icon ramblings

I was thinking about this, the other day, when I was making craptasticthe Shiny Spiffy Icons for Farscapecontest and bstgicontest and sg_lyrical...

My icon style has changed. I can't make the same icons I made half a year ago. I can't just crop, add on some text, and, BANG, icon. Now I have to fiddle with all sorts of settings, slap on layers and color-washes and play with the text and stick on a border, and...

I can't decide if this is a good thing or not.

I know, for instance, that with more playing in photoshop, I've produced some UGLY icons. But I also know that I've made really pretty ones that would have been ugly a year ago.

I know I have only a vague sense of what makes Arte. I know what looks pretty to me quite obviously does not please the masses--and before you tell me I'm wrong, I point you to every icon contest community out there. If it's shiny and ARTE it wins. If it's simple and clear-cut and basic? No one even votes for it, even if it's the better icon.

But back to style.

I think I miss the days when I didn't do color layers.

Hrm.

Atlantis (and a few SG-1) icons: Liz Weir, others.

Caps from Atlantica, and no idea where else. Want, take, have. Lizzie's early season one hair, for the record, is kinda... ugly, when you try to icon it. The curly mop works OH so much better, omg. And, yes, the sg_lyrical cap was used to do more icons. *shrug* I was playing.
Lyrics on 24. from Gravity Kills - Never
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The other icons. Reboot, Galactica (Kara, Billy, Gaeta, Six)

Caps from... a defunct Reboot site, Jems1, bsgcreative, blah,blah... Want, take, have. Lyrics on 13. from Alison Moyet's 'Whispering Your Name'... Good song.
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