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frayadjacentMaybe I have no internal sense of composition. I know I rarely brighten my icons enough. Also, with vidding I'm much more excited to learn the technical skills needed to do a decent job. When I icon I just want to hurry up and have something good without having to look at photoshop tutorials or whatnot.
Anyway, I've forever wanted an Anya "I'm so pleased" icon because that phrase, with her voice saying it, is always in my head. So I made a couple today and they are meh. It's hard to see her face -- 100x100 is so tiny! But if I cropped more you wouldn't see the money and her funny hand gestures.
ETA: 
I'm not fishing for complements! If anything, I'm fishing for patient explanations as to what I'm doing wrong. Maybe it's my cap choice.
(BTW, that first one uses a texture that someone else made --goodbyebird, was that you? I'm sorry I didn't take note to properly give credit! Not that I'm doing much with these.)
ETA: I worked a bit more on the second one -- brightening it up around her face, fiddling with the background, tilting the text, and I do like this better. Huh.
Anyway, I've forever wanted an Anya "I'm so pleased" icon because that phrase, with her voice saying it, is always in my head. So I made a couple today and they are meh. It's hard to see her face -- 100x100 is so tiny! But if I cropped more you wouldn't see the money and her funny hand gestures.
ETA: I'm not fishing for complements! If anything, I'm fishing for patient explanations as to what I'm doing wrong. Maybe it's my cap choice.
(BTW, that first one uses a texture that someone else made --
goodbyebird, was that you? I'm sorry I didn't take note to properly give credit! Not that I'm doing much with these.)ETA: I worked a bit more on the second one -- brightening it up around her face, fiddling with the background, tilting the text, and I do like this better. Huh.
no subject
on 12/11/14 07:33 am (UTC)If there's something in particular you want to brighten/draw attention to after that, make a layer underneath the top one, use a small brush and paint with white where you want it brightened, gaussian blur it and set it to soft light, adjusting opacity(you can use pale yellow for hair, and a pale beige/peach if you're brightening the skin of a PoC).
No clue, I don't remember what those textures looked like lol. Don't worry about it!
*looks at her happy face some more*
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on 12/11/14 08:18 am (UTC)But if you don't want to get fancy, one or two screen layers, then copy+merge or just copy the base layer, put it on top on soft light.
Yeah, I more or less did that (two screen layers + one soft light layer at ~20% opacity -- soft light always makes my icons so orangy tho).
If there's something in particular you want to brighten/draw attention to after that, make a layer underneath the top one, use a small brush and paint with white where you want it brightened, gaussian blur it and set it to soft light, adjusting opacity(you can use pale yellow for hair, and a pale beige/peach if you're brightening the skin of a PoC).
Damn you totally taught me this like 6 months ago and I went and forgot. I used a white/transparent gradient layer to brighten her face, but doing what you suggest would have been better because I could have placed it right over her face and not have it putting those green splotches on her collar and whatnot.
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on 12/11/14 09:03 am (UTC)It's a good face. :D
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on 12/11/14 10:16 am (UTC)And if you ever want a cheat sheet of pointers and now have to read through lengthy tutorials, there's always the top posts on
SO PLEASED!!
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on 13/11/14 05:00 am (UTC)no subject
on 12/11/14 10:19 am (UTC)I forget just about everything always, but the blob trick has stuck with me! (I didn't notice the green splotches until you pointed it out tho; they covered her entire sweater area, so it fit right in hah)
no subject
on 13/11/14 05:03 am (UTC)