GUTS - an anon concrit meme

[mm3butterfly]

Let's have a meme to get the ball rolling at this community.
Graphic makers want to receive good, honest concrit to help them improve, but people don't like to give concrit because pointing out other's mistakes is a sensitive topic, specially among friends - and because it almost always makes them sound like bitches. And who wants that? People

Comments

[afeastforme]

hello, i'm afeastforme and i post my icons over turnleft_icons.

These examplese are what i judge the "good" part on my new path in icon-making, in the last months i complitely changed my vision of "icon" and i moved from my confortable zone. Since it's a recent move, i really need to know if i'm going somewhere good or just making crap.
I don't want to go back on making icons that are too boring. Thank you for reading and taking time to critic (*_*)b

[afeastforme]

I like almost all these icons except #2 and #9, I feel the textures on these two don't do anything to complement the women's faces or make the icon better in any way, or art-ier, like #10. I think my fav icon is the Rose icon, #8

[afeastforme]

thank you so much for your concrit, i'll try to be more accurate on using colours on close-cropped icons!

[afeastforme]

First of all, props to you for changing your icon style completely and asking for feedback on it now.

I really love your sense of light and shade and use of contrast. I agree with the previous commenter on number eight being my favourite, but I'm a little sad that the image is rotated that way. I like interesting cropping, like on icons one, four and seven, but I feel this Rose icon would be even more stunning if it was 'right side up'. Now, her visible eye is distracting a little, while I feel that if the icon was facing the right way, it would be balanced more with the rest of her face. This is, of course, very personal.

I love icon number seven, except for the fact that the upper right picture cuts over Lizzie's "central" face. Had you used the lighten mode or just erased that part of the upper picture, or arranged it just a little differently, it would have been so much more balanced. The focus now is on that little corner of white, while you really want people to take into account the different crops as a whole.

I think the cropping and colouring on icon number one works extremely well and the blurry texts is not distracting. I feel the text is distracting in number six because of both the positioning and the blurriness of it. The blurriness maybe would have worked better with a different font, because now, certain parts of the letters are all but gone because of the blur. Also, the left side of the girl's face (forehead and nose) are oversharpened, which is a shame, because I otherwise really like the crop and colouring.

I agree with the previous commenter on the non-flattering colouring on the women in icons number 2 and 9.

I am a big fan of icon number 10, I think everything works on it. Like I said, I think the cropping on number 4 is very interesting, but for my taste, a little too much of the central subject's face is obscured by the other picture. It makes me wish you had done a version of the icon where the center subject had been placed a little more to the right and a slight part of the inset picture had been cut off on the right so we could see a little more of the central picture. The colouring on that one is gorgeous though.

[afeastforme]

first:
thank you SO much!

I wasn't sure i was making something really worth lately because, you know, when you change path, is easy to get lost!
I will definitely try to remember your concrit when making icons, maybe this way i will improve and make less "stupid" step on icons! :P

[afeastforme]

Your coloring is certainly strong and forceful! It's especially beautiful in #4, 5, 6, and 10. 10 has an amazing look as if it's been painted with watercolors. Gorgeous! I like the choice to cover half the subject's face using a smaller image in 4. It gives a depth of loneliness and solitude that's appropriate for the piece.

Overall, I really enjoy your coloring and think you should keep moving in the direction you're going down! However, the coloring doesn't work for me in 3. It feels like it would be a cohesive piece if there weren't two colors contrasting so brightly across the upper and lower parts of her face. With a close crop like that one (which is lovely, BTW!), I'd suggest sticking to one predominant color (the yellow) and maybe trying different light effects to give the icon more depth.

[afeastforme]

thank you so much!
i will definitely try other colours combination for my close crop! (i'm such an addictet to yellow-blue i need to let this go a bit!)

[afeastforme]

I love your style very much! I think your icons are creative and interesting. I like #3 and 4 very much. I like #8, but maybe bright it a bit more by upping the saturation/vibrance.

