Challenge 2x05 Results

[kerravonsen]

Apologies for the supreme lateness of this! Hopefully things will be better next time, as our helpful co-mod yvi will be leading the dance next month. Which is rapidly coming upon us!

The results of Challenge #2x05, Shadows are:

Embodiment of style
First: (a tie)
by htbthomas
by kerravonsen

Second: (another tie)
by htbthomas
by yvi

Third:
by yhlee

I Just Like It
First: (a three-way tie!!!)
by yhlee
by yhlee
by yvi

Second:
by htbthomas

Third:
by kerravonsen

Mod's choice
by yhlee


Thank you, everyone!

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

Now, discuss! How did you make your icons? Techniques, tips, difficulties? Were the tutorial links helpful? Did you find other helpful tutorials?

Comments

[kerravonsen]

I found this tutorial Creating Shadows in GIMP really helpful for my icons, because it gave instructions for perspective shadows, not just drop-shadows, and that meant I could try stuff I hadn't done before, since I've done drop-shadows quite a bit before.

The main trick with the "fear" icon, besides just following the tutorial, was to reflect the shadow before applying the perspective tool, since the shadow was supposed to be in front rather than behind. And being patient! I had to do it over and over again with different tweaks before I got it right (and I'm still not completely satisfied). I wish the perspective tool in GIMP would allow you to type in numbers like the rotate tool can.

The background, well, I tried a number of things I didn't like; I wanted some kind of perspective, but trying to get a perspective-look like with my previous icon wasn't really working. What I ended up with was a brushed-metal texture on one layer, and two layers with a gradient fill, one from the top of the icon to the bottom of the letters, and the other from the bottom of the letters to the bottom of the icon.

The feathery curve was just an icon-shaped brush from my collection; the usual method of "keep on trying and tweaking until you find something you like" was applied here.

[yvi]

I used GIMP and that turorial as well. The perspective tool was a bit fiddly at first, and I only did a very simple thing with it, but nce you get the hang of it it really does the job.

For my icon, I just did a really simple
copy layer -> make black -> perspective tool -> gaussian blur
But it was my first time using the perspective tool, so I did learn something.

[htbthomas]

How nice! :)

The Autumn icon was made this way:
First, I found a photo of a leaf that I liked and cut away the background. Then I added a gradient fill background using the colors of the leaf. I then added the drop shadow, but I moved the shadow layer around until I liked the placement better. Finally I added a white text layer over the top, but set the opacity lower.

The Lois Lane icon:
I cut out Lois first. Then I found a gif image of the Superman symbol, used the fuzzy select to remove the background and used alpha to selection to change the original black of the image to blue. Then added a gradient fill background with the other Superman colors of yellow and red. I decided that the Superman symbol was the one which needed the shadow, and after moving it around a bit, I was done.

Thanks again!

[yhlee]

For the icon of Kachiko ("haunted") I have to admit I resorted to painting in her shadow to the right on the wall using a tablet. I'm sure there's a better way to do it though.

Nothing fancy for "pax": for the top layer of text I set a homemade texture (watercolor pencils on rough paper) as the fill. Then for the shadow layer, I followed directions from one of the tutorials and offset the text a bit, then used Gaussian blur (radius 4?).