icky blue graphics

MOVED! PLEASE DON'T IGNORE!

2005-12-01T03:57:04Z

[grumble] i know i'm going to lose a lot of members 'cause of this... [/grumble]

anyway... ^^;;; hello everyone! sorry to spam your friends lists like this, but i have to make an announcement. today i kind of got tired of "icky blue graphics"-- seems like such a dull name now-- so i decided to pack up and revamp, so this graphix journal has officially moved to a new home:

wakizashi_

(which sounds so much cooler, dont'cha think? ^.^)

so please! (i beg you ;_;) go ahead and join wakizashi_ if you want to keep up to date with my icons in your friends list ^_^ i won't delete this journal (there's waaaay too much stuff in here to delete it, i can't move all of it #_#) but it will not be updated anymore. really. no more.

TO MY AFFILIATES (if any of them is reading this)-- could you please change your links? i'll still leave a note in your LJs during the weekend, but it would save me some work if you changed the links after reading this message. thank you!

and people! see you at wakizashi_! w00t! ^____________^

hagaren + GoF + ranma

2005-11-21T21:12:51Z

[x-posted] EVERYWHERE! sorry if it bothers you.

whoo. it's been a LONG time since i last updated this site... sorry guys, schoolwork is eating my life away. but hey! i saw the GoF movie last friday (it was awesome! there's a longer-- and crazier-- review in my LJ) and was definitely inspired to make icons. that also goes for ranma 1/2-- i've been watching the OAVs and yeah, there's a distinct lack of ranma icons in the web, so i thought i'd add a little to the small number. i also come bearing wallpapers. you'll recognize some of them from my LJ's layout & the layout for nerima_rating, and that is because i just liked those layouts so much i had to make them into wallpapers =P how unoriginal. but oh well.

i cropped a lot of bases from the wallpapers, too. i didn't bother adding text to them... you can add some if you want to, of course ^_^ if you take them.

this is a weird batch. i think of it as my "matte" batch. it's all done in earthy colors, with a lot of darken & lighten color layers, a lot of exclusion, too... giving all of these icons a kind of faded color that i think i quite like. there isn't anything really bright or shiny, which is a total 180 from what i'd been doing sometime back. i like this batch, as flat as it is.

so, to sum it up:

_5 hagaren (movie! edo, winry & aru) + 1 wallpaper
_25 HP&GoF (the trio individually & in groups, champions) + 2 wallpapers
_17 ranma 1/2 (ranma/akane, akane, shampoo/mousse, p-chan, ukyou, ryouga/ukyou, other groups) + 1 wallpaper

credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue
_suggestions?/request a tutorial

a_ hagaren

800x600 - 1024x768

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_

b_ goblet of fire

6_ 7_ 8_
9_ 10_ 11_
12_ 13_

800x600 - 1024x768

14_ 15_ 16_
17_ 18_ 19_
20_ 21_ 22_

800x600 - 1024x768

23_ 24_ 25_
26_ 27_ 28_
29_ 30_

c_ ranma 1/2

31_ 32_ 33_
34_ 35_ 36_
37_ 38_ 39_

800x600 - 1024x768

40_ 41_ 42_
43_ 44_ 45_
46_ 47_

notes_

9_ from the song "unwritten" by natasha bedingfield.
35_ a play on the title of ranma & akane's song "the ballad of ranma and akane."
36_ it means (i think O_o i could be wrong) love's silhouette. or something along those lines.

still plugging!: good_animeicons
and!: hagaren_awards
aaand!: _quote_claims_
aaaaaand!: nerima_rating.

christian bale + hagaren + GoF

2005-10-19T04:48:18Z

ok, so in celebration of the release of the batman begins DVD (i already ordered mine!), i decided to make some christian bale icons (instead of studying for my thermo test) because i'm soooo excited! also in the bunch are some hagaren icons from some new scans i found around, and a batch of reeeeeally sucky goblet of fire icons which you'll have to stand anyway because i just felt the need to post something harry potter. i'll try to make some better ones the next time.

so, to sum it up:

_9 christian bale
_5 hagaren (al heiderich, ed, envy, winry, hohenheim)
_6 HP&GoF (hermione, harry, trio, h/hr, fleur)

credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue
_suggestions?/request a tutorial

christian bale_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_

hagaren_

10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 15_

GoF_

15_ 16_ 17_
18_ 19_ 20_

plugging!: hagaren_awards
and!: _quote_claims_

EXCALIBUR!

