maker activity (no. 23)

This month we tried our best to recreate each other's iconning styles!
We traded names, picked five of our chosen's icons and got inspired! Click below to see the results!



pamkips --> sterre

inspiration by sterre
   
results by pamkips
    
1. Hai, I decided to use negative space. (?)
2. Okay so from the get go I told myself that I had to use this icon as inspiration. I was so psyched...that is until I went screen cap shopping. It took so long to find that *perfect* cap. I really wanted my icon to emulate the same type of emotion sterre's icon had. (IT'S ELEGANT IMO, K?) I really didn't want to use the same cap for this one bc imo it's such a good icon that I would never be able to come up w/ something to do it justice. About 14 caps later (yep) I came across this one & decided it would work. I tried to incorporate the lighting the original icon had & tried to stick to a yellow-ish color scheme.
3. I went through a ton of caps & colorings trying to come up w/ the same bright coloring the original icon had. Needless to say it was hard. Eventually after fighting w/ this icon for a couple of hours I finished. I liked the fact that the walls on the side looked like blocks so in my icon I decided to use that type of look. (??)
4. I had so much fun making this icon. The original had this beautiful soft bright coloring so when I was working on it I strived to get that same type of coloring. After that I drew inspiration from the tardis silhouette. I decided to doodle around the icon w/ a white brush to add more details around the icon while still keeping it simple. idk.
5. OH LAWL, CHEAP KNOCKOFF COMING THROUGH. I tried to get contrast in my icon but that didn't work out. SO instead I redrew the hair & added some contrast there like in the original icon. (???)


vetica --> feel_the_fire

inspiration by feel_the_fire


results by vetica


1. I tried to re-create the variety of colors. Purple, blue, yellow. I also tried to do the two-shot close up.
2. The yellow light and the green/blue background inspired me the most in this one. 
3. I loved the shadows and highlights in this.
4. Don't blink. I was inspired by the b/w background and the color pic covering the eyes. Idk just the idea of Kate running away, while Juliet is facing the monster.
5. The negative space, bright sky, vibrance and the softness is just amazing. I tried to remake this in my icon.


blue_emotion --> phaust_

inspiration by phaust_
 

results by blue_emotion
 

[1] I was in awe of this icon so much, so wanted to have a go at making it. I cropped my cap as similar as I could, and went for a similar background, but to keep some of my style present I went for more colour on the face & more brightness instead of shadow
[2] I love the composition of the 2nd icon, and so mimicked it with Ten & Rose,
[3] Gorgeous icon that I tried to emulate by using the same colours,blending technique & mimicking the use of text.
[4] Again, flawless shadowing on the original is flawless, but I did my best using this cap of Rose to try and play with shadows and light. I also loved the crop so stuck to it with my cap.
[5] This icon really caught my eye, I loved the colour and composition so had a go using John Snow.
[6] This was actually the first icon I made. I wanted to start with the same cap and work on achieving the same colour to try and familiarise myself with phaust_'s style a bit. Once I'd got something similar I then tweaked it to make it more like one of my icons too (the borders at the side, brighter colours).


spud66cat --> endearest

inspiration by endearest
    

results by spud66cat
     
1) I don't watch Luther, so when I first saw this icon, I didn't recognize the character and thought it might be Temperance Brennan from Bones. I figured I'd try to make a Bones icon with a similar crop and coloring, because that is what I love about the original.
2) The warm coloring along with the shadows suites the cowboy hat perfectly. I tried to do something similar with the Doctor, but added a bit of my own style by having more negative space.
3) I love the composition, and the use of different blocks of color for each image. In recreating this icon with a different ship (Chloe and Scott from Stargate Universe), I changed up the colors a bit so it wasn't a complete knockoff.
4) Cody's close crops are always to stunning and dramatic. I tried to do the same, capturing a close moment between two characters (Rush and Amanda in SGU).
5) Again, I love the composition and the way Cody can infuse such bright colors into an image. In this case, I chose the color scheme from the bottom image and used that for the entire icon.


