2013 Progression Post
Disclaimer
I feel like this year was defined more by the lengthy hiatus' (hiati?) I took more than any improvement in skill over the year. I managed something like 7 posts over the past 12 months so overall, not that productive. I know a lot of makers had busy years though and I feel as if my style has changed a little because of the absences from iconning. Whether it's for the better...well, we'll see!
My first post of 2013 was late in February so, yeah, promising! For me, 2012 was all about textures, sometimes almost too much so. My plan for this year so was to keep it simple and work on getting the basics right. The result? A lot of close crops and a lot of emphasis on lighting, something that carried over to the rest of the year.
F E B R U A R Y
With March my love of textures started to slip back into my icons. I also experimented with text a bit. It was, and continues to be, one of my weakest areas of iconning (along with grunge) but it's also a mountain I am determined to conquer. Practice makes perfect right? Well, lot's of practice it shall be then!
M A R C H
This was the month I got accepted into 20inspirations. I was so excited because it was sign that there was definite improvement in my work over last year. Then I saw the month's inspiration. Text. Right. To be honest I was so thrilled at getting into the community that there was very little that would have persuaded me not to take part in this round. Text has proven to be the absolute bane of my existence but a lot of makers feel that way and like I said earlier, practice makes perfect, right? Er, well...
A P R I L
Okay so its been a few months. There goes that determination to practice :P August was the month I discovered watchnicon which, if I'm truthful, has been my iconning lifesaver. Seriously, if it wasn't for this community and it's challenge layout I would probably still be on hiatus. So after a few months away I felt like I had to learn to icon all over again. The result? Simplicity. I was back to focusing on crops and lighting. Deja vu, much?
A U G U S T
I summoned up the courage to start working with text again this month. Believe me, it took a lot of talking myself into it because I at this point I was feeling uncertain about absolutely everything I produced. The few months away knocked my self confidence a bit and I was convinced that everything I made was riddled with beginner mistakes. There was a lot of second-guessing myself happening this month. Looking back, I probably felt like everything was super blurry to because these are so, so sharp!
S E P T E M B E R
By the time October rolled around I was getting a bit sick and tired of feeling so uncertain about everything I did. I figured the best way to regain my iconning feet as it were was to just icon as much as I possibly could. So I added Grimm to my claims list at watchnicon and proceeded to do just that. Textures made a bit of a comeback in my work and I used them to augment the lighting in my icons (sometimes). I'd also gotten into the habit of removing the background from absolutely everything! Once you start doing it, it becomes a difficult habit to shake.m.
O C T O B E R
In November I finally managed to make enough icons for a full post at my community. I managed to complete a set for inspired20in20 and got a bit braver with composition. Sometimes the results were good, sometimes not so much :P. I am still forcing myself to use text as much as possible - referring to guides everytime I do so. It continues to be a hit and miss area for me but I still think that the only way to improve is practice. This month I got a little bit of a flashback to 2012 with all the texture use but I feel as if my colouring has gotten a lot more controlled and that I have a better grasp of combining textures and colours than I did at the start of the year.
N O V E M B E R
My last post of the year was dedicated to my favourite new show of the year. A few things have stayed the same since February - I still pay a lot of attention to cropping and lighting. A few things have changed as well. I use textures in more subtle ways than I did at the start of the year and I feel as if my posts are more polished than they were at the start of 2013 as well. I think I've improved in composition but I feel I still have a long, long way to go with text, grunge, and the more muted/low contrast icons that I see other makers produce and that I salivate over :) That being said, I'm really exited about 2014 and I feel like it could be a great iconning year!
D E C E M B E R