2005-09-28T23:02:46Z

so i've been rereading the excalibur comics because i had to finish the kurt & kitty fanlisting (yay! i love those two ^.^), so i got in the mood and ended up making tons of excalibur icons. mostly from the last third of the series. oh, and two x-men unlimited #38, because they're kurtty and i wuv 'em! ^-^ haha. so here you go:

20 x-men icons (excalibur + x-men unlimited #38)--

_2 rahne (wolfsbane) & douglock
_2 meggan
_3 kurt (nightcrawler) & kitty (shadowcat)
_2 pete wisdom & kitty (shadowcat)
_2 kitty (shadowcat)
_1 kurt (nightcrawler) & amanda (daytripper/magik II)
_1 kurt (nightcrawler)
_2 piotr (colossus)
_1 rahne (wolfsbane)
_1 amanda (daytripper/magik II)
_2 pete wisdom
_1 jean (phoenix)

credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue
_suggestions?/request a tutorial

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_

embarrasingly small batch (hagaren + GoF + mankin)

2005-09-16T19:10:24Z

oh, this batch is SO small, it's almost embarrassing =u_u= i'm sorry, guys, i've been really busy-- classes started a few weeks ago AND if that wasn't enough i got a job so i have no time for ANYTHING else besides that. not even sleeping. so i can't deliver any more icons than these for a while. but i promise i'll make up for this in the next batch!

so here you have some more fullmetal alchemist icons in celebration of the new episodes coming to adult swim tomorrow, goblet of fire icons in celebration of the absolutely AWESOME new trailer, and shaman king icons celebrating... well, nothing really, just that i came back to this fandom after years of having forgotten about it ^^;;;

inside the cut:

_3 hagaren (edo+win+aru, edowin, hughes)
_4 GoF (harry, cedric)
_6 mankin (jun/pailong, horohoro, yoh, amidamaru, anna)

other credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue
_suggestions?/wanna tutorial?

a_ hagaren

1_ 2_ 3_

b_ HP & GoF

4_ 5_ 6_
7_

c_ mankin

8_ 9_ 10_
11_ 12_ 13_

TUTORIAL 04-- "always be there"

2005-08-04T19:13:54Z

okee dokeee... sinistrata asked me to make a tutorial for this icon...

...and so i'm doing one ^_^ just so you know, i work with PS7, but i'm sure this can be easily translated to other programs. you should probably have some knowledge of how these things work, though, because terms like "cropping", changing layer blending modes and stuff like that will pop up, and i won't get too deep into them.

please, PLEASE, don't make exact copies of this icon. just get the techniques and adjust them to your own style. the idea is that you learn what i'm THINKING when i make my icons so you can learn to reason with yours.

so i started out with this image of the trio, which i'm sure everyone has seen by now. i cropped harry and hermione's faces, pasted them in a new 100x100 canvas, with a white background. i positioned them as i wanted, added a white background, and then merged the layers. then i sharpened, and ran the auto-contrast and auto-color tools until i liked the results. this became my base, or "background" layer.

after that, i duplicated that layer (the second one became "duplicate 1") and started playing with the saturation (going to image>adjustments>hue/saturation). if i'm not mistaken, i lowered the saturation by about 50-60%. left the layer in the "normal" blending mode. it's important to work on a duplicate layer, because if you mess up with the desaturation you can always just delete that layer and you still have your background intact.

anyway. after that, i decided to play a little with the coloring. i wanted to try a lighten effect... red/orange/yellow-ish gradients always work nicely with desaturated images. so i grabbed this gradient...

...which i'm pretty sure is by crumblingwalls (i might be wrong, though #_#)... set it on top of everything (layer's name is "gradient") and changed the blending mode to lighten at 80% opacity. this is what i got:

that's what the lighten blending mode does-- it gives color to the dark parts, and the light parts, like their faces and the white background, are pretty much left alone. it makes for some pretty neat effects.

but i still felt it was a little dark, so i went down to the "duplicate 1" layer and duplicated that (thus was born "duplicate 2"), setting that layer to screen at 50% opacity. and here's the result:

but as the images get lighter, some of the pretty color dissappears ;_; and we don't want that, so we want to bring back the dark parts without darkening the light parts, right? that's what a soft light layer does. so i went down to the "background" layer and duplicated it again (this became "duplicate 3"), and then by going to image>adjustments>desaturate i... desaturated it completely (du-uh!)

i dragged that layer up between "duplicate 2" and "gradient", and set it to soft light.

see how their hair got darker but their faces remained light? that's what i was looking for.

ok, now it's time to add textures because it's looking pretty empty. now, this icon is somewhat old and so i don't really remember where i got these textures from #_# i'm sure they're all credited in my resources post, but if you've seen the size of that thing, you'll know that it's pretty much suicide going through it for a single texture. so if these textures are yours, please tell me so i can credit you properly!

anyway, as i was saying. i took this grid-like texture and put it on a new layer on top of everything ("texture 1") with a purple color (#3F2E50 or something along those lines). originally the texture covered the whole of the icon, but i just wanted it to be to one side so it wouldn't take our attention away from the w00blets. so i grabbed a round brush, any round brush that comes with PS, and deleted some of it until it came to look the way it does on the icon. took me a while, cuz i suck at anything that has to be done manually #_# i also made sure it didn't cover hermione's face.

