117. Icon Progression 2014
( coding by rocketgirl2)
January
My main icon resolution for 2014 was to stop running away from text, so I got off to a good start with my first icon of the year being a text icon. Actually, 19/48 of my January icons had text in some form, which isn’t bad for me, even if not all the attempts were successful! Most of my icons this month were for the 30 Days of Robin Hood meme.
# of icons: 48
Icon posts: One
February
I think this month was the start of my love of the muted colours + close/centre crops + light textures combination (with optional grunge), as well as when I started to experiment more with negative space that wasn’t just a gradient to match the subject’s clothes. I also started to properly icon Disney, one of my long-time loves, when I got an invite and participated at the7days for the first time!
# of icons: 42
Icon posts: One
March
I didn’t make many icons in March as it was a busy month for me at uni. However, I finally got around to doing my icon remakes from the 2013 bestof_icons Remake Activity, and I continued to (try to) make text icons, as well as slightly more complex icons for the first time.
# of icons: 20
Icon posts: One
April
Two significant things this month were the iconbattling Disney battle, in which I got to icon so many of my favourite things (and placed 1st Place icon!!!) and the inspired20in20 AU round, in which I got to fancast and AU Game of Thrones to my heart’s content. Less progress was made with text this month, but more progress was made with textures, especially using stock images/textures in icons.
# of icons: 34
Icon posts: One
May
iconsomething opened and was amazing, I finally got around to doing the Top 5 requests from the Icon Friends Forever friending meme ages ago, and I participated at iimpossibletask for the first time.
# of icons: 48
Icon posts: One, Two
June
I finally worked up the courage to apply to 20inspirations and to my delight I was accepted! My first entry there was for the ‘Adventures in Wonderland’ theme, which is about as far from my comfort zone as humanly possible! theladymorgan and I finally finished our icon battle and it was amazing to see the results, the7days had a Mystery Box challenge which was really tough, and I generally made June the month of really trying to push myself when it came to text. This month was also the start of the disney_hush Rumble!
# of icons: 88
Icon posts: One, Two, Three
July
A bit of a mixture of a month - some attempts at text, some attempts at more interesting texture use. Lots of close crops, super-muted or kind of vibrant, and lots of negative space icons. I don’t think I really knew what was going on this month, except for PARTICIPATE IN ALL THE CHALLENGES. Still super proud of my rainbow OUaT the7days entry though. More of the disney_hush Rumble. Fulfilled my post-exams Summertime Requests, although not super happy with many of them now.
# of icons: 90
Icon posts: One, Two, Three
August
Very small batch due to real life (uni) busy-ness. Harry Potter battle at iconbattling, disney_hush Rumble continued, randomly started re-iconning Downton Abbey after a bit of a break from it. More close crops + muted. Regression on the text front.
# of icons: 19
Icon posts: One, Two
September
Firstly, turbo_rumble! We had to pick a letter and I picked R so for all the challenges I had to follow the rules which applied to my letter, and I also decided to only icon Regina. Still over the moon with how most of them turned out - this rumble definitely stretched my creativity! Secondly, the amazing Lost battle at icontalking! I literally finished watching Lost while doing this anniversary battle so that was a bit of a challenge, and there were so many incredible makers taking part that I felt RATHER intimidated, but I tried my best and I’m pleased with the results :D Really pushed myself on the textures, text and creativity fronts for both of those, and am very proud of a lot of the results. Generally a month of lots of experimentation and progression.
# of icons: 57
Icon posts: One
October
Really went for the text and textures for my once20in20 entry! Start of my first LIMS (lims_tvandfilm Doctor Who round)
# of icons: 28
Icon posts: One, Two
November
More of the DW LIMS, plus it was Icon Appreciation Month at wonderous_stuff and I participated in almost all the activities there. Hardly any text work on my November icons, but lots more work on making my negative space icons more interesting, and some nice close crop icons.
# of icons: 39
Icon posts: n/a
December
End of the DW LIMS (I came 3rd, wtf?!?!?!), more solid colour negative space (often with white decorative accents), some of my remakes for the 2014 bestof_icons Remake Activity (still need to do the rest!). I guess my icons for this month were a bit more minimalist and glowy/light-y, but maybe that’s just the selection I picked here…
# of icons: 31
Icon posts: One, Two, Three
Overall# of icons: 544
Busiest month: July (90)
Quietest month: August (19)
Total number of icontest placings: 139! (I’m working on a scrapbook of my placings because they make my ridiculously happy, will edit in the link later)
Biggest achievements/progress made: TEXT. That’s the main thing. General consistency as well - I might not have made spectacular progress, but there are more icons that I think are technically pretty good, and less that I think are absolute travesties, so that’s something! I like to think I’ve become more creative, especially regarding negative space icons (although I still do love the gradient negative space to match the subject/subject’s clothes + a white decorative accent - but that’s personal preference anyway :P), and I’ve noticed my icons got gradually more vibrant as the year went on, because PRETTY COLOURS. Yep, that’s about it :D
My personal favourites:
