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Fickle ([personal profile] fickle) wrote2005-02-07 05:31 pm

Icon-making rant, as requested by [profile] rhapsody_dragon.

Icon Making.


I took three hours yesterday searching for pictures of Barbies getting married. What I found was that a scary number of people are called Barbie, and most of them actually look like the dolls. X_x Very, very scary. You don't even want me to get into the pink Barbie-girls that I showed to Josie, seeing as they traumatized the two of us.

Now, what does that have to do with my rant? Quite simple, I needed just one picture to make an icon. One lousy picture! >_< Seriously, don't tell me that I'm the only one who has trouble finding good pictures to make icons. Fandom icons aren't that bad because there are a few warehouse sites which have tons of pictures but when you're trying to make original icons, then you might as well prepare for a few hours of screaming at the computer "I KNOW THE PICTURES EXIST, STOP HIDING THEM FROM ME!" After that, if you're using PSP, get ready to have it continually quit on you whenever you try using fancy fonts and have all your work lost. Or get into the habit of saving bases and saving finished icons separately so that you can keep working on them even after PSP decides to be moody.

Speaking of fonts, isn't it ultra-annoying that all the truly cool fonts are too large to show up properly when you make icons? You have to stick to small, simple fonts if you want to get the text on, but then you lose the swirlng effect! Which reminds me that I wanted to experiment with transparent text to see if that would solve my problem... As for small fonts, some of them don't work when you use the stroke/fill effect, and others (surprise, surprise) make PSP die. A horrible, screaming death, except you're the one screaming at it for dying.

Oh, and we all have to love the magic wand! It lets you select blocks of things by color/hue and saves you from using the lasso tool, but ooh, what's that? Oh. It selected more than I wanted? Okay, I'll just adjust that... what do you mean I can't adjust it?! ^^; Use the magic tool wisely, since it's a little indiscriminate. My personal favorite trick for the magic wand is to select small blocks at a time, then hold down the shift key to keep adding blocks. It takes longer that way, but works better over all.

So, we've covered the difficulties of finding good pictures, working with fonts and making selections - what else should this rant touch upon? Probably the fact that when you have tons of icon inspiration, you end up being unable to do them all, or if you don't have any at all, you end up frustrated at your lack of ideas. The fact that there are so many other people out there doing icons you wish you had thought of probably doesn't help either - there's a "Let the bodies hit the floor" Yami no Malik icon that practically kills me every time that I see it, just because it's so freaking awesome!

Fanart is an easy way to get good icons done, since the base is lovely to start with, but I try to avoid fanart as a general rule, unless I've drawn it. I prefer using photos or screenshots, and when it comes to photos, I like to use my own or pictures of my friends. Which reminds me that I wanted to make a Xena: Warrior Princess icon just because she rocks my socks off. Seriously, if I had to pick a role model, I'd pick her. Formerly evil overlord and lover of the God of War? Hell yeah, definitely my type of anti-heroine. XD

...but back to the point. Icons. Sometimes though, the icons just flow out exactly the way you want them, or an accidental click results in an effect that you would have never thought of on your own and an oh-so-perfect icon. I think that it's for times like that I keep making icons, but really, in the end? I just want the damn icons to look good. *smirks*

"kthxbai!" [/rant]

[identity profile] xinda.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, now that I'm waking up some and this is a rant I can really relate to - Dani's going to comment!

The searching for pix - been there, done that. Though, I normally come across links to sites with links that link to no where - if I bother clicking them at all... or hentai/porn sites... which wouldn't be as shocking if I didn't have siblings in the room and/or if it wasn't... just... D: stuff that can scare and scar a person.

X_x Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised of the Barbie thing *shudders*

Since I normally use anime-styled bases, I just use general anime for my random pics - which even then can be hard. As for the PSP crashing. I hate, hate, hate, hate that. I do sometimes just save the icon piece by piece - just in case.

And as for the fonts YES!! >.< I sometimes check 'antialias' and make the font a little bigger, than use the colour replacer to make the font the right colour, but even then sometimes that makes the font too chunky or hard to read.

xDD That's why I don't use the magic tool unless I'm selecting something that is all one solid colour X_x if not, it's a pain, pain, pain! I sit there with my 'freehand' and go little by little - or even use the eraser on one pixel and go pixel by pixel T_T So time consuming. o.o the shift key? >.> I should try that....

Let the bodies hit the floor? I don't think I've seen that one >.> But I have seen icons that I sit back and go "I should have done that!" but... it's too late >.< And if you do something even close to it, there's the worry that someone's going to throw a fit.