#7 is too busy. I don't know what the fix would be, but it doesn't work for me the way it is. For #1, I don't like the strip of white at the top of Merlin on all his images -- I find it distracting.

I am not a fan of the texture use on #2 and #9. I'd love to see what the icons look like without the textures on top.

[afeastforme]

Thank you so much!
I will try to pay more attention while making block icons and try to use less colours on some icons! =)

[afeastforme]

You're very creative, I like the style and compositions of your icons. You have a good eye for those block compositions (I looked around your icon journal), which I envy because I can't do them at all.

#01 is my favorite among the ones you offered as examples (if the dividing lines were a bit smoother and the lines on Merlin's neck weren't oversharpened, it would be a perfect icon - this crit works for most of your block compositions, actually), #03 is a close second, the composition and coloring on those are really good.

What I like most, thought, is how you aren't afraid to use colors. Don't ever stop that. Keep the great use of color, just don't let them take over the icon, like on #02 and #09. You did it very well on #04, #07 (I love the "soft" feel of this icon) and #10 (the latter would be better with a tad more contrast, imho).

The cropping on #02 is great, but the tone change didn't went well. You said you liked yellow and cyan, and there's no problem at all with that: it just didn't work on this particular icon. It didn't enhance or even match her eye color, which would be a great focus here if the coloring wasn't so overwhelming.

#09 looks a bit... fuzzy? I don't know, the blending of the colors between themselves doesn't work, and the lack of contrast and graininess of the image don't help either. While the dark parts are dark, the parts that should be lighter are just blocks of color without any detail. Very different from, say, #08, when the skin is still smooth and looks like skin, or #10, where it doesn't but it's still stylish because you made it look like a painting.

#07 has great potential, what bothers me is the whiteish block on the exact center. I understand it's a part of the picture, but it's very distracting. The problem isn't with the picture itself, but with the way it cuts the onde under it, leaving Keira with a single eye and lots of negative space on the middle of the picture. If you move the small picture on the bottom left until it met the one on the top right, and the background a bit to the right, it would look better, I think. But the block composition was very creative here.

For general pointers:
The overall aspect of the icons is a bit too dark (because of the color textures) maybe a bit of brightening would do some good?

There's some oversharpening here and there as well (created usually by the high contrasting you favor), which imho ruins otherwise good icons, like 1 2 or 3.

[afeastforme]

Thank you so much for this usefull comment!

As I've said it before, i will try to pay more attention while creating icons even if, i've to admit, some details always fail me. Like contrast on the icons you pointed out. Maybe it's my screen, because i don't really see any oversharpen on them. This thing scares me a bit because i don't even use the sharpen filter/tool lately.

And, now that i look at it closely, number #9 is not that great. I mean, i like it, but now i see that it doesn't really work good with those colors. (plus, the image was really little and lq)

Thank you again, really!

[afeastforme]

You're welcome, I'm always glad to help :)

You don't need to use sharpen for images to look pixellated, sometimes that's due the textures themselves, the resizing, the bad quality of the image or the contrasting. Don't beat yourself over it, sharpness is really difficult to get right, even for accomplished makers.

[afeastforme]

I think most of these are really good. But I'm gonna have to agree with the first person and say the coloring/texture use in 2 and 9 isn't really appealing at all. The cropping in 9 is good but I don't actually like the cropping in 2 though that could just be my own personal preference.

[afeastforme]

I think that the textures you use overpowers the subject of your icons most of the time (2, 5, 9, 10). Experimenting with textures is always fun, but if they take away from the subject then it's time to try another texture, preferably a more subtler one (or none at all). I noticed that lately you have a lot of icons that look like 2 -- the texture decreases the quality of the subject, some looks a bit smudged, too pixelated (5, 9), or blurry ..
1 and 7 are oversharpened.
10 could be better if you just erased the textures on his face.
However, I LOVE 3, 4, and 8 so much -- perfect use of textures. I love how you played with the lights and shadows of 8, it highlights the subject's face very well.