, and on the icon:

now, that separation between hermione's face and the texture looks... sudden ~_~ not to mention you really can't see where hermione's rectangle ends and harry's begins. so i used the rectangular selection tool thingie to select around hermione's rectangle, and in a new layer on top of everything ("border") i went to edit>stroke, and added a border (2px, if i remember well). ended up with this:

but with a transparent background, of course. the black is only there so you can see it ^.^ and on the icon, it looks like this:

then on another layer ("texture 2"), i added another random grid texture in a reddish color. i used the rectangular selection to erase all the parts that covered the first texture. i also used another default brush and erased some parts of it to the right, and over their faces. i didn't want the icon to look all covered up in textures, i like to see some white spaces.

here's the texture: and how it looks on the icon:

next, i used the polygonal lasso tool with a 1 or 2px feathering, and drew an "x" on a new layer (unoriginally named "x", lol). i filled the selection with a color i picked from the gradient, #C83436.

didn't like it much. so i set that layer to multiply...

...which looks much better. then in new layers i added text, and a pretty flower brush by crumblingwalls, all in the same purple color as the first texture.

and then, because as i said, i don't want the icon to look over-textured, i decided to add a light stock image ("light"... i know, i'm the queen of the obvious...). these light texture thingies are really fun to play with, they can give life to an icon so easily. i used this one, by colorfilter:

when using light textures, i usually prefer to set them in a lighten or screen blending mode. it's not a rule, though, sometimes i go with hard light or even difference. this time, though, all of the latter would mess up my coloring, because i have a white background, and i didn't want that, so i went with the classic "screen" blending mode.

and TA-DAH! here you have it, the final product:

it was pretty easy, wasn't it? ^.^ here you have the layers palette, in case you got lost somewhere down the line...

and happy iconing!

note-- if you'd like me to make a tutorial about a specific icon of mine, or if you have any suggestions you'd like to give me, please come by this post and drop me a line. i'd be more than happy to help, when i have the time.

hagaren + seisouhen

2005-08-01T03:59:59Z

she took one of my icons! now isn't that neat >_< lol. at least she was nice enough not to hotlink it from my server ^^;;;

anyway, that's beside the point. i saw the rurouni kenshin seisouhen ovas yesterday (i was trying to relax before settling down to study for my finals... all i ended up doing was wanting to study even less) for like the 782938930th time and i noticed something i hadn't seen: where are kaoru's lovely blue eyes? and suddenly BAM! i need to make icons. kaoru's lost blue eyes compelled me to icon. gah.

so here you have a bunch of seisouhen icons. mostly K+K because-- well, the OVA's all about them! *cries about lack of sano/meg in the series ending* but there's also some yahiko, kenji, enishi, and sanosuke. needless to say, if you haven't seen the OVAs, this post will be CHOCK FULL OF SPOILERS. but then, if you haven't seen the OVAs by now... gosh, just go and download them from somewhere. you can't go on living like that.

and as a bonus, because there were so many nice scans this week, and because i'm insanely excited about conqueror of shambala, i also made some more hagaren icons. they probably also contain spoilers for the movie and the end of the series. you've been warned.

and if you noticed that most of these icons are kinda... orange O_o yeah, i noticed it too. it's weird. i think it's the byproduct of me using difference layers so much. i shall be known as the queen of difference layers. haha ^-^

all the seisouhen pics come from these two websites, in case you were wondering.

other credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue
_suggestions?

a_ hagaren

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_

b_ rurouni kenshin: seisouhen

7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_ 24_
25_ 26_ 27_
28_ 29_

suggestions/tutorial requests

2005-07-27T21:43:34Z

what sort of icons would you like to see more often here @ ickyblue? any particular effects? any suggestions you have, please leave a comment in this post. please note that these are suggestions, not icon requests. if you tell me "you should make more kenshin icons!", i'll take your suggestion into account, but i'm not obligated to make you a kenshin icon. my life is just too busy to take individual requests, i'm sorry. there are plenty of icon-makers out there that would love to help you if you need a particular icon.

also, are you an icon-maker and would love to know how i made a certain effect? leave a comment in this post, stating which icon it was, and from which of my posts, and i'll try my best, if and when i get some free time, to make up a tutorial for everyone to see. it is crucial that you ask, though, because i only make tutorials if someone asks me to. i don't do it out of my own volition-- my icons are not THAT great yet that i'd promote them that way. so please, don't hesitate to ask, i'll be glad to help.

