My very first icon attempt

[annathepiper]

Tonight I have made my very first icon. Tell me what you think, folks!



Credit goes to:

• underdark_icons for the Eowyn base
  
• Carbon Leaf, for the snippet of lyrics from "Desperation Song" off Echo Echo, a lovely little bit of wordage that I thought went stunningly well with that radiant smile
  
• Paint Shop Pro 7, for the illumination and buttonizing effects
  
• Vivaldi and Copperplate Gothic Bold fonts
  

Comments

[xionin.livejournal.com]

lovely!

[annathepiper]

Thank you! Is the text legible? It's supposed to say "your laughter is my light". I'm having a bit of trouble getting the word "laughter" to be clear enough while also not making the text too dark against the background of the picture.

[xionin.livejournal.com]

you could probably stand to sharpen it up a bit [that part of the text] but it is legible. :]

[annathepiper]

Ooh, sharpening. I hadn't thought of that. Thanks for the tip, I shall play with it and see if that will help.

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

Pretty!!!

[emmacrew.livejournal.com]

The only suggestion I'd make would be if you could darken up her hair on the upper left, because that bright patch really draws my eye away from the important bits. I wonder if moving the "your laughter is my" (in a different color) up to the top would help in toning down the brightness somehow?

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Nice! I've just started slowly getting into icons myself. Here are my first two:





The second one was "commissioned" by my wife for her posts on the "Bloody Spikeless" board.

[annathepiper]

I had the text up on the top in earlier versions tonight, but was having a hard time getting it to work quite the way I wanted. I think I kind of like it better all along the bottom. I'll play with it some more! Thanks for the suggestions. :)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I really .like. that.

[kaseido.livejournal.com]

That's your *first* icon?! Incredible!

It did take me a moment to realize that it didn't say "your *lawyer* is my light" -

- but then my_lawyer *is* my light.... *g*

[janne.livejournal.com]

Had to squint a little to read the 'your', but then my eyes aren't what they used to be. Lovely icon!

[me-fein.livejournal.com]

Very pretty for your first attempt!

Some suggestions, though... The light in the upper left-hand side is a little too bright/piercing, especially with the lack of light on the lower right-hand corner, although the white lettering helps hide this.

The your laughter is my part needs to be smoothed out or just not bold, if that's what you've done to it. It's readable, but not clear.

(just made 5 new icons of my own earlier tonight. LOL Icon-making Frenzy Friday, I think...)

[annathepiper]

The text you mention isn't bolded. I tried to sharpen it up using the Sharpen command on my Paint Shop Pro menu, but it didn't seem to have a noticeable effect.

I could try to pull down the light a little, though! I was trying to play with what angle the light should be coming from, because that affects letter placement and legibility, and I think I like the text best at the bottom.

Thanks for the tips!

[annathepiper]

Thank you! Yeah, I'm concerned about the legibility of the text, too. I need to play with it for the final version of this icon.

[annathepiper]

Aww shucks, thank you.

And hee! Yeah, the text legibility needs some improving. Not sure how to play with that yet. ;)

[annathepiper]

Yay!

[annathepiper]

Thanks! And hee, I like the "what?" icon there. Nice caption for Spike, too!

[annathepiper]

Thank you! :)

[spunbutterfly.livejournal.com]

It's a beautiful icon! (and the text is definitely legible)

My only suggestion would be to make the LIGHT text smaller so Eowyn's chin isn't cut off, which I think would be only a few more mms? I don't think you need to emboss it either, but I'm not sure how that would look, perhaps too plain without the button embossing.

[me-fein.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sharpen is one of those hit-or-miss things. I think there's that "anti-aliasing" feature on PSP? Sometimes that works, too.

What you might want to play with is a new font, entirely, actually. suzuno was onto something about making the text smaller so it doesn't chop off Eowyn's chin. Although I would also add that "your" in the phrase is hard to see because there is so much light on that side of the image. Perhaps you can play with 2 different colours of the text?

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

The second picture is from Cool Money, where he played Bobby Comfort -- hence the caption. :-)

[annathepiper]

Thanks for the tips! Others made similar feedback, and folks are telling me I incorporated the suggestions well into the second version of the icon. :)

[annathepiper]

Anti-aliasing is on by default with PSP's text tool, yeah. I'm actually not exactly sure what the heck that does, but it's on by default. ;)

I was toying around with colors as well, but couldn't find others besides white that worked for me with the text.

[annathepiper]

A-ha! Though the phrase is oddly appropriate for Spike in some ways as well. :)