#19

[applepips]

For twmtv20in20
1-20 - Stiles Stillinski

For theiconquest Chapter 4 - Paths
21-23 - Vampire Diaries
24-27 - Teen Wolf
28-30 - Lost
31-35 - Community, Sherlock Holmes, Pushing Daisies

For Various
36-40 - Community
41-42 - Sherlock Holmes
43-46 - Teen Wolf, Harry Potter, Captain America, Chuck

Notes :

1. I fell sick and had to take two days off from work. As result, you has icons.
2. It's been a long time since I signed up for a 20in20 so I decided that I would sign up and I would finish, goddamn. And so I did. Hooray!
3. I felt super guilty that I haven't done anything for IQ other than the first quest so I decided to do the 4th Chapter. As first I was all," Do Option A!". That however crashed and burned cause it turns that  trying to do complex wizardy makes me look constipated. Option B it was then. And omg was it a challenge. To not make things bright, that's like asking me to not to love cheese. Impossible. I LOVE CHEESE. But I girded my loins cause variety and life and all that. I think I'm okay with the end result. Sort of. Kind of. ;_;
4. I should really make icons for something other than icontests. Seriously. -_-  
5. Enjoy plz! :)

For twmtv20in20

10 THEMES

Lost	Home	Duotone	Borders	Glow
Minimalistic	Favorite moment	Busy	Faceless	Light and dark

5 CATEGORY Fake Backgrounds

one.	two.	three.	four.	five.

5 ARTIST'S CHOICE

artist's choice #1	artist's choice #2	artist's choice #3	artist's choice #4	artist's choice #5

For theiconquest

I picked Option B : Less is More
Class - Hero (for all)

21-25
26-30
31-35

Various.

36-40
41-45
46

Please don't hotlink.
If you would like to credit, either applepips16 or inkblush_icons is fine
If you like what you see, could I interest you in either JOINING/WATCHING the comm?

Comments

[applepips]

My point exactly! :D

[ancientwhispers.livejournal.com]

I was wondering, in #35, how did you get the gentle shadows?

[applepips]

I am pretty sure I used a b&w gradient twice to get the effect. Once was create some sort of shadows. Like, I wanted one half of her face to be light and the other half dark. So I put the gradient on soft light and adjusted the opacity accordingly. The second time around, I put the b&w gradient on screen and lowered the opacity to get rid of the harshness but still keep the shadows. I hope this helps! Let me know if you need me to explain it more in detail. :)

[ancientwhispers.livejournal.com]

It helps tremendously! I couldn't figure out how to make the shadows less dark in my icons without messing up the colors (not very good with lighting yet, I'm afraid). THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. And how do you get such perfect smoothness without making everything too blurry? Do you just play with the opacity of a gaussian blur layer?

[applepips]

There are two things I do. One, yep, I uses a gaussian blur layer at around 14-21 px (i know its high but it works for me so) and then play around with the blend mode and the opacity. Another, it's a PSP specific function known as One Step Noise Removal. It removes all the noise (sometimes too much), anyhow, I copy merge my icon and use that and then reduce the opacity.

My messing around in PS tells me you have reduce noise filter which I think works similarly. Except I think it sometimes gives the icon a waxy look. But I think if you use that and play around with the opacity of the layer, it should be fine.

And after I've done all this, I tend to sharpen and again play around with the opacity. Hope this helps! :)