questions and answers: blindbeats edition!
I tried to be as specific and literally graphic as I could, if you still have any concerns just let me know and I will be happy to help.
How I con
#1. What is your main source of inspiration?
Fandom. Pure and simple like that! When I am truly interested on a scene or a pairing I just wanna icon the crap out of it, because it just clicks. I mean that sometimes while I'm watching a show and I see something that "moves me" I'm already thinking about iconning, so when I open PS I have a clear image of what I want to do. In the other hand, when I am bored about a show it is a pain for me to do something, I just end up doing something very simple and quick and if I dislike something I simply DON'T BOTHER. Though, sometimes I do wanna icon shows but I'm just too lazy to look for quality caps :/
However, there are a few things that inspire me or I should say, challenge me! A few of those examples can be found here, I say few, because I have tons of folders and as nerdy as it might sound, I actually love watching and organizing them! Also Tumblr, Weheartit and Fffound are a good source of great pictures and designs, I especially love gigposters.com BTW :)
#2. What makes you decide to use a certain idea for a certain icon?
I think I answered this question already but lemme elaborate it:
This icon has 3 different screencaps on it, 2 of them are from the same scene (they are seconds apart) while the other is from an isolated moment, which I added because I thought it was really descriptive about the character's personality. If you look closely, you will realise that the seated guy is fantasizing about his encounter with this girl... almost like his thoughts are surrounding him! I really wanted to create that atmosphere because I thought it was really fitting, and you will agree with me if you are a fan of the show (Misfists)
On the other hand, this icon is way more simple, it just has one screencap! Yet it really made an impact on me, because frankly this cap screamed to be iconned! The moment I saw it I thought: "well, damn this is Cook! always alert and somewhat agressive" so yes, screencaps talk to me sometimes.
#3.How do you pick out your caps?
lol as I said, they talk to me, but mainly because I spend quite a long time browsing galleries and folders until I'm satisfied with my picks.
#4.Are you thinking anything specific when you're cropping?
I guess I'm not thinking at all when I'm iconning, because most of the times I already know what I want out of a screencap. BUT I do play around a lot with positions and stuff, I really like hitting ctrl+t and just moving the cap up and down, and also SIZE! One of my favorite tricks is duplicate it the same cap but making it bigger or smaller and then setting it to screen or saturation and everything goes mad from there. I actually "never" need to use textures because of that, it's great!
#5.What usually goes through your mind when colouring?
Okay, coloring is just another new level for me, because most of the times my expectations aren't what my curves are showing so here's when I start struggling. When I see a cap for the first time and I picture what I want, the cropping is the easy part, HONEST! Coloring something can make you hate what you once thought the next Giocconda... it's awful because I rely on curves and I tend to make things SUPER bright at first so I can build up everything with selective coloring later, so there are times where just making a base brighter makes it look pixely and full of noise so I have to start over again and reject my "inspiration". Then again, when you actually get it right it feels wonderful because that inspiration evolves and susprises you!
To be honest, what really goes through my mind is either: gimme a break! or blimey, that was good?! but mostly: will people like it?
#6. Iconning processes.
This is how I normally prepare my bases (this cap is medium dark, you might need more or less brightness depending on the natural light in your cap)
I always resize caps to 400 or 300, this is a must do in order to decrase noise/pixels. Then I duplicate the base and sharpen it. Never sharpen the base because you might need the original to fix things later. Then I set the duplicated sharpened base to screen.
Then I add a saturation layer (+30) and I copy the whole thing and paste it on top of it all, setting it to overlay - your palette should have the base, the duplicate, the saturation layer and the overlayed one on top. At this point you have a perfect base to start coloring :)
Then I add a black/white gradient set to overlay (I use overlay A LOT) and play around with it until I find the right focus for it. Later I add curves to brighten up everything and finally I abuse of selective coloring to make it all more colorful. If I'm making an icon with several caps on it I work with all of them prior to mixing them all because they might have diferent light/coloring and so on. If a cap turns out a bit noisy I just use the blur and the finger tool to blend it all together but you may wanna do that before coloring! Sooooo, after all of that, I paste the final product into a 150x150 blank layer, I find a good crop, sharp it, resize in to 100x and finito. I like to work big and resize later, I find it easier idk.
Bonus:
~How _adhara_ became blindbeats~
How do you achieve this kind of coloring?
This is old-school me so I never do this anymore, however is fairly simple! Here you go:
Resize your cap, duplicate it, sharpen and set it to screen (30) Then add a saturation layer (+35) After that add a curves layer with these settings: RGB (111- 174) and (19 - 2) Red (219-253) and (32-0) Green (190-255) and (17-0)
Now add a selective coloring layer with these settings: Reds (C -20) (M -21) (Y -31) Yellows (M -45) (Y +30) Whites (C +100) (M -100) (Y +100) Blacks (C +100) (M +50) And then another selective coloring layer with: Reds (C -100) Yellows (C -100) Whites (Y +100) and you're finished.
You just have to adapt these settings depending on your cap (especially the screen layer and selective coloring) et voilà!
How do you get that rich color that your icons always have?
