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hunters_chance2011-12-27 06:54 pm
aeriiths.livejournal.com) wrote in hunters_chance2011-12-27 06:54 pm
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A Year's Improvement
I started making icons in December last year (apart from my brief stint back in 2008) and I really wanted to have a place where I could look back and see my improvements over the year. Because of this, I figured I'd make a little post here so that everybody can revel in my embarrassment over some of my older stuff. Hope you guys don't mind! :)
December 2010
So, this is when I first started getting back into the circuit. The top four of these are contest entries, and the bottom four are either gifts I made or ones I put on my icon journal. In some of these you can see that I was still using exclusion layers (a hang up from my old experience in 2008) and I really needed to kick that habit. Also, everything was still being saved as a .jpg despite the fact that Photobucket causes compression. I feel a bit guilty, but I do still like that 8th icon, despite the exclusion layer. I remember being ridiculously proud of it and I didn't actually stop using it until... well, it was after I made this journal.
January 2011
Not much better, really. Usual format of four contest entries and four icon journal ones, and you can tell on the second row that my style involved lines and repeated images and really flat, pastelly colours with low contrast for the most part. At least they're better than my contest icons, although three of them did place in icontests. I was ridiculously proud of that Kairi icon back when I first made it even though I don't think the boxes are even all the same size horizontally.
February 2011
NO ICON POSTS
No icon journal posts this month, I'm afraid, so here's the pickings we have. Lots of light textures. The text is generally bad, although the Ifrit icon is by far the best, and I barely even did anything to the fourth icon. The text doesn't really fit in so well with it either, if I was going to do it now I would have at least made it a character that blends well with the icon rather than white. I also would have coloured it better. The Noctis text at least does something interesting by having a gradient laid over the top of it. I think I had to do it in a really painstaking way because I didn't know how to do it automatically, so that's a bit embarrassing.
March 2011
NO ICON POSTS
Well, I suppose it's... not really an improvement. The third one is a bit better although the text isn't particularly clear. My obsession with random lines down the middle of my icons rears its ugly head again in the fourth. The first could have been okay if I hadn't made it so ridiculously light, and in the second the text is oversharpened but Roxas is all kinds of blurry and uncoloured. Once again, no icon journal posts.
April 2011
I make up for the drought of the last couple of months with a veritable maelstrom of icons this time! I made two icon posts during that time, so the bottom two rows are all from those. I would say that there's some improvement with text at this time (at least over the last few months) and I started to try some new things, especially colouring wise. There are still some placement issues sometimes (I wouldn't say that the text in that Gilgamesh icon is really in an optimum area) but I feel a little less embarrassed looking at these compared to December-March.
May 2011
This is the month where I moved over to this journal! My contest entries were pretty sparse this month which is why those are up there. My icon posts got a bit better in this month, although so many of them had rounded edges, you would not even believe. As it stands I got a bit better at colouring (at least in the Yuffie icon) and experimenting with stuff rather than deciding on one technique that I would use throughout the entire batch. I still like that Kain icon.
June 2011
Well, first off I can say that I evidently had too much time in June because I made 3 separate icon posts containing at least 30 icons, although that was counterbalanced by the utterly terrible contest icons I made. I would say that this is where I definitely start to improve though because for once I actually had trouble picking which were the best (in my opinion) of the bunch as opposed to earlier where it was really a task.
Colouring improved again, although a lot of it is either completely soft or really bright and sharp, basically no middle ground. The black and white icons contained in this post (with the exception of the contest icon) are some of the few I've ever made that I'm actually happy with. I'm terrible at black and white colouring.
Also, this was one of the very few times that I actually made stock icons. Ooh, how exciting.
July 2011
NO CONTEST ENTRIES
This was a bad month for contest entries. I entered a banner contest but that doesn't really count for this, so I'm omitting it. However, I did at least make two icon posts.
During this month I actually started making icons for more obscure games like Ar Tonelico, Atelier Iris and Persona. Looking back at the batches I made there weren't very many Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts icons that I liked (except obviously for the ones that were included), whereas I actually still appreciate some of the ones I made for smaller fandoms. I suppose it was just nice to have a break from my usual subject matter and that caused a bit of an improvement.
