How Do You ...

[mary_greenman]

Go about figuring out what you're gunna do to an icon? I'm in a bit of a rut. I've only been making bases and I want to get a little more creative, but I have no idea what to do with the icons. I've been playing around with gradients, fiddling with layer effects, coloring and even looking around on the web for ideas but I think I'm just in a slump

Comments

[rocketgirl2]

Hm...other than playing around with stuff, I sometimes browse tutorials to get ideas of other things to try. Or I enter challenges - maybe inspired365 would help you? Looking at pretty icons always helps (such as all the ones posted at iconpraise, or downloading new textures or caps to play with. :)

Good luck!

[endlessdeep]

Everything rocketgirl2 said. Tutorials, icontests and looking at other peoples icons with inspire you.

[fan_cifully]

I'd definitely recommend tutorials too. For the start I'd say tutorials like these are great:
- general tutorial on making icons
- anna's guide to icon making
- cropping tutorial

Some years ago I've done a list of tutorials. It may be outdated and some links might not work anymore but maybe there's still some stuff that could inspire you :)
- list of coloring tutorials
- list of guide's, techniques etc

Then you could take a look at this list, especially the Q&A tutorials.

And it also helps to look at icons of other's. I have an inspiration folder where I save my favourite icons and when I feel like I don't know what to do with an icon I look at that folder to get some new ideas.
And I always like to look through
- the winners of 20inspirations
- the best icons of 11 post
That always gives me new ideas and inspiration :)

Hope that helps ♥