Challenge #2 Results!

[kerravonsen]

Sorry for the delay, but I forgot yesterday, and today, of course, LJ was down. Thank you all for participating and voting and being so bril.
Drumroll please! The results of Challenge #2: Windmills of Your Mind are:

Embodiment of style
First:
by kerravonsen
Second: (three-way tie!)
by siluria by siluria by taibhrigh
Third: (two-way tie!)
by kerravonsen by kerravonsen

I Just Like It
First:
by siluria
Second:
by siluria
Third: (three-way tie!)
by kerravonsen by vilakins by taibhrigh

Mod's choice
by taibhrigh
(because I just like it)

I've also revealed the entries in the challenge entry post.

Now, discuss! Talk about methods and stuff!

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Thank you all for voting for me! Whoo-hoo!

So, I now follow my own suggestion and will say something about how I did my winning icon.

First, I made the circles, each circle on a separate transparent layer. I used Guides to figure out where the centre of each circle should be, and used Ctrl-Shift to make the "elipse" selection (a) circular and (b) centred on the starting-point of the selection. I think I may have initially filled the circle selctions with black and grey, just to start with. But then I set each circle layer to "preserve transparency" and did a black-white-black gradient fill; a radial gradient fill across the circle (not centred in it)

I set all the circle layers to "Difference" mode. Difference is very cool.

The background was a pattern I'd gotten from elsewhere, which had lots of pale circles in it. I touched up some parts of the background where it was too dark or too light, by putting a transparent layer above the background, and using the paintbrush with a "paint gradient", with a pastel-rainbow gradient.

[kerravonsen]

Oh, and last of all, I put a layer above all the layers, in "overlay" mode, and did a spiral gradient-fill with the pastel-rainbow gradient, just to lift and brighten the colours a bit more.

And then racked my brain trying to think of the best caption to use. But I thought, well, it is cool, and it stands for itself, so I'll just make the writing small and unobtrusive.

[siluria]

Eeek, and I just fiddled with fill layers and textures :) I did wonder if it was a base image that the colour was enhanced on, but to see how much work and originality was brought into it makes it a well-deserved winner.

[kerravonsen]

Thank you!

All I'd really figured when I started that one was that I wanted to have lots of circles getting smaller in a sort of spiral, and that doing something with differences would probably make them look cool, something I'd already played with on earlier occassions.

[siluria]

Oooooh - tutorial too! Excellent, I shall have to have a go later :)

[kerravonsen]

Have fun! Basically what I did for the "cool" icon was a variation of the variations mentioned at the bottom of the tutorial.

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

ditto'ing siluria about the tutorial

[kerravonsen]

Thank you! Enjoy!

[siluria]

Firstly - wow, and thank you for the votes!! There were loads of very good icons with very differing styles and it's interesting to see if a particular icon maker has a characteristic style.

I kind of feel a bit shellshocked, because basically all I did was take an image and play with fill layers and textures. What I did learn though, was that a good base image is worth wonders, I tried all sorts of imagess before finding those that would work. I think I'll also try to make note of what I actually did each time! I joined the comm because I loved the results of the first challenge and I thought that it might help me to learn more about techniques if I take the focus away from the fandom content.

I really thought shrike_15 transmission icon was a unique take on the challenge, and kerravonsen's clock caught my eye as soon as I clicked on to the page, primarily I think because of the colours - one of those, 'I just like it' icons.

[kerravonsen]

What I did learn though, was that a good base image is worth wonders

Yep! Half the time it can be a case of doing over and over and over the images in one's collection, and then seeing something that goes "Aha!" to you.

I think I'll also try to make note of what I actually did each time!

I find it helpful to keep the "working" image file with all the layers intact, because it's a living example of what one did, of the techniques used (well, to a degree).

I joined the comm because I loved the results of the first challenge and I thought that it might help me to learn more about techniques if I take the focus away from the fandom content.

I started this comm because I really enjoy stretching myself with style/technique-based challenges (and also because I'm pretty eclectic in the fandoms I like).

kerravonsen's clock caught my eye as soon as I clicked on to the page, primarily I think because of the colours - one of those, 'I just like it' icons.

Thank you! The colours in that one were the finishing touch. I spent most of the time trying to get the writing right, picking different fonts and different settings of the "circular text" script-fu. And I kind of like the double meaning of the text -- which only makes sense if you know where the watch comes from (the US hasn't seen those episodes yet).

[siluria]

I didn't even attempt the circular text, I have a tutorial bookmarked but it looks really tricky and I haven't found the time to have a go yet. I didn't think of it purposely being a Dr Who reference, I think I thought I'd just made the association in my head :)

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

They're beautiful... and rather different from the equally lovely ones I've seen you do in M7 :)

I tend to get sold on beautiful colour, which the tranquillity one gets spot on :)

[siluria]

Thank you!! xxxx I figured that one had to be about getting the colours right because there wasn't much variability in it to catch the eye. BTW, it was your icon post with the one colour theme that made me come over here :)

[kerravonsen]

Whee! We're sharing the fun!

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

I'm glad :) I'm now in three challenge communities, and because the styles are very different, I get lots of practice doing stuff I wouldn't otherwise...

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

I have to say that I voted for your three. I absolutely loved the tranquility one. I liked how the black was the outer ring for the "sun" icon, made it look like a window; and how the light seemed focused on the center. As for the old wagon wheel, I just liked the feel/sense of time in that one.

[siluria]

Yay - I have a fan!!! :)

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

LOL, yep :)

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

First, thank you all!

The idea for the 8 doctors (3-10) came to me out of the blue. I wasn't even sure it was going to work. What with the spirals and the circle. I built the base with the idea that the Tardis was the center and everything should sort of spiral out from there. I placed the blue circles and spirals where I wanted them and then worked on the images of the doctors (sometimes it required changed is brightness/contrast or sharpening the image). Then I used the circle marquee tool to crop the image to the exact size. After that, I just placed them in layers under the pre-arranged circles.

The pirates one was sort of done in a like fashion except that it was built images first then background.

[kerravonsen]

The 8 doctors was a brilliant idea! (I know I indulged myself by picking it for Mod's choice, since it had already got a placing, but it really was my favourite...)

How did you actually get the spirals? Did you draw them, or were they brushes?

The pirates one, you really had a good eye for how to put it together.

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Photoshop has some preset shapes/tools and one of them is a spiral. The thing is, you have to "load" some of these ready available shapes into the tool for them to be available (its really easy, you just need to know they exist). I found the shape when playing around with settings and wanted to use it but could never think of a good use until last week. It took several tries to get the right shape and size spiral. Then I flipped it, lightened, effected, etc until it was what I was really looking for :)

Btw, I really do like your "dream" Tardis icon!

[kerravonsen]

Ah, it's a Photoshop thing. I use GIMP. Ah well.

Btw, I really do like your "dream" Tardis icon!
Thank you! I also made wallpaper and a tutorial on it. Though it's a GIMP tutorial, though a lot of these things are translatable.

[sallymn.livejournal.com]

They're both great, especially methinks because you were dealing with such tiny tiny pictures and still managed to make them very clear and unfussy.

[siluria]

I agree with that, getting a single image to look good at 100x100 is often hard enough, but getting all those images to be identifiable at that small size is quite a feat!

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

See above note about using all 10 doctors :-)

[taibhrigh.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I originally was going to use all 10 doctors but the images got way to tiny--so much so that some of the doctors looked too much a like.

[kerravonsen]

Anyone who wants the icons I made for this challenge, go over here and comment.

[annieb1955.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. Wonderful icons.