I also made tutorials for three of the icons shown here because I had recently joined![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
landofart. I'd say that joining that community helped me a lot with improving because I had a lot more drive to create things that I hadn't usually created before.
August 2011
Lots and lots of icon posts this month as well! I'm fairly happy with all of these, even the contest entries, but I will say that the last set on the list is rather uninspired. Almost all of it is just similar colouring, either cool or warm, although it at least gave me an opportunity to make a ridiculous amount of Star Ocean icons which I then never did again. Not entirely sure why that happened.
September 2011
One step forward, two steps back. The contest entries are alright, I like the first two still, but I've got to say that my icon post was uninspired. I went back to college for the first time in almost a year that month so I suppose that explains some of it. Nier caps aren't the easiest to work with but I was determined to use them, so that didn't help in that post either. Still, they were better than the icons I made for Final Fantasy. Too many weird polaroid frames.
October 2011
Technically all of these are contest entries. The second batch is from a 20in20 where I decided to give myself the worst prompt ever because I'm some sort of masochist or something. To this day I still don't have the screencaps from the second half of Nier, and yet I decided to pick that as my claim! Still, considering the circumstances I would say that these are alright, at least better than my last month. Apparently during that time I had this massive hard on for fake backgrounds, although that was because I was using a lot of concept art rather than in game caps for once.
November 2011
I made a ridiculous amount of contest entries in November, about thirty I think. However, my only icon post was another 20in20 claim. Shows I have priorities. During this time I'm getting a bit better with text (although I will admit that those bottom two are textures, not my own attempt at placement and font choice) so I can at least be happy with that. Because they're recent I don't have a huge amount to say about this batch like I did with the older ones where I could express my disgust.
December 2011
Now that I'm at the end of this I'm relieved to see that I have at least made some sort of improvement over the past year, even though some months were definitely better than others. At least I know, in a basic way, how to do my own text properly without it being too hideous, and I kicked the habit of saving as a .jpg a long time ago. I have a bit more of a style rather than the mismatched posts I used to put up before, and I have more successful ways of colouring.
Overall, I wouldn't say I've done too badly. I could have done even better, but as it stands, I'm okay with this.
So, this is when I first started getting back into the circuit. The top four of these are contest entries, and the bottom four are either gifts I made or ones I put on my icon journal. In some of these you can see that I was still using exclusion layers (a hang up from my old experience in 2008) and I really needed to kick that habit. Also, everything was still being saved as a .jpg despite the fact that Photobucket causes compression. I feel a bit guilty, but I do still like that 8th icon, despite the exclusion layer. I remember being ridiculously proud of it and I didn't actually stop using it until... well, it was after I made this journal.
January 2011
Not much better, really. Usual format of four contest entries and four icon journal ones, and you can tell on the second row that my style involved lines and repeated images and really flat, pastelly colours with low contrast for the most part. At least they're better than my contest icons, although three of them did place in icontests. I was ridiculously proud of that Kairi icon back when I first made it even though I don't think the boxes are even all the same size horizontally.
February 2011
NO ICON POSTS
No icon journal posts this month, I'm afraid, so here's the pickings we have. Lots of light textures. The text is generally bad, although the Ifrit icon is by far the best, and I barely even did anything to the fourth icon. The text doesn't really fit in so well with it either, if I was going to do it now I would have at least made it a character that blends well with the icon rather than white. I also would have coloured it better. The Noctis text at least does something interesting by having a gradient laid over the top of it. I think I had to do it in a really painstaking way because I didn't know how to do it automatically, so that's a bit embarrassing.
March 2011
NO ICON POSTS
Well, I suppose it's... not really an improvement. The third one is a bit better although the text isn't particularly clear. My obsession with random lines down the middle of my icons rears its ugly head again in the fourth. The first could have been okay if I hadn't made it so ridiculously light, and in the second the text is oversharpened but Roxas is all kinds of blurry and uncoloured. Once again, no icon journal posts.
