somein30 round 7
Fandoms:
Carmilla [3]
Farscape [2]
Once Upon a Time [2]
Supernatural [2]
Survivor AU [2]
Captain Marvel (2019), Doctor Who, Dorian Gray (2009), LOST, Mr. Robot, Prison Break, Sherlock, Suits, The Witcher [1 each]
Here's my set for somein30 round 7, which was randomized prompts from 20 different categories. Somehow I thought it was a good idea to randomize 20 different things for everyone. I did that by pre-randomizing 25 sets (to start with, and more as needed), so that only a few maker-specific themes needed to be randomized on the spot. Anyway, these prerandomized sets were numbered, so first I randomized which of the numbered sets were for me and thyla87. I obviously can't prove that I did it that way, but I hope you can trust that I did. I'm a stickler to rules in general and I love randomizing anyway, I do it a lot even in my normal sets, so just trust me that just randomizing was both more fun AND way easier than if I were to choose any of these prompts!
Obviously since all the inspirations were random, it was more difficult than usual to stick to any specific style. After taking a look at my various inspiration items (esp. the inspiration icon and the book cover) I thought that maybe an extremely flat/matte set with simple vibrant or pastelly "painted on" colors would be the way to go, and that's what I tried to do, but there are a few icons that don't fit that at all, so I guess this is one of my less cohesive sets. I hope it doesn't look like a mess because of that, and that you'll find something to like! Let me know what you think :) Inspirations explained under the cut, hover for fandom! If anyone wants to hear how I randomized a specific cateogry, I'm definitely willing to share my process (I wanted to do it in this post but it's so long already that I'll skip if no one asks xD).
SOMEIN30
[01-05]
[06-10]
[11-15]
[16-20]
[Random prompts...]1. Random character: Elliot Alderson (Mr. Robot) -> I've only iconed him once before and only seen two episodes, so he was an unlikely character for me to get! I watched the third one and was inspired to make... something? I do like this character and the fact that this show takes place in the IT world.
2. Random icontest challenge: Challenge 258: New Year Resolutions @ elitesimplicity -> Ok, this was hard cause I don't make resolutions, if I want to change something in my life I just do it right away, doesn't need to be the start of a new year. So I picked something I'm always trying to improve: time management. I have so many personal projects going on at once, it's hard to find time for all of them, but I'm getting better at it. (Unrelated but does anyone else think this looks exactly like my icons in 2013?? I feel like I made a dozen icons of Rose with this coloring, but hey, going back to the classic old tricks isn't always bad.)
3. Random praise: "I love the text arrangement and the way the letters seem to have some sort of a 3D effect." -> Holy shit. This was HARD, WTF is a 3d effect?? Is this it? xD Why did I get this one... Hopefully you now trust that my set is just as randomized as everyone else's, would never have picked this prompt, and almost had to give up on this theme. I am now very curious what the actual 3d effect icon looked like.
4. Random screencap: The Witcher (originally posted here by vapor) -> So this is where I went off the rails from the style I had decided for this set. This cap just screamed muted coloring to me, I didn't want to force in vibrancy cause I really like how this coloring came out.
5. Random song: Clean Bandit ft. Sean Paul & Anne-Marie - Rockabye (YouTube | Spotify | Lyrics) -> I love this song, so catchy! But it wasn't a good inspiration cause it tells a very specific story about a single mom who's a stripper to support her child. I don't know any characters with that specific story, so I just picked a single mom taking care of her baby, because I found that to be a more important theme in the song than her job.
6. Random tutorial: Snow White's Guide to Blending by absolutelybatty -> ooohh fuck, this was amazing. But also very very scary to get a blending guide from the blending queen and be expected to make an icon inspired by it. Like, don't compare me to batty, she is perfect and so is the icon in that tutorial, and I barely ever do "real blending" (instead of a collage where I cut out characters and just slap them on the same canvas), but that's exactly why it was great to get to read this now. Anyway, I was inspired by SO many tips from that guide, mostly just how to do the actual blend but also combining text with the blend and some of the really interesting coloring tricks, and look this is where I went even more off the rails with style since there's no way you can give me an absolutelybatty guide for inspiration and expect a matte icon out of it... it's the least set-cohesive icon here but I'm not sorry xD
7. Random movie poster: Bean (1997) -> this should be obvious enough, I got a simple poster so I made a simple icon with the same crop (also Yon-Rogg needs more love)
8. Random quote: "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Howard Thurman -> The first thing that came to my mind was how Sherlock "comes alive" when solving complex crimes, and that's why he does it more than for a real altruistic willingness to help the victims.
9. Random textures: deny1984, lookslikerain, sweet-season -> used the last one in a very basic way, but hey David Genat looks great with flowers :3
10. Random font: Lovely Excuse -> THE QUOTE IS WRONG ON PURPOSE (kinda). It's actually supposed to be "all cool and disaffected", since that is what Laura accuses Carmilla of pretending to be, but I wrote "cold" accidentally and finished the icon and liked the text arrangement enough. Then I double checked that the quote was correct and damn it was not. I tried correcting it, but... let's just say that's an unfortunate placement for two O's :P I just couldn't unsee boob circles, and I didn't want to rework everything into a different formation, so I figured the meaning is the same this way, who cares, let's just roll with the misquote :D
11. Random trope: Far-Out Foreigner's Favorite Food -> Rygel from Farscape is an alien who loooves Earth's candy selection enough to steal from trick and treaters :D
12. Random remake: this icon -> I never liked the original, it's sloppy. The white border around Carmilla is bad, she doesn't blend into the background at all :/ so I was glad to get a second chance at this cap, I much prefer the new version!
13. Random song title: Walk Away -> This was an easy one, I had just rewatched the pilot of Prison Break so I immediately thought of this scene where LJ walks away from his dad in all his glorious teenage angst :D
14. Random inspiration icon: Icon by lady_turner -> The main thing I love about the inspiration icon is the coloring, it looks like it's completely painted on a b&w image, so I did exactly that. I also used the background color and focused on hair porn with the image choice and by using some hand painting on Henry's gorgeous man bun. I tried to differentiate the icon enough by making mine a different crop and not using any background textures.
15. Random palette: nothing else matters -> Very straightforward, I tried using all the colors in the palette. This is not a "my type" palette at all but I loved that, I really need to explore interesting color combinations like this more, instead of always going for my stables.
16. Random art: St Dympna, the Virgin Mary, and St Fáinche with scenes from their lives (Harry Clarke, 1930) -> I used the idea of a frame that includes a vertical levels composition.
17. Random album cover: Adu Kwasi, Sweet Sound International Band - Oman Beye Yie -> Muted icon, frame, color pop. (I hate that two frame icons happen to be right next to each other like this, but the idea fit them both so I didn't want to change them...)
18. Random book cover: Cory's School Bus: Meet the Buses by Glow -> this was the most fun I had! I tried matching the color palette and used very simple composition with negative space and simple matte coloring and some of the geometric shapes.
19. Random word: tie -> Ofc I thought of Harvey from Suits first, very simple intepretation, the crop and coloring focus on his tie.
20. Random screencap pool: Dorian Gray (caps by me) -> I used four of these in the same icon, I icon Dorian Gray so much that I feel like I've used all of the decent caps I got at least once before (case in point: icon I'm posting with), so this called for something more special, so I pretty much used all the caps I liked from this selection.
Use any you want, credit not necessary but comments are very much appreciated :)