Last one, I promise. Flood fill with #011329. Set to exclusion, 100%.
	8. Duplicate your base, bring it up top. Set it to soft light, 20%.
	And that's it. The rest is up to you. Hope the tut wasn't too terrible. :)

PS: The screencap is from dj_capslock

Tutorial # 2

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:05:33 GMT

Once again, I set out to make a batch of icons and ended up making a tutorial instead. Oh well.

Go from to

Done in PS7. Not translatable to GIMP unless you know the equivalent of exclusion.

This tut works best on very dark images with a blue tint. As always, don't follow this tutorial exactly. Change the steps according to your image and the effect you want.

	01. Grab your base and sharpen once.
	02. Duplicate your background layer. Set the duplicate to screen, 100%. Flatten your image. This is now your base.
	03. Duplicate your base layer. Grab your blur tool and blur the background at 15%. I used a size 13 hard, round brush. Depending on the quality of your cap/photo, you may need to blur hair and clothing a bit to get rid of some of the noise. I used a size nine hard, round nine brush on 8% opacity. Stay away from wrinkles in fabric. Flatten the image again.
	04. Duplicate your background again. Set the duplicate to screen, 100%. Duplicate the screen layer and set the second one to 81%.
	05. Make a new layer and fill it with #E2F6F7. Set it to colour burn, 100%.
	06. New layer, fill with #190F4A. Set this one to exclusion, 100%.
	07. Another new layer. Fill with #E7D2B0. Set it to colour, 100%.
	08. Finally, duplicate the background, bring it up top and set it to soft light, 90%.
	And you're done! Well, the main part, anyway. All that's left are final touches like text and borders.

Other icons made using this method

Keep in mind that these were done in like five minutes. Also, some changes were made to the steps.

to

to

So yeah, that's it. If you have any questions, just leave a comment. :)

PS: the screencaps came from dj_capslock

16 Icons

Sat, 23 Sep 2006 11:27:23 GMT

008 Emma
004 house pride
002 Rupert and Emma
002 random

Comments are great
No hotlinking
Please credit if you take any

Teasers

01	02	03	04

05	06	07	08

09	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

It should be noted that numbers 1-3 and 6-8 were pre-made bases. My resources can be viewed here.

I'm Back!

Mon, 18 Sep 2006 12:30:46 GMT

Did you miss me? Of course you didn't. Who am I talking to, anyway?

For my first act of being back in the icon game, I've written a tutorial. It probably sucks ass, but oh well. I was just clowning around and liked the colouring I got, sooo...

How to go from to

Before I start: This is just a walkthrough of how I made this specific icon and isn't meant to be a catch-all technique. If you change any of these steps even slightly, you will get a different result. IMO, that's a very good thing. It allows for a lot of experimentation.

This tutorial assumes that you're pretty comfortable with Photoshop. I'm too lazy to explain every single thing. But if you don't understand something, just leave a comment and I'll try to help.

	Here be the base. If yours is too dark, duplicate it and set it to screen, then fiddle with the opacity. Try and get the lighting close to this image.
	1. Duplicate your base and set the duplicate to soft light at 100%
	2. Make a new layer, fill it with #A77A56. Put the layer on soft light, 100%
	3. New layer again. Fill with #2E36DC. Set to colour at 34%. At this point we've achieved the basic effect, so if you're feeling lazy, the tut can end here. But if you'd like to experiment and fine-tune the colouring, read on.
	4. Another new layer, fill with #C189BB. Linear dodge, 30%
	5. Take this texture from brevet, put it on a new layer.
	Open up the hue/saturation dialog and enter these settings: hue -148; saturation -22
	Set the blend mode of the texture layer to colour burn, 50%. It is a very subtle change, but it did make a difference for me later on. But it's just a preference thing, so feel free to omit the entire texture step. Or do it differently. Or whatever you want, lol.
	6. Duplicate the base again, bring it to the top of your layers palette. Set it to soft light, 50%
	7. Time to increase the reds a bit to get the skin looking a tad more natural. Above all the layers, make a colour balance adjustment layer. In midtones, slide the red up and down until you're satisfied. I used +18 for mine, but you may prefer a bit more (or less) than that.
	And you're done! I continued fiddling a bit after step seven, but for all intents and purposes, this tut is over. Hooray! waits for people to throw rotten food at her

PS: The icon base came from 0oh__snap___xx

Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:34:06 GMT

This is just a quick bit of information on GIMP's FreeType filter. Somebody mentioned that most new GIMP users (and a few more experienced ones) are unaware of the wonders of FreeType, so I thought I'd write something up on it. Hope it makes sense.