realproof --> pamkips

inspiration by pamkips
   

results by realproof
   


daynawashere --> mm3butterfly

inspiration by mm3butterfly
    

results by daynawashere
    
1. Characters with a relationship with time; I went for Hermione (over her eyes is a picture of the Time Turner). Black and white, grainy textures.
2. Kickass female, colour cap with a black and white circle. I went less vibrant and glowy 'cause it seemed to suit Olivia's personality more :P
3. I went for a similar structure with the blocking. The blue glow on the Katniss cap was definitely inspired by the lovely bright blues in Cece's top cap.
4. Now we're getting into the real ripoffs. Ummmm, yeah. Red/yellow colouring, glowiness, same kind of organization + text.
5. LOL. I went for the identical colour palette. But I decided to do it with a cap that's super gloomy and which I've found really hard to colour in the past - I figured, if my style wouldn't work with it, maybe Cece's would! The shadows didn't end up as dark and I miss the bit of green lighting in the hair, so I might go back and play with it some more after I've had a full night's sleep :P


feel_the_fire --> fuuurs

inspiration by fuuurs


results by feel_the_fire

01 > I chose this icon because I couldn't understand how she managed those sharp blues and yellows. It's so bright and yet muted at the same time. Sadly, I failed miserably but I basically selective colored until my eyes bled. I do actually like the icon I made, simply because it's like nothing I've done before.
02 > Guh, this icon. You do the dark yet vibrant thing so well. Again, I just loved how Amy stands out from the background here. Again, with my icon, I played a lot with selective coloring and vibrance.
03 > Perfect icon is perfect. Coloring is eye catching and text is so well place it makes my heart hurt.  I attempted to recreate it and add a bit of my own flair. I actually like how this one turned out.
04 > The crop! The colors! The dusty texture! I tried, I tried really hard. 
05 >  I love this icon for the crop and yellows. I'm always so hesitant with yellows so I went crazy here. The main texture I used on him was a screened cap of Amy Pond's magnificent hair.

phaust_ --> delorentoes

inspiration by delorentoes
   

results by phaust_
    
First of all I bow down before the True blood iconers. Have you worked with those caps!? DISASTAH!! THEY ARE SO DARK! And not that pretty-i-can-work-with dark, but you-will-never-make-anything-good-with-it dark. So i gave upe after my 10000+ attempt and went with another fandom, and i hope you'll forgive me for that :3

01. Two caps blending with a feeling. that what i was going for. And that texturing! I mean not my grungy grunge grunginess but soft lighting... mmm.. that was nice :]
02. Damn that was fun. Texture use on the background was amazing, so i went a bit another road and made those textures caps.
03. LET'S MAKE HALF FACED PEOPLE. Just that blackness is so soft and edgeless.. 
04. THAT CROP!! Look at that crop you guys!! tried my best and then resized and flipped it..
05. That is the one i saved first. horizontal cropping blending shananigans and TEXT!! such a pretty text. I'm weeping at the prettiness of it.


endearest --> fouroux

inspiration by fouroux
    

results by endearest
   
1) So back when fouroux was not fouroux, she had this amazing style where it was close crops & smoke all over the place & I always thought it was slightly retro & funky and I DIDN'T KNOW HOW SHE PULLED IT OFF. Still don't :P
2) Bright & textured & glorious, I love how the crop melds into the background but still pops - I gave it a go but I didn't go near green - I can't do green like she!
3) So the logic behind this was contrasting colours & blocking, but it turned into blending & I guess that's what happens when you blend styles! This is my all time fav by fouroux ♥
4) UGH THIS CROP & THIS SHARPNESS, I found it so hard to translate this across: my brain always screams CENTERCENTERCENTERRRRR, again - scared of green :P
5) This batch of Sherlock icons was perfection & I love how this icon seems antique but the contrast ♥ I picked an equally roguishly handsome male.

alt:

bussbuss --> daynawashere

inspiration by daynawashere
    

results by bussbuss
    
01.  I LOVE THIS ICON. It is so soft and lovely and the blacks aren't quite blacks and the silhouette is great and I love the dark background. I tried to recreate it with Sibyl, but rather failed.
02. daynawashere has this amazing sense of space in all of her icons, negative, positive, and beyond.  I wanted to mess around with negative space so I picked this icon for that and because of the amazing contrast of colors! lovely! I added a background because... I like backgrounds.
03. The lighting on this icon is soooo goooood and I love the blues. I wanted to mess around with soft light because it is a recurring theme in a lot of her icons. Originally I tried to blend two caps like hers, but failed so I just went with something a little bit more simple.
04. Another great crop and a really good emotive icon.  The contrast on hers is perfecto! 
05. I love how Alicia is sort of emerging from the background of this icon.  I wanted to do the same with Ron & Hermione but I tried to put my own spin on it.


