Challenges and Things

[laisserais]

Hello Everyone! I have been bugging goodbyebird to let me run some challenges and things in this comm and she is being gracious and letting me.

Since I am too cheap to have a paid account, there is no poll, BUT! I am looking for feedback from y'all. What kind of icon battles/challenges would be interesting to you? Some ideas I've had so far:

*Show us your psds
--This one is totally going to happen, and I'm announcing the details probably tomorrow. It will be a free-for-all where you can post as many psds as you'd like, either a link to your own journal/other journal or in the comm. And everyone can read and comment and ask questions about your techniques. 

*Technical Challenge
--You sign up and get tagged to make one icon using a particular technique. Sort of like a round robin, you watch the comm to see when you've been tagged, and then have 24 hours to do your icon.

*Team Battle
--You sign up and work with another artist, with each one taking a turn at making a layer, and then you post your completed icon (or icon set) on your assigned day.

*Ask the Maker Spotlight
--I'd like to do something where we have guest icon makers come and discuss their process.

--> Question: Most of us use some version of Photoshop, I think. Who uses something else? GIMP? Other? A program that cannot produce a layered object?

Please let me know in comments if you are interested in these sorts of challenges, and/or if there are other ideas you'd like to see. This is YOUR community! We are one of the most-frequented icon communities on dreamwidth, and I want to hear from you! Everyone gets a vote, even if you're just watching this comm; even if you don't make icons.

Comments

[naushika]

I don't use PS so I can't participate in show us the psds unfortch. :( I use Corel Paintshop Pro X4. It has a layered format file like psds but I doubt they would be openable in PS and I know psds don't really work when I try to open them in PSP.

I love the technical challenge idea though. I probably wouldn't do a team battle (I'm not very punctual/reliable with those sorts of things so I don't want to leave anyone hanging). Ask the maker could be fun, I like finding out people's tips and tricks.

I've been thinking lately about how I miss iconpraise since I've pretty much left lj behind, but I don't think there's a big enough icon community on dw yet to make a similar comm. But we could do like a monthly praise post, where people point out some icons they've seen lately they really liked. Or something. Basically I just want to oogle pretties.

[laisserais]

Oh, I love the idea of a monthly praise post! Or praise week or what have you, yes!

Well, regarding psds, I suppose what I was imagining was where you show your progress on an icon--so technically, like, a whole bunch of pngs or jpegs of the stages? Instead of uploading an actual psd. Would that work for you? It takes a bit of work, for sure, stopping at every step and saving off a version.

Good to have a vote for the technical challenge! Yeah, the feedback I'm getting is that people tend to iconize at their own unique pace, so maybe the team idea is out. ;)

And I've decided we are *definitely* having an 'ask the maker' thing. That's just so cool.

[naushika]

Sure, weekly or monthly, whatever would work!

Oh, yeah, I could totally do stages with static images. I'll have to start saving my layered files. :D

[goodbyebird]

ooooh I would love to have a peek at your process, especially with comics. Pardon me while I fall over in excitement *thud*

[naushika]

Oh shucks! You're making me blush :D