Fangirls and Graphics. <3

ohcrap x amillion.

Sat, 16 Feb 2008 10:01:08 GMT

Here is another reminder that I have the memory of goldfish:
I moved house around a month ago- and this meant loss of computer ascess for a week or so and a pretty hectic time schedule.

however, when things settle down again, I completley forget about this journal, and my icontests!
oi vey, I am moronic.

but anyway, i find that i don't really like my icon style anymore, so I'm gonna try a complete overhaul of this journal, including layout and right now im browsing through some icons to try and find something new I can get into.

meanwhile you can look forward to my belated resources post (exciting, no?) and i think i gonna start reviewing SPN, LOST and Skins episodes because they are so frakking awesome.

my first tutorial!

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 01:04:45 GMT

Squee! QAF has given me some inspiration so I have decided to make my first icon tutorial! Now, it was made in Photoshop Elements but I have used my Channel Mixer add-on, found here.
So here it is, featuring the amazing Brian and Justin from Queer as Folk!
NB. This tutorial only works on select images. I garuntee you that you will have to change the settings slightly to suit you.

1. Start with your base image. I duplicated mine twice and set them on screen because I found it was too dark- but tweak this to your image. So I started with:

2. Next, pick a dark salmon colour from your palette. I used #EC2F31. Put this on a new layer and set it to Color Dodge. It may not look nice now, but later this will add a really gorgeous reddy undertone to the icon.

3.Then duplicate your base layer, drag it to the top and set it on Multiply. This is really to factor in more color and tone of the original image while keeping the pinky hue.

4. Duplicate your base layer again, and set this to soft light. This is mainly to add some contrast and more depth to the icon.

5. Still looks too salmon-y, huh? Well, add a Channel Mixer adjustment layer and use these settings:
Red Output: +72, 0, +10, +6
This 'washes' the image with a blue tone, but you can still see the red in the skin tones and dark bits of hair.

6. Next make a new color layer and fill it with a light blue hue, I picked #6FBAFF and set it on overlay 32%. This was a personal preference and it may not do much, but I felt it evened out the whole icon.

7. Then, I used this texture, , by sanami276 and set it on overlay. Then I erased the parts covering Brian, Justin and their clothes. I did this mainly to grunge up the background but also to add more contrast between the people and their setting.

8. Last step! and this is optional. =D I added some text to the icon. I used Cairo 17pt in white, then simplified the layer and went to Edit-->Stroke and added a border of 2px with a dark colour from the image. In this case, I used the dark red from the middle of Justin's hair. Voila! Hope you liked it. =D

some other icons made using same technique: (example 3 has a light yellow softlight layer because the original was too dark for my liking.)

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 21:42:28 GMT

-sob-

My icon muse is gone. completley gone. I tried making a batch of 50 icons from the new SPN christmas episode and ended being proud of about 5.
If I make good icons, it takes me about twenty minutes per icon to factor in inventive textures etc. and those SPN icons were really simple.
I get bored and my icons suffer.
I also never seem to find good subjects for icons.

Good news is, that with the ebb of my icon muse, I find that my writing mind flows. I might start writing some fanfic soon. any ideas?

I'll post the supernatural icons later, along with my recap and review of the episode (which was freakin' awesome!).

ladies day for icons!

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 22:07:28 GMT

yes, a small icon post. =D Some KB and icontest entries.

[20] Kristen Bell Photoshoots
[6] Hayden Icontest Entries

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14	15	16

17	18	19	20

21	22	23	24

25	26	27

another icon post...

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 22:57:50 GMT

So, it was while I was coding this entry something clicked inside my little brain; RESOURCES! I really need to get a post up. So that is next on the list.
Meanwhile, enjoy some icons I made recently, I think I've already improved from my first batch. I'm still really slow at it though, I admire people who can get up icon posts the day after an SPN episode airs and still have like 75 amazing icons in the post.

[16] Stardust Icons
[13] Tasty Stock Icons
[14] Love Muffin Icons (basically the product of my boredom and an MSN conversation ^^)

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14	15

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13

1	2	3	4

5	6	7	8

9	10	11	12

13	14

working...

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 14:01:19 GMT

hey guys, this is my last day of half term and I just wanted to let you know (though I don't think anyone reads this journal) that i'm working on some Stock & Stardust icons. and trying to find a good subject for a header. Any ideas?

finally!

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:31:33 GMT

Here it is, finally. My first real icon post. I'm sorry about the quality of the Supernatural ones, but I'm still new to this and not so good at cleaning up fuzzy screencaps yet.

[14] Supernatural Season 2 Gagreel ((2 Animated)) + [1] SPN promo ((Animated))
[20] Zachary Quinto//Zachary Quinto & Kristen Bell <3

As you can see, I went a bit crazy with the variations of screencaps because I could only find a HQ video of part one, and I still can't find part 2 other then on youtube.

Previews: 1.2..3.

001

002

003

004

005

006

007

008

009

010

011

012

013

014

015

016

017

018

019

020

021

022

023

024

025

026

027

028

029

030

031

032

033

034

035

Created with angelamaria's Icon Table Generator @ Bauble

sorry guys.

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 09:33:58 GMT

I was planning on posting some icons early morning today before I headed off to a party, but alas, my internal alarm clock refuses to ring before 10:30am. xD

So I'll post some SPN gag reel icons and some Zachary Quinto//Kristen Bell Icons tomorrow. (One of which is my userpic in this post. =D )

So, sorry. Even though probably no one is reading my journal. =]

yessum.

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:58:27 GMT

Katy is on half term now. which means she can kick her butt into gear.
and yessum, that icon is a preview of the new gag reel batch, which is rather small, because I got fed up with the quality of my horrible, horrible screencaps.

so i'll post those later with some heroes icons that im working on from the ew bts video.

xx loveness and everything.

hum well.

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 19:26:00 GMT

I was just getting started on some SPN icons from the new gag reel. But....
I got a little sidetracked.

Well, maybe a lot sidetracked. Here's what happened:
-Browsing YouTube happily, and then I see a fanvid for Grey's Anatomy, which previously, I had never watched. However, it was to one of my favourite songs and I thought, what the hey?

-Silly fanvid got me hooked. I started watching from the beginning a week ago and I'm on Season 3 Episode 6. As you can imagine, I haven't been devoting that much time to icon making.

So. Sorry. But hey, look at it this way, a whole new fandom means more icons! =D

Talk to you later... xx

squee.

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:02:30 GMT

Yes. It is my first livejournal post. =D
I've been browsing fanfic and icon sites here for ages, and finally got off my butt and made an account.
So About Me?
I'm Katy. 15 years old. Lover of orange, popcorn, hockey, music, my guitar, Supernatural, Jared Padalecki, Heroes, Dexter, Gilmore Girls, and my guilty pleasure, Ugly Betty. I obviously am alot deeper then that. (hopefully), but that's really all I feel like posting right now. You will get to know me over time. =)

So I'm just gonna start off with a small batch of icons that I've played around with. A few mismatched actors and actresses etc. Hope they're not too bad for my first icons.

1	2	3	4
5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16
17	18