Only thing with one and two is that they are a tad dark, at least on my monitor. A little more light would help, not a lot, cause I like the dark colors, just a little more in the highlights maybe?
3 Is nice, except maybe flip the texture so the pink part is over the top left instead of bottom right? It just darkens her face and hair too much, at least compared to the pretty blonde color it looks in the top half.
4 is cool. I really like the crop and the light blob. Maybe switch it so the text isn't on the left side, I don't know. Part of me likes it there but it also seems so uniform that it cuts her off. And there is a little bit of a glow on her hair and shoulder on the left side, and I don't know if it's intentional or not, though.
And 5 I just love and I want to hug forever. I really like the minimalism and the colors are just gorgeous.
First can I just say that I love what you've been doing with colors lately? They are all so deep and rich and also really out there in a way that I would never even dare to try, so kudos to you for that
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I just wanna say, for the record, I love love love your style and the way you address and experiment new things.
1 & 5 are both bliss in very different ways. I love the textures and darkish colors on 1, and I just ADORE everything about 5 (guh! Love it when you mix cold & warm colors like that!)
The other 3 are bit dark, as some people said before me. 2 has a stunning cropping, but I had to look very closely to figure out what was going on - maybe a little brightness/lighting texture or something like that could help?
I love the purple/greens mix on 3, And I also think the sharpness is very spot-on. But it looks very burned out which isn't my favorite thing (but it's mostly on the bottom half, because on top it's quite bright and glowy. Perhaps you did that on purpose?) Maybe with a lower opacity it would've been just perfect. Same thing goes for 4, I adore the lighting but I think the blacks are a little too black (if that makes any sense?).
I want to address sharpening without much deviation because you've asked about that specifically!
So...in terms of sharpening, on my screen the first two look flawless. Sharp but not too sharp but also not too blurry (which seems to be a thing these days that I am apparently guilty of but don't actually like so who knows). Whatever you've done in those two works fine! I really like the coloring in both as well. Also the last icon look alright as well. I'm not as enthused about the blurry texture background because it doesn't seem to integrate as well with the very clear figure of Voldemort in this case, but the sharpening on the figure itself looks fine.
In the third one, there's some slight graininess around the edges of the figure on my screen. It isn't enough to really bother me as such, but it is there. It looks more like the intentional grain that obaona's icons have though as opposed to something that necessarily detracts from quality. If you are worried about it though, you could...did you cut this figure out? If so, using a
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Thank you so much for going through the effort of writing up such a massive and useful crit!
#3 was an image I cut out from the background, which is probably where the graininess comes in. I cut it all out by hand on a layer mask, and then I'll blur that sometimes to try to make it look better, but then I'm also afraid people will just think I can't cut stuff out >_>;
#4 had me wanting to throw my computer out a window, but your recommendations make a lot of sense. I don't have photoshop so I don't get a fancy 'fade sharpen' button, but I had never even thought of just making a sharper layer and adjusting its opacity. That's brilliant! And I might have to follow raiindust's method of sharpening on a larger canvas because I suck as seeing little details. And I've never heard of paint daubs, but looking at the tutorials and googling the filter makes it look like I might be able to replicate it in Gimp, so I'll give that a try. ONE OF THESE IS BOUND TO WORK.
personally, the only place i saw an issue with sharpening was in #4. maybe it's my screen, but the rest were perfectly fine; the softness around the edges of luna's hair in #2 and voldemort's edges in #5 go perfectly with the rest of the icon, and i wouldn't change a thing about those two either tbh, because they're both super pretty and there's no amount of detail being lost in the parts that are important. i don't think they were overblurred at all. #3 is fine too, but maybe a bit more sharpening or maybe contrast instead would add a bit more of a pop to the icon.
anyway back to #4, the blurriness of the background is great and really well pulled off; same with the edges like his chin and hoodie. but when you look around his glasses and hairline, there's a bit of, like, graininess. absolutelybatty posted a lot of really excellent tips for sharpening so it would probably be redundant for me to say much else. i think though if you were drawing to draw attention to his eye area, you don't always need to sharpen; a layer masked contrast, curves, or
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I LIKE YOUR NEWER STUFF. I mean, I liked your older stuff too, but what you are doing now is all that older stuff only...more, you know? I've got nothing but praise for you from over here, okay? Also, hush. Your text is the best text. The text on this Snow White icon was exactly what I was trying to do with this icon and failed at spectacularly.
