191. Icon Progression 2018
( coding by rocketgirl2)
2018 ResolutionsThe icon resolutions I made at the end of 2017, for 2018, were:
1. Use animated textures and general animation more
2. Try to put the same effort into all types of challenges as I do for LIMS/Rumbles
3. Continue to work on composition and text!
January
I was trying to get back into iconning after not doing much towards the end of 2018. Mostly playing it safe so it didn’t seem so scary, but also challenging myself quite a lot with a Gilmore Girls set for theseasonwheel. I saw The Greatest Showman and loved it. It was also still early days of watching Gilmore Girls, and I tried making images from Merlin screencaps I had already used before. I made an icon using an animated texture! (Used poisonfield’s tutorial). And I participated in the calendarsquares Magic Girl Rumble
# of icons: 55
Icon Posts: One
February
More icons for calendarsquares rumble, and also movieslims. And a challenge for your_favourites for favourite science, so of course I picked meteorology. There were quite a few text icons or ones with more complex composition this month.
# of icons: 11
Icon Posts: One
March
Lots of icontest entries this month, especially for LIMS contests - movieslims (which I won!!), tvlims, lims_movie, and also tv_movie_icons and some icons for the icontalking Gilmore Girls battle. Lots of The Greatest Showman, Moana and Gilmore Girls this month. Some attempts at composition and text work, but mostly negative space and colouring.
# of icons: 25
Icon Posts: One
April
This is the month I joined landofart so I made lots of icons for the various challenges there. I finished my set for the icontalking Gilmore Girls battle and entered a couple of challenges as iimpossibletask, elitesimplicity, elite_inspired, tvlims and capicontest. I slipped back a little bit into old habits of rushing icons and prioritising quantity over quality, but there are a few from this month with a lot more effort and time put into them and it really shows (to me anyway).
# of icons: 36
Icon Posts: One
May
Mainly entries for icontests, such as elitesimplicity, landofart, iimpossibletask (the 100th and final challenge before I took the difficult decision to close it due to time constraints), lims_movie, oddlyspecificon and capchallenge. I started watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries so naturally made a number of icons for my latest obsession, but I also started going back to older fandoms such as OUaT, Robin Hood, Merlin, Castle and Disney. Bit of a mixture of styles/focus this month, but there are some of my favourite icons from the year in there.
# of icons: 35
Icon Posts: One
June
Most of the icons from June were from Merlin, specifically of Morgana, for an A-Z challenge I did at landofart. I also did some more icons for the movieslims Thor: Ragnarok round, and I was very proud of the Dumbledore icon for lims_movie. A lot of the icons from this month were either negative space or close crop ones.
# of icons: 31
Icon Posts: One & Two
July
I was definitely in the habit of iconning Merlin and Harry Potter now, with the odd Wonder Woman icon thrown in for good measure. Entries were for lims_movie (I got eliminated which was fair, but then I was voted back in and went on to do the McGonagall icons), movieslims (I got eliminated, which I thought was unfair, and I didn’t get back in on this one), landofart and the merlinstills S1 battle. I have a habit of pushing myself more with LIMS challenges, so there are some more elaborate icons for those, but I’m pleased to see my favourite and possibly most complex icon from this month (the Merlin one) wasn’t even for a voting challenge. Yayy for effort, no matter what the challenge!
# of icons: 23
Icon Posts: One
AugustI didn’t make or post any icons this month as I had exams, went on holiday, moved across the country and then didn’t have any internet for a month.
# of icons: 0
Icon Posts: none
September
Most of this month’s icons weren’t actually made for any challenges, I was just going through my gallery of ‘to icon’ screencaps. Consequently there are a lot of MFMM and Game of Thrones icons, and a lot of scenery/costume porn icons, with a lot of natural colouring or enhancement of existing colours because the screencaps were already pretty and didn’t require much work. I also continued with my bestof_icons 2018 remakes, and entered one calendar challenge at calendarsquares (because I was building up points for the finale of the rumble lol).
# of icons: 33
Icon Posts: One
October
IIRC, work started ramping up around this point, so I had less time to icon. I had also started dance again and was going about 6-9 hours a week, which significantly ate into my free time. Nevertheless, the icons I did make had a bit more effort than usual injected into them, partly because several were for the calendarsquares Finale rumble and I’ve always pushed myself there. Other entrieswere for landofart and capicontest.
# of icons: 1
Icon Posts: none
November
I think every icon this month was made as an entry to a challenge for landofart (mainly Firefly icons), tvshowsic (mainly Sea Patrol - which I discovered played every weekday after I got home from my early shifts so I swiftly watched the whole thing - and Gilmore Girls), capicontest and the calendarsquares Finale rumble (mainly Harry Potter). Texture work, text, composition, lighting, cropping and colouring were all given a bit of practise this month.
# of icons: 23
Icon Posts: none
December
More Sea Patrol (for tvshowsic), another LIMS (movieslims R25 Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them), a calendarsquares colour challenge I had forgotten about (October), and I finally finished 2018 remakes (better late than never!). I remakes were particularly hard because some of the icons chosen were some of my best from 2018 and I had no idea how to top them, or I was so pleased with the original icon that I didn’t want to remake them, but I did finish them all eventually.
# of icons: 18
Icon Posts: One & Two
Overall# of icons: 300
# of icon posts: 11
Busiest month: January [55] then April [36] and May [35]
Quietest month: August [0] (exams, holiday, moving) then Feburary & October [11]
Most iconned: Gilmore Girls [59], Merlin [48], Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries [19], The Greatest Showman [16], Disney animated films [16], Marvel Cinematic Universe [16], Once Upon a Time [16], Game of Thrones [14], Harry Potter & Fantastic Beasts [14], Sea Patrol [11]
Main new fandoms: Gilmore Girls, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, The Greatest Showman & Sea Patrol
Total number of icontests I placed in: 29 / 54
Biggest achievements/progress made/observations: I made some animated icons that I actually like for the first time! I’m really proud of the progress I made with composition and text work, although I definitely noticed that work slipping when I had less time to icon, and I reverted to my usual and simpler methods. I iconned a few older fandoms and tried to make a dent in my ‘To Icon’ folder of screencaps (although I also added even more screencaps to the folder…), and I discovered some new fandoms which I loved iconning too.
My personal favourites:
2019 Resolutions1. Keep trying to put the same effort into all my icons, not just the ones for (elite/competitive) challenges.
2. Keep practising the new skills (animation, text, composition) I’ve tried this year.
3. Try not to default to default style just to pop out an icon - experiment, take time, mix it up a bit more.