affiliates post

2005-07-27T21:36:19Z

i love partnering up with great icon-makers. so, wanna affiliate with ickyblue?
just reply to this post and we'll work on it ^_^

lots of kagura and lots of roy

2005-07-27T02:38:56Z

hello, all! i come with another anime batch. a little smaller this time, but i think it's pretty good. i tried lots of funky effects and as a result the icons are somewhat... shinier? brighter? blinding? O_o but in a good way, i promise.

first off is hagaren-- including the elric brothers, liza, kids!edo+win+al, winry, ed, and an abnormal amount of roy mustang icons #_# i don't know why i made so many icons of him... i don't think he's all THAT great. i personally think lt. col. hughes is TEH HOTT in that series, but i noticed that there's something about mustang in civillian clothes that just... fries my brain... @_@ so yeah, there's lots of him in this batch. and there's no human!al. OMGTHERE'SNOHUMAN!AL! the world is ending! ^^;;; lol. well no, i just found out i also have a thing for alter!clothes. be it ed's, roy's... i just love the guys' clothes in the alter world. not so much the girls'. but the boys' clothes make them look hotttttt... *drools* =b~~~~~~ uh, yeah.

and second, some inuyasha icons. i call this batch the "girls of inuyasha" batch. there's, uh... one kanna, one kagome, one sango, NO KIKYOU OMGKTHNX! and a whole bunch of kagura icons. it's not that i like her much, either... it's just that she gets the coolest backgrounds in the second movie. so yeah, lots of room for nice effects ^^ i almost made a miroku icon, though, but it came out all wrong >.< but i guess it's lucky, because it would've ruined the "girl power" theme ^^;;;

credits/resources here (hasn't been updated in a while, but i will soon! do not worry!).

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

a_ hagaren

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_

b_ inuyasha

11_ 12_ 13_
14_ 15_ 16_
17_ 18_

hagaren avalanche

2005-07-18T06:53:08Z

and in celebration of the release of HBP, i present to you... a ton hagaren icons ^^;;; (*falls down anime-style*). ok, nothing to do with harry potter at all-- but iconing hagaren was all i could do when i was waiting for the release, sooooo...

BTW, i did read HBP already. if anyone is interested in my (totally spoilerific) review, you can find it here.

these icons include manga, anime and movie, so of course there probably are some HEAVY spoilers for the end of the series, for the movie, and for the latter half of the manga, especially chapters 46 to 48. don't say i didn't warn you!

as you can see, i am an edowin shipper, so there's lots of that in this batch. also i have a weakness for human!al, he's cute ^.^ so there's a lot of him, too. you can also find ed, hughes, liza, and even some roy inside, also envy... royxai, winry, ling, scar... i think there's even one havoc icon...

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_ 24_
25_ 26_ 27_
28_ 29_ 30_
31_ 32_ 33_
34_ 35_ 36_
37_ 38_ 39_
40_ 41_ 42_
43_ 44_ 45_
46_

EDIT! forgot one ^^;;;

47_

ccs + digimon + hagaren

2005-07-01T02:57:55Z

ah. new fandom means new icons, of course ^.^ this time i have some digimon couples... or well, not really couples since i'm not into shounen ai and there are some icons that have two guys in them. i'd say it's more of a partnership thing. i also have some card captor sakura (i was actually going to sort my CCS images folder but guess what, i didn't >.< nooooo, ended up making icons instead!), and some of my newest fandom, fullmetal alchemist.

i just noticed most of them are rather... pink?! O_o i hope it's just a phase i'm going through...

what can you expect for the next time? some of those inuyasha icons i've been saying i would make, more hagaren because i HAVE to make something roy, something roy/riza and definitely something ed/win; aaaaand probably some gundam wing because i have to sort THAT particular pics folder, too.

inside:

_ 10 ccs (S+S)
_ 7 digimon (takari, yamasora, taisora, and also tai & yama and daisuke & ken)
_ hagaren (ed, al, winry, those three together)

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

ccs_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_

the "comfort" series, which i made trying to make it into an animated icon...

5_ 6_ 7_
8_ 9_

...but, as it always happens to me, the icon turned out to be WAAAY heavier than 40k, so you can't use it for LJ. here it is, anyway, because i quite like it, and in case you want to use it for any other thing.

10_

digimon_

11_ 12_ 13_
14_ 15_ 16_
17_

hagaren_

18_ 19_ 20_
21_ 22_ 23_
24_

more eva!