*nods* Yeah, I avoid using fanart. Especially since most artists require credit and due to how many sites there are without proper credit - it's hard to do that. And other artists just say 'don't use, period.' X_x; >.> I never watched Xena. I wanted to, just (for whatever reason, I cannot remember) never got to watch. LoL of course... she would be :P

xDDD nice rant, nice rant indeed xDD

[identity profile] rhapsody-dragon.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 03:08 pm (UTC)(link)
^.^ I'm not sad, don't worry but... ^^; I'm looking through my icons and half if not 3/4 are fanart... ^^; *guilty pleasure* I mean, where can I find a picture of a kitty Seto? ^^; I've been trying to stray away from that though... @__@; It's...hard.

About the magic wand... You can start a new layer, get a brush with a red color, put it on half/quarter opacity and paint over what you want to delete. Use the magic wand on that and just delete the part on the bg/base layer. ^^ Works pretty nice for big projects, and I think it might help for icons too. That is if you need to erase, but you can do that for other things too... Layers are Mamo's next of kin.

^^; Pictures... I've never made an icon with a photograph... well, I have like... one. ^^; But for that stuff I think I'd like to use my own photography. *nod* :D

[identity profile] rhapsody-dragon.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 03:09 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh yeah. ^^ Danke for the rant... T'was great! *rant love*

[identity profile] fickle-goddess.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 03:16 pm (UTC)(link)
You're welcome, glad that it pleased you. ^_^ I'm looking forwards to seeing what you'll do with the rant topic that I gave you.

[identity profile] fickle-goddess.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 03:15 pm (UTC)(link)
lol! Yeah, I doubt that you'd find a kitty Seto otherwise, unless you're willing to grab a screencap and alter if personally. ^^;

OMG! *adores* Thank you so much, I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do that, especially since I use a similar trick for when I'm colorizing small blocks of pictures, like eyes. Thank you very much for that suggestion. And I usually don't erase, but adjust the brightness/contrast since it's a great way to make something stand out.

I want more photos of myself so that I can make more icons - the political-themed ones, I prefer to use pictures of me for slogans like 'This is what a feminist looks like' instead of grabbing famous people, else the focus is on the picture and not the text. ^_^

[identity profile] rhapsody-dragon.livejournal.com 2005-02-08 01:49 pm (UTC)(link)
^.^; I've been known to doctor pics in my time... *cough*

You're welcome. My sister showed me that little trick. @__@; She's taken a Photoshop Class and has all the goodies from it *kisses Photoshop CS* so I pick up a few things from her.

*nod nod* Yeah, understandable...

[identity profile] fickle-goddess.livejournal.com 2005-02-08 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I do that as well. A lot. *grins* It's fun! Especially when you do it so well that people think that it's a real one.

Ah, I see. Very cool. I'm taking a web-design class at the moment that has a section on graphics later, so I'm hoping to pick up some good tricks there.

Though, it's a little weird that most people I know don't ever use pictures of themselves for icons. Makes me wonder if I'm going wrong somewhere X_x

[identity profile] rhapsody-dragon.livejournal.com 2005-02-09 01:29 pm (UTC)(link)
>D Definitely. And then they're all like o.o Eh?

^.^ Me too-- I have web-page design next tri here. ^^; Doubt I'll learn much about graphics though... @__@ Knowing my school.

^^; No... I just... don't consider myself 'icongenic' if you will. ;) I like looking at Seto more. >D

[identity profile] brownie-utonium.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
OKay, either you're using an ancient version of Photoshop or your computer is getting senile, because it should NOT be crashig that often. You CAN adjust the sensitivity of the magic wand, there should be a box with a number on it somewhere (it's different depending what version you have). If you tell me which version you've got I can help you out with most of your problems. =)

Also, check out www.dafonts.com for a huge database of every font you could imagine. For small text, try "Homespun," that's what I usually use. Also, your computer should come with "Small Fonts" and PSP usually includes 'Photoshop Small."

[identity profile] brownie-utonium.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 04:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Argh! Sorry, it's www.daFONT.com, no "s."

[identity profile] fickle-goddess.livejournal.com 2005-02-07 05:16 pm (UTC)(link)
xD, I don't use Photoshop, I use Paint Shop Pro usually. I'm only using Photoshop at the moment because my laptop is gone for repairs.

As for the magic wand, I know what you mean about changing the tolerance, right? I usually fool around with that a little at least. As for the fonts, I already know that site :P But thanks anyway though, my main problem is going through the huge list to find something appropriate. Accidental Presidency, Boomerang and Scriptina were my old favorites.