The WELCOME TO FAN DESIGN Social Thread: Just Who in the Heck Are You?

My final project for the Diploma course I'm currently doing is about to begin. Well, it has begun as next week I present to the class my idea and what it is and then we have 10 weeks to complete it.

I don't know what I want to do yet. Whoops.

 

I spent so much time writing that final paper on Aristotle and how this college professor completely missed the mark in her paper about Aristotle. I was up all night long typing on my laptop. I had all my source copies all over the bed. I still don't know how I managed to pass.

 

You should totally get into making icons

Tyi - oops. Visit Nathan's Inspiration Station?

 

I'm trying to learn my way around Paint.Net at the moment. Best way to learn is trial by fire. I can get Jacen/Anakin/Jedi Fighter into a 30x90 icon. I haven't tried to get Jacen/Anakin/Jaina into a 90x30 icon yet. That Jedi Fighter in the center can be a 50x50 icon fairly easily.

 

At least my final project is not a "paper". Uuuggh, I'd shudder at the thought.

Oops? Why oops, Nat?

 

Yeah, that paper was around 30 pages of nothing but pure political philosophy.

 

Aside from an exam in my Music History: Rock & Pop online class that I need to finish by next Thursday, no, actually. We actually just ended our first assignment in Ceramics class too. Only I could come up with toadstools, flowers, tree stumps and alien-like things with their tongues sticking out from an assignment where we have to make push pots *not* look like push-pots.

I'm just really struggling to draw, come up with a new layout for my new domain and everything. I think the last thing I did, creativity-wise, was edit a new-ish layout for my Cad Bane LJ community and that was just a simple template edit.

Bah. I'll look around and get inspired. Somehow.

 

As mentioned before, we have an Inspiration Station for that.

 

Before a couple weeks ago, it had been 3 years since I opened Photoshop/Dreamweaver or looked at a book having to do with design.

 

This is my first pass at the Jacen/Anakin icon.

http://www.flaviangroup.org/jcavatars/brothers.gif

 

Looks nice. May I give advice oh great one? A little more lightness/contrast. It is a bit dark on my monitor. I like it! Good job!

 

I'm a n00b at graphic stuff.

I noticed it was dark on my laptop too. I'll brighten it up a bit.

 

Ok, I brightened it up a bit and gave it some more contrast.

 

Thanks for taking my advice. I have learned that when things are made small, they become dark and harder to see. And the color sometimes gets washed out of them. Experience is valuable, and so is advice which I gladly accept.

 

Considering how long it's been since I've worked with this stuff I'll take whatever advice I can get on how to refine what I'm working on.

 

Hey, just look at it. If it looks good, great. If the color is off, fix it. If the size is off, fix it. It is really just judgment. WHen I do bugger things, I like to go for realism. In icons, it is too small for that to work. I looks real if you do very little. A little goes a long way in smaller projects but it is also harder in a lot of ways to make icons because they are small. Making them look right size-wize is tough. Because you want to see it.

 

Source files are extremely important when making icons too.

 

The icon looks good, although you might want a border around it. Maybe? *shrugs* Good stuff though!

To me Anakin looks a little strange in the small icon version because he has his eyes closed. I wonder what it'd look like with them open . . .

 

I agree about the eyes. Even the full size image looks a little bizarre because they all have their eyes closed.


I was thinking about a border but couldn't decide on a color.

Any ideas?

 

On paint.NET you can make a border that is the just the negetive of the area you are taking for the border. You make the border in a color of your choice in a new layer (so it is on top of the image), then go to that layer's properties and there is a dropdown that you can play with. Different effects. Other than that I am too tired for real ideas and am abou to go to bed.

 

Try picking a color in the icon itself that stands out from the rest of the palette.

 

Bed? But it's bright blue sky outside!


Yeah, Salty, I'd listen to the icon makers on the border colour. I'd just make something up myself, never having created an icon before.

 

Thanks for the advice. I have a couple ideas for colors from the icon.

 

Added a border to it. It doesn't show up all that well on the white background (looks good on a gray background). I need to create an actual page to hold icons I upload. This is all sorta off the cuff right now.

 

I can see the border. It looks good, nice choice.