2005-06-13T21:31:03Z

ok, so i raided my eva pics folder and came up with this set. really funky (for me) effects... i used the difference blend mode a lot. strange. but i kinda like the results ^^

so this whole batch is just eva icons. that's because i finally got my eva perfect collection DVDs last weekend (*does happy dance* =D) and i've been hooked since then, not to mention that listening to our lady peace just drives me to make eva icons for some reason, so i had too many eva icons and i preferred to post them by themselves instead of waiting to make more icons of other fandoms and post them all in one batch. here you have a bunch of shinji/asuka, some rei, and other minor characters like misato & kaji, hikari, touji and kaworu. anyway, i'll make more inuyasha and digimon icons soon, cuz i've still got so many caps i want to use still. so watch out for those!

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_

notes_

4&5_ text says "in a sheep's clothing."
6_ "death of innocence"
8_ "oh, she never cries, but i know there's hurt inside." from our lady peace's "julia." (perfect asuka song, i tell you!)
9&10_ i realize this text must be very hard to read ~_~ i couldn't make it better. it says "love of a lifetime."
13&14_ "you will be safe in here." from our lady peace's "clumsy."
15_ that's a play on rei's name. rei means spirit, in japanese.
19_ "it is no longer winter", that's also a play on touji's name. well, i don't actually know what the kanji used to write his name are, as i've never seen them, but i know there are a lot of interpretations for it phonetically. i just chose the more... dramatic one. touji can mean "winter solstice."
20_ "filled with childish wonder."

anime mania (digimon + inuyasha + evangelion)

2005-06-07T06:01:25Z

ok, so i've been in an anime hype lately, as you probably know. i spent all of last thursday screencapping the fourth digimon movie (gosh, i love those graphics, i truly do), hence the digimon icons. then i spent all of last weekend screencapping the second inuyasha movie, hence the (rather sucky) inuyasha icons. and then, on saturday, my evangelion: death/rebirth & end of evangelion DVDs arrived, hence the evangelion icons. lol. you can expect move eva icons later, since i'm still waiting for my eva series DVDs to arrive (add to all that the JoA season 1 DVDs and the star wars trilogy DVDs-- yeah, i'm broke now... *sighs*). hopefully they will tomorrow! *crosses fingers* i'll probably make more inuyasha, too (better ones, this time) cuz i've got a lot of cool kagura shots that i really want to use. damn, that woman gets the most amazing backgrounds.

summarizing--

_15 digimon (japanese crests/digimentals, TYS)
_4 inuyasha (inu/kag, kagome, mir/san, that kaguya woman)
_6 eva (asuka, shinji, those two together, the misato/shinji kiss)

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

digimon (movie 4)_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_

13_ 14_ 15_

inuyasha_

16_ 17_
18_ 19_

neon genesis evangelion_

20_ 21_ 22_
23_ 24_ 25_

notes_

!_ i finally got the table thingy to work! *does happy dance*
1-12_ out of all the crests icons, the best ones (IMHO) are taichi, sora and yamato. they were the first icons of this style i made, so they got most of my attention.
3, 4, 10, 11_ yeah, for those who don't know, in the original japanese version, mimi's crest was purity and jyou's was faith. of course, they changed it in the english dub. and let us not begin with the spanish (mexican) dub, i think they gave jyou a different crest every week.
8_ izzy's icon sucks >.< poor kou-kun...
13-15_ i have a thing for trios, as you can see. (i said trios, not threesomes-- get your minds out of the gutter!) i absolutely love the harry potter trio and i absolutely love the digimon main trio, which i dub TYS. they're just an awesome team. i think that's why i love the fourth movie...
13_ "we're a miracle." from christina aguilera's song of the same title.
16-19_ the IY icons are SO sucky... *sighs*
20-25_ our lady peace lyrics are the best text for eva icons, i tell you.
21_ "it darkens as we end this ride." from "starseed" by our lady peace.
22_ "i was too weak to give in, too strong to lose." from "best of you" by foo fighters.
24_ "an ordinary boy, an ordinary name." from "superman's dead" by our lady peace (perfect shinji song!)
25_ "i absolutely love her when she smiles." from "absolutely (story of a girl)" by nine days.

please visit and/or join good_animeicons!

digimon 02 + GoF

2005-05-11T23:38:39Z

ok, so here you have a bunch of digimon icons (mostly 02, or all 02, i think), since it's been my obsession lately. and since we finally have TEH TRAILER, here you have some GoF icons. sucks because i wanted to do a trio icon, but i just couldn't find the perfect pic. anyway, wasn't that trailer just awesome? oh, how long is it 'til november?

