Previous | Memories | Tell Someone | Next
 
hsapiens
hsapiens
25 September 2006 @ 04:20 pm
Looking for honest, constructive opinions  
I'm looking for a community that offers brutally honest feedback on icons with an eye towards helping a person improve. I've reached a plateau and a sameness to my icons; I'd like to go further. I ask for constructive criticism on my icon posts, but I think people are too afraid I'll get pissy or that they'll hurt my feelings or something. The comments I get are the, "These are great!/I like ## and am snagging!" variety. I'm not complaining - they're certainly good for the ego - but I need critical feedback to fuel improvement.

Anyone know of any communities like this? Have you gotten similar help? Or is this more like writing and one gets an "icon beta" to help? [livejournal.com profile] jalabert is my current icon beta but she limits her input (mostly) to the icons I make for her. More Voices = More Viewpoints To Consider.

Any other suggestions? I've friended people whose icons I like and stuck them in a filter, "Inspiration," to make it easier to look at examples I like. I spend time trawling fandoms, looking for interesting icons. I have gone through innumerable tutorials, etc. If you've got another cool idea for spurring creativity, please feel free to share. I feel as if text and cropping are especially weak points for me. Maybe I have others I'm blind to? I won't know until someone points it out to me. :)

And yeah, I should be writing up a "here's what I did on vacation" post. That's on my To Do List, as well.
Tags:
 
 
Current Mood: curious
 
46 comments | Leave a comment
 
( Post a new comment )
Mish: Teryl -- Sunny Colors[identity profile] hsapiens.livejournal.com on October 2nd, 2006 05:37 pm (UTC)
Part 2
#12 Hee! Excellent because that's actually a seriously messed with photo. The original has an ominous orange sky (it's Hanka, where Nirrti poisoned everyone) and it's impossible to even see the team. I worked on that image a LOT to change the mood. I can't decide, though, if it's done. (See my earlier comments on landscapes.) It feels...unfinished. Maybe a texture of some sort but I'm loathe to distract from the pic. I don't know. I dither.

#13 I hated the episode story-wise but the visuals are compelling. I've revisited it any number of times.

#14 So, it feels done? Negative space makes me nervous but I *love* it when I'm looking at someone else's work. I let the negative space go here but was very surprised that nobody commented on saving it. Especially since I'd gotten comments about my *lack* of Ronan. I thought maybe it was people picking up a sense of it's *almost* done that I had felt in looking at it. Or, it could be nobody wanted yet another Ronan. :)

#15 It's such a great cap of him. That episode I both love and visit over and over for the wonderful images.

Ok, I’m not sure if this information is helpful at all.
It is! I tried very hard not to influence the observations in any way. I wanted to see what struck people as good - or bad - and what drew comments.

Don’t forget that I’ve snooped through your icons – I’m not entirely sure these are representative of your work.
Perhaps not. I do a LOT more in somebody's face icons than are represented here, but I think there's a sameness there. Critique one and you've critiqued 500. ;-)

I tried to choose various fandoms because I wanted to get reactions that were based on not knowing the show as well as having others tinged by fannish context. I wanted to include both close-ups and landscapes. I'd like to have included some that capture action, but I haven't really done any of those. That's something for me to work on. I wanted beefcake, humor, and plain old, "here's a character we all love."

I was going to include some Teryl icons but the ones I most wanted a comment on are all entered in the [livejournal.com profile] terylicious contest and any improvements would make me want to enter those and that wouldn't be fair, I think, since it wouldn't be my own work.