Uh, right. I'm supposed to being giving concrit here. Sorry...praise fests are fun, and I get easily distracted. Okay, here we go!
I think, for all intents and purposes, #3 and #4 are gorgeous and don't really need any tweaking. You could probably make the argument that in #4 there are too many images squished together there, but I think they are all distinct enough (or at least I can tell that you've got people from Lost kissing and so I get the point of the icon) for that not to be a big issue. And I really love everything about #3! I like that you are embracing circles, and I love the rich, bright colors in this as well. Um, I also like #5, but I didn't realize it until just now? Don't
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OMG, what? Your Snow White icon is flawless and it actually inspired me to make mine, haha. ;D
I AM embrazing circles, I don't even know why but they look so cool sometimes. I was unsure about 5 (still am, actually, but I don't understand why) but if you say it's an ace icon, I'll believe you!
You are absolutely right about 1. I actually made it a few days after I got concrit here, and so I had all these ideas (I was like: blending? yes. text? yes. textures? yesyesyes!!! lol) in my head and didn't know when to stop.
oh my gosh, this is kind of inspiring ngl. your old stuff was already really great and i could go on forever about the magic you work with negative space, but now you're making such great, high quality, gorgeous icons. the bolder choices are definitely working for you!! especially what you're doing with the colours, especially in #3 and #4. those are flawlessly fabulous and have perfect composition.
#5 has really great colouring too, and i love the softness and the way the background blurs at the top. i think my only one comment would be the way my eyes didn't know where to go when i first looked at it; it's a great, light icon, so of course i'm weird and i looked at the shadows expecting that to be where all the interesting stuff was. rachel's got a really great expression on her face that is so on point with the overall tone of this icon, but the part of her that was most difficult to make out was her face. it's gorgeous the way it is now, though, and really i'm just nitpicking because i can't find anything else to criticize tbh
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I really love the second icon, I like the glow of it and I think that the coloring fits the mood. I really like the colors of the first icon, but I would recommend getting more focus on the girl, to me it looks like she is almost blending in with the text, but lovely colors
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I think 2 is fabulous! The coloring is so pretty and the lighting is flawless. 1 is good, though I'm not that crazy about the text... maybe because, to me, it's taking away the focus from your main subject and my eye does not know where to look - but it IS creative! So, I say don't give up on your claim just yet. ;)
I like the texture use on 3, but like you said, it's waaay oversharpened. And so is 4 (although I really like the negative space there) I really have no concrit to give on this aspect because I suck at sharpening, tbh. And about the fifth one, the only issue I'm having with it is the text placement. It kind of looks just there, it's not part of the composition and it's not giving anything "extra" to the icon itself.
I really like your coloring overall, the the way you use negative space. :)
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3 Is nice, except maybe flip the texture so the pink part is over the top left instead of bottom right? It just darkens her face and hair too much, at least compared to the pretty blonde color it looks in the top half.
4 is cool. I really like the crop and the light blob. Maybe switch it so the text isn't on the left side, I don't know. Part of me likes it there but it also seems so uniform that it cuts her off. And there is a little bit of a glow on her hair and shoulder on the left side, and I don't know if it's intentional or not, though.
And 5 I just love and I want to hug forever. I really like the minimalism and the colors are just gorgeous.
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1 & 5 are both bliss in very different ways. I love the textures and darkish colors on 1, and I just ADORE everything about 5 (guh! Love it when you mix cold & warm colors like that!)
The other 3 are bit dark, as some people said before me. 2 has a stunning cropping, but I had to look very closely to figure out what was going on - maybe a little brightness/lighting texture or something like that could help?