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

digimon_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_

HP & GoF_

12_ 13_ 14_
15_ 16_ 17_
18_ 19_ 20_
21_ 22_ 23_
24_ 25_

notes_

1_ "there will be no distance... no, there won't, if you stay in my heart." translated from laura pausini's song "las cosas que vives", which is like, the ULTIMATE friendship song.
5_ "snapshots of a sweet adventure."

BTW, the kanji (japanese sign-letter) in #9 is "tomo", which means "friend."

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RK + HP + lost

2005-04-13T21:53:02Z

[[x-posted EVERYWHERE!!]] sorry if it bothers you.

see? i told you RK icons would be coming soon. i wanted to do more, especially more sano & enishi because they're the coolest, but if i started making icons out of every sano or enishi image i have, i would never finish this batch. turns out that i don't have many good misao or saitoh pics, too. and i don't have ANY good yahiko pics. that sucks big time.

i quite like the RK batch, i think they're my best work so far (excluding one very simple, incredibly silly icon-- you'll know which one it is). the HP and lost ones are kinda forced, but i hope you like them anyway. and also, i have for you guys a wallpaper i made using amandagrazini's awesome fanart. GO NOW! SEE THE REST OF HER ART AT HER DEVART GALLERY AND POTTER SHOES!! the topic of the wallpaper is the GoF movie and i'm sure you guys will like it.

anyway, here you go:

_6 HP (H, H & R) + 1 wallpaper
_3 lost (boone... *cries*)
_30 RK (all charas, basically)

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

harry potter_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_

800x600 | 1024x768

lost_

7_ 8_ 9_

rurouni kenshin_

10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_ 24_
25_ 26_ 27_
28_ 29_ 30_
31_ 32_ 33_
34_ 35_ 36_
37_ 38_ 39_

notes_

1_ "then i hear it call my name." from kelly clarkson's "the trouble with love is."
16_ "you could cut ties with all the lies." from the song "jumper" by third eye blind.
23_ don't ask. i was just in a silly mood.

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CCS + GoF

2005-04-04T02:03:26Z

new batch! given my recent obsession with card captor sakura (again... i go through these things by periods), it's no surprise that i come here now with a batch of CCS icons. i quite like these, in fact. as now i moved to my rurouni kenshin obsession period, you can probably expect RK icons in the near future.

and as we got some new GoF pics, here are four GoF icons. they're kind of sucky, but what makes them sucky is the text. actually, i quite like the coloring & effects on them, so they're not that bad, really.

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

card captor sakura_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_ 24_
25_ 26_

harry potter & the goblet of fire_

27_ 28_ 29_
30_ 31_ 32_
33_ 34_

notes_

1_ "amazed by you." ~from lone star's "amazed".
3_ not from, but inspired by "luz de dia" by enanitos verdes.
27_ "if i don't make it, know that i loved you all along." ~from "4am" by our lady peace.
29_ "the person [that] you think you know, you don't know." ~from "you don't know" by westlife.
31_ "when you're fallin' behind, i will carry you." ~from "i will carry you" by clay aiken.

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pimping...

2005-03-25T05:48:43Z

not sure why i'm spamming my own graphix journal, but guys, i just created a new community for anime icons. so, those who are fans please check out good_animeicons! ^_^

brush set 01-- text

2005-03-20T23:44:10Z

hey everyone! this is my first set of brushes, basically a text set, made in PS7, with an image pack also available for download if you don't use that program or previous versions. all of these i've used in my icons, so i know they do look ok ^^ they're pretty small, because it generally annoys me that other text brushes cover the entire icon, since they're 100x100 (not that they're not good, they're great & i love them and their makers, but it's a drag having to resize them). i've used others' brushes in these too, and you can find the makers in my resources. credit is not necessary, though it would be nice. please comment if you're taking them!

right click > save as: PS7 .abr // image pack .zip

when she says MULTI-fandom, she DOES mean MULTI-fandom...

2005-03-18T02:18:14Z

hey all! this is a huge batch, or well, huge for my standards. it's a long story.

but i'll tell you guys anyway =P

see, i don't even know what lost is all about. i mean, i know their plane crashed and they're lost or whatever, but i only watch the series like once a month (when i can get home early on wednesdays), so i'm pretty lost when it comes to that series, pardon the sucky pun. still, i think i'm freakin' in love with boone, so here you have a good-sized batch of lost icons, mostly of him, but some of the others are there too.

and the rest is because of me having a lousy spring break ^^;;; lol. i had to stay in town for the break, so the only thing me and my roommates had to do was get a blockbuster movie pass and watch movies every single day for a week. my bum still hurts from sitting in the couch for so long. i saw many movies and loved some of them, so here you have icons. apologies for not making any PotC icons, i saw that movie like 4 times just during the break, but i haven't had time to download pics. those will come in the next batch, whenever that is.

so, in conclusion, here you have:

_19 lost (boone, claire, jack, kate)
_7 bend it like beckham (& parminder nagra)
_5 dirty dancing: havana nights (& diego luna)
_7 girl next door (& elisha cuthbert)
_6 king arthur
_6 the prince & me

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

a_ lost

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_

b_ bend it like beckham & parminder nagra

20_ 21_ 22_
23_ 24_ 25_
26_

c_ dirty dancing: havana nights & diego luna

27_ 28_ 29_
30_ 31_

d_ girl next door & elisha cuthbert

32_ 33_ 34_
35_ 36_ 37_
38_

e_ king arthur

39_ 40_ 41_
42_ 43_ 44_

f_ the prince & me

45_ 46_ 47_
48_ 49_ 50_

TUTORIAL 03-- "it gets so hard"

2005-03-07T21:04:29Z

well, redshoeson asked me to make a tutorial, so i'm making one. this is for PS7. it'd be better if you knew more or less how to use the program, like the basics of the tools and stuff. pretty much image-intensive and beware, i REALLY talk too much.

please, PLEASE, don't make exact copies of this icon. just get the techniques and adjust them to your own style. the idea is that you learn what i'm THINKING when i make my icons so you can learn to reason with yours.

we'll be making this icon:

before anything else, here you have the layers palette, just in case you get lost.

i'd been itching to do a trio icon for quite some time, so i snagged this GoF pic (i resized it for this tutorial because the original one is huge):

and started working on it like a madwoman. lol. first thing i had to do was to get the trio together. i used the lasso tool with some feathering (i think it was set to 2, but i'm not so sure) to select ron & harry, like so:

it doesn't matter in this case that the edges of the selection aren't perfect; we're gonna take care of that soon, and it's all just grass anyway ^^;;;

now i copy-pasted the selection as a new layer and moved it to the left, to position the boys beside hermione. i also used the lasso tool w/ feathering again to delete any weird-looking edges, particularly ron's front-side which still had pieces of grass and leaves that covered hermione's torso, and on harry's legs the grass was greener than the normal grass, so i zoomed in to like 200-300%, selected those little pieces and deleted them. the result is a pretty smooth contour (the next pic is also resized).

now i selected the part i wanted to be my base (luckily the tree's covering ginny so i didn't have to put too much thought into it), copy-merged it, pasted it as a new image, and resized it to 100x100. what i did then was sharpen it (filter>sharpen>sharpen), but then it turned out to be a little over-sharpened (which is as bad as a blurry image), so i faded the sharpen filter by 50% (edit>fade). then i ran auto-contrast (image>adjustments>auto-contrast) on the image to make it clearer. and here's what i got:

now, this i do to almost every icon i make: duplicate the base (we'll call this new layer "blur"), up the brightness of the duplicate by 40% (by going to image>adjustments>brightness/contrast), and then apply a gaussian blur of radius 8 (filter>blur>gaussian blur) to it. like this:

and then set "blur" to soft light. this is what you get:

as you can see it is kinda dark, so i duplicated the base layer again and kept the new duplicate (we'll call it "screen") between "blur" and the base. then i set it to-- you guessed it-- screen.

but that was a little too bright... i don't like working with pics that are very bright because it takes many dark gradients and brushes to make the bright parts look good. so i lowered the opacity of "screen" to 70%, like so:

after this i decided to follow faerie_dance's raining like magic tutorial (which is really wonderful, BTW), and so for coloring i duplicated the base twice more, desaturating both (image>adjustments>desaturate) dragging both of those to the very top of all the layers.

the copy directly above "blur" (called "b&w1") was set to screen.

and the one in the very top (called "b&w2") i set to soft light.

next, there's an exclusion layer, which is a very useful trick if you want your colors to be somewhat faded. it's pretty famous, i guess most of you would know it by now so i'll go over it quickly. make a new layer at the very top and fill it with a dark blue color (#332557), then set it to exclusion.

after that, again following faerie_dance's tutorial i put at the very top this gradient by drave:

and set it to overlay:

then i made another new layer on top of everything and filled it with #FDE2C7. set that layer to multiply.

after that, i'm done using that one particular tutorial. but remember: faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance! faerie_dance!

anyway, i wanted my icon to be a little more bluish/purplish, i used a part of this gorgeous texture from hybrid-genesis, pasted it as a new layer on top of everything...