rahelcs --> justmybones

inspiration by justmybones


restult by rahelcs

#1. she did this icon of professor x for our sci-fi iconbattle and i absolutely loved how she highlighted a hallmark feature of the character with that crop. so i translated that idea into an icon with conan o'brien.
#2. her crop with extreme negative space inspired me here. i also edited my background so that it was more monochrome.
#3. like i said i couldn't have called this a batch inspired by justmyb0nes if it had no black and white icons in it. i played around with the light of the icon, darkening it around the edges, just like the original, but eventually i went for a softer look.
#4. this one was hard. i had no picture on my hard drive that i found satisfactory for a close crop. so i went and looked for some caps online. i stumbled upon this screencap and i thought it was perfect. it's a close crop just like the original but sort of a mirror version of it. mine is much darker and the negative space on it is black.
#5. in the same avengers batch she had some other dark, monochrome, and close cropped icons which i absolutely loved. i went for a similar look with mine.

bonus:
 
I distinctively remember this psych icon of hers and when i came across it now, the composition immediately reminded me of this stephen picture which i'd been meaning to icon for a while. her icon finally inspired me to do just that.


mm3butterfly --> 24_amends

I got 24_amends as my inspiration... DAUNTING TASK! Her style is so unique and creative and gorgeous and simple but complex at the same time. Her compositions are out of this world. And I bet she's the one who started the whole ~monochrome thing. She already is an inspiration to me without even trying, to be honest, and for long I've drooled at her posts while trying to make something more complex. But I've never actively TRIED my hand at it (how could I possibly be up to par)... Well, this time I did. Let me show you my (definitely not up to par) results! :P And sorry about the blantant copying D:

inspiration by 24_amends


results by mm3butterfly

1. BECAUSE IT WASN'T OBVIOUS ENOUGH. Monochromish thingy + the logo
2. Pretty silhouettes + text + light
3. I've loved this icon since I can remember. The "cut" images, composition, texture. Idk, I just like it, ok. :v
4. cheap_knockoffs ALERT
5. Usual subject of her icons (Katniss!) + color scheme + text


fuuurs --> bussbuss

inspiration by bussbuss
    

result by fuuurs
    
[1]  I'm very uncomfortable with blending/manips/whatever, so I thought I'd give it a try with this one.  Troy and Abed in their Inspector Spacetime costumes was just a take off of Rose + the Doctor from bussbuss's original.  The original also had this really lovely color-blur feeling to it, which I tried (and failed) to replicate.
[2]  I loved the woodsy background of the original, so it inspired this icon of Squirrel!Britta in her natural habitat.
[3]  The way the light plays in the original icon was so beautiful, I wanted to try to mimic it with this icon of Jess.  (Plus I usually do more subtle lighting, so this was a bit of a stretch for me...)
[4]  I have a love affair with Alisha's hair, and the black and white of the original really flatters the highlights of her curls and perfect bone structure.  I tried to repeat the feeling in my icon by blurring everything much more than normal, and lighting Alisha and Simon separately.
[5]  Just playing with the idea of B&W+negative space+colored texture+grunge texture.


delorentoes --> vetica

inspiration by vetica
    

results by delorentoes
    
1. What I loved about this icon was the composition and so that's what I went for. Of course, my first subject is True Blood :s It was hard to try and get caps that emulated the same scale at the ones featured in vetica's work but I thought that these were the closest I would get to them. One thing about this icon was that I just could not get the texture use right and so what I have used it barely visible but overall, I do quite like this icon, I just wish I didn't choose such a hard Eric cap to colour!
2. It was the unusual crop of this icon that caught my eye so I tried to recreate that with this Sansa icon. I would never usually go for such a crop in my icons but it works here and I really do like it, as well as vetica's monochrome palette which is quite neutral but I am closer to black in my one.
3.I loved the colour palette of this icon. I think that vetica does green really well and so I tried to get that same colouring in my icon. Although not as 'glowy' in the yellows at the Dany icon, I still like the fact that I switched the colouring of the cap from being quite magenta to this nice green tone.
4. When vetica first posted this batch of TB icons, I thought WOW! Because the colouring and lighting was so far removed from the usual dark, contrasted colour palette of the majority of TB icons (my own very much included!) and when I read vetica's tutorial, I was really interested in his use of gradients and I used them in all of the icons but in this one it is particularily obvious. Again, I don't think I have the flair for dramatic gradient and lighting down but I think I gave it a good try :)
5.Again, with this icon, I loved the unusual crop and that's what I went for in my attempt. Also, I loved the lighting which vetica does so well. I chose quite a dark cap to work with and so the effect isn't quite the same but I still really like it. If I could, I'd might tweak it with another curves layer to make it a little brighter but this is just hindsight :)

