Icons!

[inmyriadbits]

I've made icons before, they just...always sort of sucked. For example, this is the first icon I ever made:



Pretty gloriously crappy, isn't it? :) I wasn't even on LJ at the time; I made it for Katie. (That's Lionel Luthor from Smallville drinking out of a little pink teacup, in case you can't tell.)

Then I made this:



The line is something Simon Illyan says in Memory, the 10th or so book (depending on who's counting) in Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series...which means it only makes sense if you have about ten books of context to work with. *g*

Anyway, most of my icons have been thoroughly mediocre-to-bad. Examples:



The first time I tried to really do anything interesting was with some Jensen Ackles photos. What can I say, I love fedoras.




I blame the last four days of obsessive icon-making and trying to figure out Paint Shop Pro on celli. I don't mean that in a bad way; it's just that, had she never made me interested in The Magnificent Seven, I never would have thought about the show in connection with Sports Night quotes or felt the need to learn how to make a decent icon. Now, several dozen icons and many many hours of my life later, I know about things like layers, gradients, patterns, and just how annoying the filter with which they shot Mag7 is when you're making icons with vast lighting contrasts. Ezra just had to make my life difficult by spending most of his time in a dark saloon, hanging out in front of really bright windows, didn't he? There are a lot of these, because I basically used them to experiment with things.














I have a whole bunch of icons planned that use Mag7 caps with Firefly quotes, which is a supernaturally good combination (how could it not be, with lines like "We are just too pretty for God to let us die" and "I aim to misbehave" and the like?), but all I've done so far is this one, which started it all anyway.



This lot uses one of the only two existing photographs of legendary blues musician Robert Johnson. (I'll spare you the usual geeking out I do here.)









These are all free for the taking, but I would appreciate credit, please. That's all, folks! I'd love feedback, since I've never done this before. :)

Comments

[fadeintodawn.livejournal.com]

Not taking any icons, but I did want to say how awesome the Ezra/Firefly quote is!

[inmyriadbits.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I'm actually planning to make a whole bunch more with Firefly quotes--you know, one with JD and "man walks down the street in that hat, people know he's not afraid of anything," Ezra in drag with "I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you," that kind of thing. :D (If you have any specific ideas, I could give something a shot for you.) I'll post a link at clarion_news when that happens, too.

Yes, please!

[lunacie3.livejournal.com]

I would dearly love to see either of those. And I'd pretty much have to nab them, because of their glory. So, indulge me?

Yes, please!

[lunacie3.livejournal.com]

and the rest of my (hopefully persuasive) shameless begging got cut off somehow. *sigh* I clearly have a lot to learn. Anyway, I'll be lurking around clarion_news just in case inspiration carries you there. Thanks!

[celli]

:D