...then set the blend mode to pin light.

using pin light is a pretty scary thing. like 80% of the time, when you set a layer to pin light you'll get something downright horrendous. the rest of the time, it just looks plain weird. but both of those can be easily solved: pin light is your friend, people! you have the force, use the force! ^.^

*cough, cough* ok... since that looks mostly... weird (those purple blobs were too much), i duplicated "b&w2", dragged the duplicate to the top (calling it "b&w3") and left the mode just the same-- soft light,

which is much better. then, for the light effect, i used part of a stock image of light that i got from teh_indy.

i usually set my images of light to either lighten or screen, sometimes even to pin or hard light, but it really depends on the image you have. this one i set to screen.

see that the ugly purple blob to the bottom-left side of the icon is now hidden by the light? i love these thingies ^___________^

ok, so the coloring was just perfect now, but there was still something a little off. i tried to make a border around it, but it just didn't click. so i decided to just cut off some of the area of the icon. i made a new layer, filled it with black (#000000) and moved it to the very bottom of the palette. then i moved every layer BUT this black layer 6px up, like so:

and then, in a new layer on top of everything else, i used, in black, a brush by ruuk:

in black, normal blend mode. so, TA-DA! we get our finished product.

it's pretty easy to do, really ^.^ i hope you found this tutorial useful, because i've certainly learned many things from other, more talented icon-makers through their tutorials, and i can't be anymore grateful, that's for sure. and while you're here, remember to check out my icons @ ickyblue!

impromptu HP batch

2005-03-01T05:25:09Z

i'm avoiding doing my process analysis homework. so here you go. lots of pin light and light effects.

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_
19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_

notes_

3_ from "innocent" by our lady peace.
22_ from "reason for living" by westlife.

zelda + ryan

2005-02-22T03:34:18Z

a friend of mine told me there's a new zelda game coming up for PS2, and i'm not even sure if it's real or if it's ocarina all over again but he showed me a video and it looks super cool, so i, of course, became obsessed with zelda all over again and, of course, had the insane urge to make some icons. these are all from ocarina and majora's mask, because they have better official images. oh, and some more ryan because i can't get enough of him (*drools* =b~~~~~~~~~~~~)

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

a_ ryan gosling

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_

b_ the legend of zelda

7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_

ryan! <3<3 (+ some HP for good measure)

2005-02-01T22:05:11Z

yeeeeeah guys, i'm back! ^.^ though the updates will be less and less frequent from now on, as now i'm taking my real engineering courses and as you can expect, i have no time left for an actual life ^^;;;

ok, so i finally got to watch the notebook last friday and i loved it. i've always loved ryan gosling (since that one shirley holmes episode, if i'm not mistaken... nah, wait, he already seemed familiar when i watched that, so it must've been somewhere else). he's one of the few actors that i actually like, and that's already saying a lot, but with him it's more like an obsession-- i should start building him a shrine or something, i love him so much. so friday night i started downloading so many images of him that i didn't know what to do with them all ('cept stare at them and drool, of course), that i decided to raid my tutorials archive and start trying some new techniques with my new/shiny/pwetty ryan pics. so here's the result.

also some HP, mostly GoF, since i hadn't actually made any icons with the new pics.

BTW, i'm sorry if these are somewhat grainy... you know, over-sharpened. i've only got my laptop now and everything looks kinda grainy on LCD. not my fault!

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

ryan gosling_

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_
10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_

harry potter_

uh, the first two are kinda old. like more than a month old, so they're kinda sucky. but i really like the rest ^_^

18_ 19_ 20_
21_ 22_ 23_
24_ 25_ 26_

notes_

19_ "when you feel you've fallen, i'm here for you, anytime you need a friend." from "anytime you need a friend" by the beu sisters.
23_ "that you'd be someone right by my side." from ashley ballard's "it was you."

BTW, #23 is supposed to be a trio icon, i'm sure you get that. sorry if it looks sorta r/hr-y, not my fault harry is half cut-off the image. but #24 & 25 ARE r/hr.

H, Hr & R

2004-12-22T21:23:37Z

well, as those of you who read girls_are_weird know, i'll be moving to the states the next week and so this will be my last icon post for a while. i thought i'd let you know so you don't think i was swallowed by the earth or something ^^;;;

i liked this style so much when i used it in my season premiere batch that i thought i'd give it a go with HP. and i like these photo shoot pics so much i knew they'd be perfect for it. so here you have them.

credits/resources here.

RULES!_

_don't direct link
_comment/credit
_check out ickyblue

a_ harry

1_ 2_ 3_
4_ 5_ 6_
7_ 8_ 9_

b_ hermione

10_ 11_ 12_
13_ 14_ 15_
16_ 17_ 18_

c_ ron

19_ 20_ 21_
22_ 23_ 24_

*sigh* too few really good ron pics... *sighs again*

d_ EXTRA! h/hr animations because cali has a one-track mind and couldn't help herself.

25_ 26_

and they say_

25_ "love is saying goodbye even though it breaks our heart"
26_ "i'll make things right for you again, even if it costs my life"