April 2011
I make up for the drought of the last couple of months with a veritable maelstrom of icons this time! I made two icon posts during that time, so the bottom two rows are all from those. I would say that there's some improvement with text at this time (at least over the last few months) and I started to try some new things, especially colouring wise. There are still some placement issues sometimes (I wouldn't say that the text in that Gilgamesh icon is really in an optimum area) but I feel a little less embarrassed looking at these compared to December-March.
May 2011
This is the month where I moved over to this journal! My contest entries were pretty sparse this month which is why those are up there. My icon posts got a bit better in this month, although so many of them had rounded edges, you would not even believe. As it stands I got a bit better at colouring (at least in the Yuffie icon) and experimenting with stuff rather than deciding on one technique that I would use throughout the entire batch. I still like that Kain icon.
June 2011
Well, first off I can say that I evidently had too much time in June because I made 3 separate icon posts containing at least 30 icons, although that was counterbalanced by the utterly terrible contest icons I made. I would say that this is where I definitely start to improve though because for once I actually had trouble picking which were the best (in my opinion) of the bunch as opposed to earlier where it was really a task.
Colouring improved again, although a lot of it is either completely soft or really bright and sharp, basically no middle ground. The black and white icons contained in this post (with the exception of the contest icon) are some of the few I've ever made that I'm actually happy with. I'm terrible at black and white colouring.
Also, this was one of the very few times that I actually made stock icons. Ooh, how exciting.
July 2011
NO CONTEST ENTRIES
This was a bad month for contest entries. I entered a banner contest but that doesn't really count for this, so I'm omitting it. However, I did at least make two icon posts.
During this month I actually started making icons for more obscure games like Ar Tonelico, Atelier Iris and Persona. Looking back at the batches I made there weren't very many Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts icons that I liked (except obviously for the ones that were included), whereas I actually still appreciate some of the ones I made for smaller fandoms. I suppose it was just nice to have a break from my usual subject matter and that caused a bit of an improvement.
I also made tutorials for three of the icons shown here because I had recently joined
landofart. I'd say that joining that community helped me a lot with improving because I had a lot more drive to create things that I hadn't usually created before.August 2011
Lots and lots of icon posts this month as well! I'm fairly happy with all of these, even the contest entries, but I will say that the last set on the list is rather uninspired. Almost all of it is just similar colouring, either cool or warm, although it at least gave me an opportunity to make a ridiculous amount of Star Ocean icons which I then never did again. Not entirely sure why that happened.
September 2011
One step forward, two steps back. The contest entries are alright, I like the first two still, but I've got to say that my icon post was uninspired. I went back to college for the first time in almost a year that month so I suppose that explains some of it. Nier caps aren't the easiest to work with but I was determined to use them, so that didn't help in that post either. Still, they were better than the icons I made for Final Fantasy. Too many weird polaroid frames.
October 2011
Technically all of these are contest entries. The second batch is from a 20in20 where I decided to give myself the worst prompt ever because I'm some sort of masochist or something. To this day I still don't have the screencaps from the second half of Nier, and yet I decided to pick that as my claim! Still, considering the circumstances I would say that these are alright, at least better than my last month. Apparently during that time I had this massive hard on for fake backgrounds, although that was because I was using a lot of concept art rather than in game caps for once.
November 2011
I made a ridiculous amount of contest entries in November, about thirty I think. However, my only icon post was another 20in20 claim. Shows I have priorities. During this time I'm getting a bit better with text (although I will admit that those bottom two are textures, not my own attempt at placement and font choice) so I can at least be happy with that. Because they're recent I don't have a huge amount to say about this batch like I did with the older ones where I could express my disgust.
December 2011
Now that I'm at the end of this I'm relieved to see that I have at least made some sort of improvement over the past year, even though some months were definitely better than others. At least I know, in a basic way, how to do my own text properly without it being too hideous, and I kicked the habit of saving as a .jpg a long time ago. I have a bit more of a style rather than the mismatched posts I used to put up before, and I have more successful ways of colouring.
Overall, I wouldn't say I've done too badly. I could have done even better, but as it stands, I'm okay with this.