Challenge 2x09 Results

[yvi]

These are the results for Challenge 2x09: A Word Is Worth a Thousand Pictures:

This was basically one big success for paian :)

Embodiment of style

First:

by paian

Second:

by paian

Third:

by paian

I Just Like It

First:

by paian

Second (a tie):

by paian


by paian

Third:


by taibhrigh

Mod's choice


by taibhrigh

Thank you, everyone who participated!

Now, discuss! How did you make your icons? Techniques, tips, difficulties?

See you next challenge :)

Comments

[pensnest]

Congratulations to paian, I really liked the proportions in all those winning entries. I think that's one of the things that makes a text-only icon stand out—the way the words are composed visually.

[paian]

Thank you very much!

[paian]

Oh, wow! ::boggles:: This is a really unexpected result. Thank you!

Mostly I just started with a white 100x100 image and typed in the text from some favorite Stargate SG-1 lines, then added textures and messed around with fonts until I got a result I liked. But I tried to keep track of what I did after I made each icon -- here are the notes:


Layer 1: White layer I started with when I opened the image
Layer 2: This texture by erniemay
Layer 3: (Multiply 44% opacity) 'Welcome' in Porcelain regular 44pt, AV -25, color 958c6f, Effect: Outer Glow on default settings with a Half Round contour. The Porcelain font is by Eduardo Recife, http://www.misprintedtype.com/.
Layer 4: Layer 3 duplicated
Layer 5: 'to' in Merriam Regular (installed with my dictionary) 24pt, turned on its side using Edit>Transform>Rotate 90 degrees CCW
Layer 6: Text 'life,' settings the same as Layer 3 except for 41% opacity
Layer 7: Layer 6 duplicated, Effects turned off [Made the word 'life' darker and stronger without making the glow brighter; could probably have turned up the opacity of Layer 6 and turned down the opacity of the glow in Effects instead]
Layer 8: 'MY' in Merriam Regular 30pt, color edda9c, Effect: Drop Shadow on default settings except for Angle 129
Layer 9: This stamp brush by serendipitysho / Serendipity, color black, Multiply 31% [For some extra texture and to give a hint of a border]
Layer 10: Color Balance. Highlights YellowBlue -17. Midtones no change. Shadows YellowBlue +24. 'Preserve luminosity' checked. [To give a bit more depth to the whole image.]
Layer 11: This texture by erniemay on Color Burn 59%. [Made it all darker and more colorful.]

The Color Balance layer is something I use a lot -- turn the yellow up in the highlights and turn the blue up in the shadows. I also frequently put an Outer Glow on text and set the layer to Multiply, to kind of 'carve' it into whatever's under it.


This one is this texture by erniemay, then the same texture flipped horizontally and set on Multiply 59%, then a separate layer for every word (font Boopee, which came installed on my computer, color d8ccb6, various sizes and opacities), then a couple of extra layers of the question mark rotated around to look like an ornament and fill the empty space on the upper left, then this texture by erniemay on Overlay for color. Then I stamped the whole thing (Ctrl-Alt-Shift-E in CS4) and set that layer on Overlay and desaturated it a little bit, and i think I duplicated the stamp and set that on Overlay too -- I'm not sure what combination of layers and opacities I used at the end. I frequently stamp the whole image and then set the stamp on Overlay -- makes it all look deeper and more vivid to me.


Layer 1: This texture. Not sure where it came from.
Layer 2: This texture from Texture Set 6 by mata090680, one of my favorite texture sets ever
Layers 3, 4, 5: The text in Adobe Caslon Pro 18pt, AV -25, color 6a6949
Layer 6: Layer 1 and the opacity-lowered text layers stamped together and set on Overlay 100%

I thought I should try to do something more with it at that point, but the deadpan expression of the stark dark text all centered together on a rough background evoked Teal'c in a way that made me grin, so I stopped there.

The other icon was just the text (two words rotated, others stretched vertically by adjusting the height setting in Character to fill the space) over a default CS4 gradient, with the same gradient set over it on Overlay to bring the contrast and colors out a bit more.