ALTERNATIVES



fouroux --> blue_emotion

inspiration by blue_emotion
    

results by fouroux
    
, for me, is mostly about bright colours and blurry backgrounds. like, A RAINBOW IN A SEA OF FLUFFY COTTON BALLS. whatever that means. I chose this icon because it is exactly that AND YET SHARP, oh and green. and you know I love green. also, the subject is really popping out. I didn't quite manage that myself, but I tried!
02. THIS ONE. on first sight you think it's a monochrome colouring, but then you see so many different shades within that colour. UGH. AMAZING. so that's what I tried to copy. shamelessly.
03. not very satisfied with this one :c I tried to get that same amazing amount of depth into my icon, plus a lovely mixture between blue and green, but hmmmm. I suppose my cap choice was just unfortunate.
04. bright colours. solid background. strong blacks. I love how bold this icon is, so I threw vibrance after vibrance on this one. I think it kinda worked. this is also the first avatar icon I ever made (I want to icon that movie like burning rn).
uses some amazing shapes sometimes! like, she uses these (half) circles, but I'm a coward, so I went for good old rectangles instead and tried to do some blocking! I'm not watching doctor who, yet I know this scene was significant to the fandom, I think, so I tried to pick a similar scene anyone would recognize and chose the very first of LOST.


justmybones --> spud66cat

inspiration by spud66cat
    

results by justmybones
    
1. Original caps: I tried here to mimick the original caps and very original angles used. I tried to do the same coloring too.
2. Use of texture and negative space: this is the most significant part of spud66cat's style for me. I tried to do the same coloring and contrast between the shadows and the light.
3. Black and white: spud66cat makes such a gorgeous black and white. It is always so well contrasted and balanced. I tried to do a similar crop too. Because crop is also a huge part of spud66cat's work.
4. Color block: I loved how a dramatic scene was made in warm colors. The dramatic aspect is translated in the red shadows and the vibrant aspect (which kinda attack the eye). Is it me or I over think all of this a way too much? xd
5. Negative space and colors: Each time I hear I think this. I tried to recreate the same atmosphere in it with the colors and the textures.


sterre --> hopeitallaway

inspiration by hopeitallaway
   

result by sterre
    
[1.] I love this batch! Damn, it's incredible! I knew I had to pick one. The cap choice! Wow. It's beautiful and heartbreaking and so in your face. I was also dead set on using this Walking Dead cap. I haven't seen Black Mirror so I don't know what's happening in this scene, so my presumption may be very off. But this moment for Rick in the Walking Dead is one of his lowest, he is completely breaking down and I thought it may match what's happening in Black Mirror. The cap for Walking Dead, with the crop I wanted, only really worked in colour, so that's why it's not b&w.
[2.] I just love everything about this, the textures used, the colours and the negative space. I have no idea how you managed the colouring, Stef, so my attempt is pretty rubbish. I picked this cap of Laurie because of the similar lighting and availability of negative space.
[3.]Hair! Legend of the Seeker is the biggest hair show ever. Walking Dead is really, really not. The b&w is used beautifully, the soft lighting and the crop! Wow. I really liked this cap of Maggie so I just went with it. This one doesn't match Stef's icon very much. I was mostly inspired to look for a good hair cap from Walking Dead ;)
[4.] I just really love this. And it's not just because the colouring is so natural and the texture is used so well, it's noticeable, but not distracting, it makes you focus on the people, on the centre more. I also love it because it's my three favourite characters from Supernatural. So I went on a massive characters-walking-that-I-really-love hunt. Daryl, Rick and Glen! Yay! I went for a for yellow colouring, carrying over the yellow from Stef's icon a bit more.
[5.] Stef's icon is fantastic. Mine is so weird. I'm not ever sure I can use the excuse that I made it in the middle of the night after a long, long day. Stef's icon is amazing! The silhouette! The blue! The lighting texture! Gosh! It's wonderful. So I went looking for a good silhouette cap too. This is a good, well bad, moment for Rick, just like the moment Stef used. And then I was fiddling and bam! Negative. But I used the blue and a lighting texture.


24_amends --> orangelusik

inspiration by orangelusik
 

results by 24_amends
    
1 - i LOVE the vibrant coloring, i can never achieve sth like that so it looks ENOUGH and decently contrasted!
2 - the negative space and whoosh of color is brilliant.
3 - the COLORS. the MONOCHROME. do i need to say more? (btw my icon turned out differently because I'm brainwashed with Hunger Games lately ;D)
4 - the blocking. the color. the hot naked guy xD
5 - I just love the coloring ^_^

ALT

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