Image heavy. You have been warned.

This is GIMP's Text tool. But you know that.

Here is the FreeType filter. You can find it under Filters>>Text>>FreeType.

FreeType has several features that the Text tool is lacking. If I'm being honest, the Text tool just sucks. I only ever use FreeType.

1. A preview window. This is especially helpful if you're working with a wide variety of fonts and aren't sure what size a particular font would display best at. Saves you from having to click 'undo' a gazillion times for one line of text.

NOTE: Never mind about the size thing. Another user informed me that you actually can change your text size without having to click undo. *fwaps self for stupidity*

Oh well. I still prefer the preview window. :P

2. Hinting and kerning. I have no idea why (just 'cos I know how to use it doesn't mean I know how it works. :P), but these options can give you better quality (depending on what type of font you're using. You have to play with it sometimes).

3. Spacing. You can change the amount of space between characters.

Normal spacing:

Spread out:

Pushed together:

Ah, the transformation window. I <3 this little guy.

1. Rotation.

When you type with the regular Text tool and then use manual rotation, it messes with your text big time.

With FreeType's rotation tool, quality is far better preserved.

2. Scale x and scale y.

Essentially, it allows you to adjust the size of the text on the individual x and y axis. Examples:

3. Shear.

Basically, going to the right tips the text forward, and going to the left tips it backwards.

I won't be explaining the 'create bezier outline' option because quite frankly, I have no clue how to use it, lol.

So this is the part where I shut up. If you have questions, just leave a comment. Hope this was helpful.

PS: Please don't throw stinky garbage at me. It's my first tutorial, it's allowed to be crappy. :P

Semi-large Update

Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:08:30 GMT

Yeah...I put this update off for way too long. Blar. Oh well, I'm doing it now.

20 house icons from stock photos
5 Emma icons
1 Emma banner/header thingymabob
12 icontest entries
5 random icons

- Comments make me go yay
- Please credit if you take

Teasers

House Icons

1	2	3	4</>	5

6	7	8	9	10

11	12	13	14	15

16	17	18	19	20

Err...kinda went nuts with the HTML there. Anywho.

Emma Icons

1	2	3	4	5

Banner Thingy

Randomly made following a tutorial. Nothing too wonderful. I think she looks kinda cool with her hair different colours, but that's just me, lol.

Icontest Entries

These are all my icontest entries so far. I didn't get a chance to submit a lot of them as I forgot about the deadlines. Smart, huh? :P

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

Three of my entries won in week 45 over at wizard_icontest.

This won mod's choice in the hush challenge. For some reason the person who was supposed to make the banners for that challenge, um, didn't, lol.

Random Icons

1	2	3	4	5

The last two were originally black and white. I was just practicing my colouring.

That's all for now. Man, that was a lot of coding.

24 Icons

Fri, 10 Mar 2006 01:01:23 GMT

Updateness. Comments are awesome, credit nice but not necessary.

14 Emma
7 PoA
2 Rupert
1 Rupert and Emma

Teasers:

PoA

01.	02.	03.	04.
05.	06.	07.

Emma

08.	09.	10.	11.
12.	13.	14.	15.
16.	17.	18.	19.
	20.	21.

Rupert/Rupert and Emma

22.

23.

24.

PoA bases by damnicons.
Emma bases by mafaldita_coura and princessjolina.

The rest of the resources are in my resource post.

I Christen Thee...Icon Journal!

Fri, 03 Mar 2006 13:20:01 GMT

Yay, my first post! This is pretty much everything I've done so far that's not totally hideous. Heh. I think in my first two months of icon making, I only made about five decent icons. But then I found icon_tutorial. That community saved me. It still is saving me. :P

Non-HP:

HP:

The ones at the beginning are obviously the ancient ones. They get better as you go along.

Yeah. That's it.