It's really awesome when you can see and feel that you've improved a lot over the past year. It's also wonderful that you keep practicing on sharpening the skills and effects that you feel you're not as adept at yet. There's always room to grow and progress, right? BTW, blocking still freaks me out, so I'm right there with ya! :P
Yes, it's an awesome feeling, I'm not proud of most things I do in my life, so I'm quite happy that I'm becoming good at something! Well I'm sure we will improve in blocking if we put our effort :3
Same here. Not good at much of anything else besides reading and loafing around in front of a TV, so making icons that I believe are pretty makes me quite happy, too! Here's to us improving on our blocking skills this year! *raises a hopeful toast*
If you love close cropping, definitely stick with it! Close crops definitely aren't easy to pull off, so if you feel you do well in that area, that is kickass! B/W coloring is also a really cool area to improve upon. Some people make balancing contrast look effortless, but it often takes major work, so don't be too hard on yourself. I bet you're better than "hit and miss." The victory laps thing cracked me up over though! Can't lie.
I'll never be an oviedo, but I think close-crops were pretty much my jam from the start. I just love cropping off parts of someone's face, or zeroing in on the details like a loose strand of hair or someone's hands.
Not sure if I'm better than hit and miss, since I don't seem to be a very good judge when it comes to my own b&w stuff. Like that Fringe icon you picked from me in the icon nominations; I don't like it at all lol. I filed it under 'epic failure' but since that week's icon test was low on participation I saved it anyways. But what I find the b&w layer really useful for though, is checking my color icons to see if they're well contrasted ;)
I love them, too, but goddamn, they are tough to achieve!
Hee! I know the feeling of disliking an icon that others seem to enjoy. Can't believe you thought it was an epic failure though. That is way too harsh! I thought it was perfectly lovely, but different strokes, right? :)
(I use B/W gradient maps to check my contrast, too. It's so helpful!)
Like I said to the person above you, close crops are tough for lots of us to achieve so if you excel at those, that's something to be very proud of! It's great that you're branching out to try and grasp new tones and develop your own grungy style, but those things can definitely be worked into close crops so try to merge them all together!
I am proud of my cropping skills because I know a lot of people have trouble with them, but idk why, but that was the first thing I excelled at. I'm glad I did though! But I will try adding my grunge into my close crop icons, it's a hard feat though I'll tell ya.
Don't think this gets you out of a proper progression post, young lady! You've committed. I have expectations now. Like...seriously. Also, can I tell you how much I love it when people who get rejected at elite communities take feedback on board and then pop back up twice as awesome as before and then we have to let them in because, well, duh? Like...that is one of my favorite things ever. So, I mean, I am thrilled that you were one of those cases, and that the feedback helped.
And, also, I am really in love with your black and white icons. Have I mentioned that? Like that last icon example? SO AWESOME. Just...I know you love your colors and experimenting and pushing the boundaries on your colors, but your black and white has a special place in my heart so fuck colors. Um. Not that I dislike the jewel tones in any way, shape, or form, okay? Just...black and white, you know? *.*
Close crops can be grungy! You just gotta keep practicing at it! It can be your icon resolution for 2013, okay? Okay. Awesome. =D
When I was going through your community the other day, I did notice that, as I went backwards in time, things got crazy bright, and I thought it was great how you've really reigned that in, you know? And, yeah, your compositions went from awesome to freaking off the hook. Your Breaking bad icons in that last post are incredible.
[2x01] Regional Holiday Music, mostly Glee icons for a secret santa exchange and other random challenge icons some of which actually were made in 2011 though I'm unsure which year any icon falls into. It's possible that almost all of them were made in 2011.
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I totally see what you mean about you working around the same ideas but with greatly improved methods. Your crops are so much stronger now, and they get better with each passing post! Your lighting is exquisite, too. I still remember you giving me a tip on lighting B/W icons early last year, and I need to try it out some more cuz that's one of the major areas that I really wanna concentrate on in 2013.
Lol, I don't remember that at all! What was the tip?
Also, thinking back to my icons always I've stuck to some of the same ideas, give or take whatever the trends of the times were. I posted a progression meme here in 2011 and if I remade some of those from ~2006 on, they would probably end up similar stylistically, just better. I tend to think that I don't have a style of my own, but idk maybe I do? idk.
I'm such a numbnut. I just realized it was far_to_nowhere that gave me the lighting tip in her Sons of Anarchy post, not you. My bad! :P
I love that you keep things subtle and clean. That, to me, is what I see as your style. Restraint is not an easy thing to show in icons (well, for me at least), so to see that someone can make something beautiful without it having to be complicated or crazy is really cool.
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Not sure if I'm better than hit and miss, since I don't seem to be a very good judge when it comes to my own b&w stuff. Like that Fringe icon you picked from me in the icon nominations; I don't like it at all lol. I filed it under 'epic failure' but since that week's icon test was low on participation I saved it anyways. But what I find the b&w layer really useful for though, is checking my color icons to see if they're well contrasted ;)
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Hee! I know the feeling of disliking an icon that others seem to enjoy. Can't believe you thought it was an epic failure though. That is way too harsh! I thought it was perfectly lovely, but different strokes, right? :)
(I use B/W gradient maps to check my contrast, too. It's so helpful!)
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And, also, I am really in love with your black and white icons. Have I mentioned that? Like that last icon example? SO AWESOME. Just...I know you love your colors and experimenting and pushing the boundaries on your colors, but your black and white has a special place in my heart so fuck colors. Um. Not that I dislike the jewel tones in any way, shape, or form, okay? Just...black and white, you know? *.*
Close crops can be grungy! You just gotta keep practicing at it! It can be your icon resolution for 2013, okay? Okay. Awesome. =D
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When I was going through your community the other day, I did notice that, as I went backwards in time, things got crazy bright, and I thought it was great how you've really reigned that in, you know? And, yeah, your compositions went from awesome to freaking off the hook. Your Breaking bad icons in that last post are incredible.
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Also, thinking back to my icons always I've stuck to some of the same ideas, give or take whatever the trends of the times were. I posted a progression meme here in 2011 and if I remade some of those from ~2006 on, they would probably end up similar stylistically, just better. I tend to think that I don't have a style of my own, but idk maybe I do? idk.
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I love that you keep things subtle and clean. That, to me, is what I see as your style. Restraint is not an easy thing to show in icons (well, for me at least), so to see that someone can make something beautiful without it having to be complicated or crazy is really cool.
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