I love the purple/greens mix on 3, And I also think the sharpness is very spot-on. But it looks very burned out which isn't my favorite thing (but it's mostly on the bottom half, because on top it's quite bright and glowy. Perhaps you did that on purpose?) Maybe with a lower opacity it would've been just perfect. Same thing goes for 4, I adore the lighting but I think the blacks are a little too black (if that makes any sense?).
Other than that you are flawless. ♥
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So...in terms of sharpening, on my screen the first two look flawless. Sharp but not too sharp but also not too blurry (which seems to be a thing these days that I am apparently guilty of but don't actually like so who knows). Whatever you've done in those two works fine! I really like the coloring in both as well. Also the last icon look alright as well. I'm not as enthused about the blurry texture background because it doesn't seem to integrate as well with the very clear figure of Voldemort in this case, but the sharpening on the figure itself looks fine.
In the third one, there's some slight graininess around the edges of the figure on my screen. It isn't enough to really bother me as such, but it is there. It looks more like the intentional grain that obaona's icons have though as opposed to something that necessarily detracts from quality. If you are worried about it though, you could...did you cut this figure out? If so, using a ( ... )
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#3 was an image I cut out from the background, which is probably where the graininess comes in. I cut it all out by hand on a layer mask, and then I'll blur that sometimes to try to make it look better, but then I'm also afraid people will just think I can't cut stuff out >_>;
#4 had me wanting to throw my computer out a window, but your recommendations make a lot of sense. I don't have photoshop so I don't get a fancy 'fade sharpen' button, but I had never even thought of just making a sharper layer and adjusting its opacity. That's brilliant! And I might have to follow raiindust's method of sharpening on a larger canvas because I suck as seeing little details. And I've never heard of paint daubs, but looking at the tutorials and googling the filter makes it look like I might be able to replicate it in Gimp, so I'll give that a try. ONE OF THESE IS BOUND TO WORK.
Thank you so much!
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anyway back to #4, the blurriness of the background is great and really well pulled off; same with the edges like his chin and hoodie. but when you look around his glasses and hairline, there's a bit of, like, graininess. absolutelybatty posted a lot of really excellent tips for sharpening so it would probably be redundant for me to say much else. i think though if you were drawing to draw attention to his eye area, you don't always need to sharpen; a layer masked contrast, curves, or ( ... )
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Uh, right. I'm supposed to being giving concrit here. Sorry...praise fests are fun, and I get easily distracted. Okay, here we go!
I think, for all intents and purposes, #3 and #4 are gorgeous and don't really need any tweaking. You could probably make the argument that in #4 there are too many images squished together there, but I think they are all distinct enough (or at least I can tell that you've got people from Lost kissing and so I get the point of the icon) for that not to be a big issue. And I really love everything about #3! I like that you are embracing circles, and I love the rich, bright colors in this as well. Um, I also like #5, but I didn't realize it until just now? Don't ( ... )
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I AM embrazing circles, I don't even know why but they look so cool sometimes. I was unsure about 5 (still am, actually, but I don't understand why) but if you say it's an ace icon, I'll believe you!
You are absolutely right about 1. I actually made it a few days after I got concrit here, and so I had all these ideas (I was like: blending? yes. text? yes. textures? yesyesyes!!! lol) in my head and didn't know when to stop.
Thank you for your great comments, as usual. ♥
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#5 has really great colouring too, and i love the softness and the way the background blurs at the top. i think my only one comment would be the way my eyes didn't know where to go when i first looked at it; it's a great, light icon, so of course i'm weird and i looked at the shadows expecting that to be where all the interesting stuff was. rachel's got a really great expression on her face that is so on point with the overall tone of this icon, but the part of her that was most difficult to make out was her face. it's gorgeous the way it is now, though, and really i'm just nitpicking because i can't find anything else to criticize tbh ( ... )
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I like the texture use on 3, but like you said, it's waaay oversharpened. And so is 4 (although I really like the negative space there) I really have no concrit to give on this aspect because I suck at sharpening, tbh. And about the fifth one, the only issue I'm having with it is the text placement. It kind of looks just there, it's not part of the composition and it's not giving anything "extra" to the icon itself.
I really like your coloring overall, the the way you use negative space. :)
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