If you follow the steps provided on #6 you can get something like this: (hover on top to see what I did)
All caps by prettybutt :) Thanks for watching!
How I con
#1. What is your main source of inspiration?
Fandom. Pure and simple like that! When I am truly interested on a scene or a pairing I just wanna icon the crap out of it, because it just clicks. I mean that sometimes while I'm watching a show and I see something that "moves me" I'm already thinking about iconning, so when I open PS I have a clear image of what I want to do. In the other hand, when I am bored about a show it is a pain for me to do something, I just end up doing something very simple and quick and if I dislike something I simply DON'T BOTHER. Though, sometimes I do wanna icon shows but I'm just too lazy to look for quality caps :/
However, there are a few things that inspire me or I should say, challenge me! A few of those examples can be found here, I say few, because I have tons of folders and as nerdy as it might sound, I actually love watching and organizing them! Also Tumblr, Weheartit and Fffound are a good source of great pictures and designs, I especially love gigposters.com BTW :)
#2. What makes you decide to use a certain idea for a certain icon?
I think I answered this question already but lemme elaborate it:
This icon has 3 different screencaps on it, 2 of them are from the same scene (they are seconds apart) while the other is from an isolated moment, which I added because I thought it was really descriptive about the character's personality. If you look closely, you will realise that the seated guy is fantasizing about his encounter with this girl... almost like his thoughts are surrounding him! I really wanted to create that atmosphere because I thought it was really fitting, and you will agree with me if you are a fan of the show (Misfists)
On the other hand, this icon is way more simple, it just has one screencap! Yet it really made an impact on me, because frankly this cap screamed to be iconned! The moment I saw it I thought: "well, damn this is Cook! always alert and somewhat agressive" so yes, screencaps talk to me sometimes.
#3.How do you pick out your caps?
lol as I said, they talk to me, but mainly because I spend quite a long time browsing galleries and folders until I'm satisfied with my picks.
#4.Are you thinking anything specific when you're cropping?
I guess I'm not thinking at all when I'm iconning, because most of the times I already know what I want out of a screencap. BUT I do play around a lot with positions and stuff, I really like hitting ctrl+t and just moving the cap up and down, and also SIZE! One of my favorite tricks is duplicate it the same cap but making it bigger or smaller and then setting it to screen or saturation and everything goes mad from there. I actually "never" need to use textures because of that, it's great!
#5.What usually goes through your mind when colouring?
Okay, coloring is just another new level for me, because most of the times my expectations aren't what my curves are showing so here's when I start struggling. When I see a cap for the first time and I picture what I want, the cropping is the easy part, HONEST! Coloring something can make you hate what you once thought the next Giocconda... it's awful because I rely on curves and I tend to make things SUPER bright at first so I can build up everything with selective coloring later, so there are times where just making a base brighter makes it look pixely and full of noise so I have to start over again and reject my "inspiration". Then again, when you actually get it right it feels wonderful because that inspiration evolves and susprises you!
To be honest, what really goes through my mind is either: gimme a break! or blimey, that was good?! but mostly: will people like it?
#6. Iconning processes.
This is how I normally prepare my bases (this cap is medium dark, you might need more or less brightness depending on the natural light in your cap)
I always resize caps to 400 or 300, this is a must do in order to decrase noise/pixels. Then I duplicate the base and sharpen it. Never sharpen the base because you might need the original to fix things later. Then I set the duplicated sharpened base to screen.
Then I add a saturation layer (+30) and I copy the whole thing and paste it on top of it all, setting it to overlay - your palette should have the base, the duplicate, the saturation layer and the overlayed one on top. At this point you have a perfect base to start coloring :)
Then I add a black/white gradient set to overlay (I use overlay A LOT) and play around with it until I find the right focus for it. Later I add curves to brighten up everything and finally I abuse of selective coloring to make it all more colorful. If I'm making an icon with several caps on it I work with all of them prior to mixing them all because they might have diferent light/coloring and so on. If a cap turns out a bit noisy I just use the blur and the finger tool to blend it all together but you may wanna do that before coloring! Sooooo, after all of that, I paste the final product into a 150x150 blank layer, I find a good crop, sharp it, resize in to 100x and finito. I like to work big and resize later, I find it easier idk.
Bonus:
~How _adhara_ became blindbeats~
How do you achieve this kind of coloring?
This is old-school me so I never do this anymore, however is fairly simple! Here you go:
Resize your cap, duplicate it, sharpen and set it to screen (30) Then add a saturation layer (+35) After that add a curves layer with these settings: RGB (111- 174) and (19 - 2) Red (219-253) and (32-0) Green (190-255) and (17-0)
Now add a selective coloring layer with these settings: Reds (C -20) (M -21) (Y -31) Yellows (M -45) (Y +30) Whites (C +100) (M -100) (Y +100) Blacks (C +100) (M +50) And then another selective coloring layer with: Reds (C -100) Yellows (C -100) Whites (Y +100) and you're finished.
You just have to adapt these settings depending on your cap (especially the screen layer and selective coloring) et voilà!
How do you get that rich color that your icons always have?
If you follow the steps provided on #6 you can get something like this: (hover on top to see what I did)
All caps by prettybutt :) Thanks for watching!