smallbatchicons | noelle's top ten tips & tricks

Noelle's Tips & Tricks

So I was gonna do some general technical tips and tricks but goodbyebird's tips post was pretty comprehensive and contained a lot of stuff I would have said, haha. I did forge ahead but I quickly ran out of technical-minded things, so.. this is mostly a list of my artistic/inspirational tips & tricks. Please take it all with a grain of salt

1. Experiment

I only stop at 1 icon about 60 percent of the time. Usually I reach one finished icon I like, save it, and keep working from there. I keep pushing the envelope. Add more textures. Make it b&w. Change the colors. Duplicate the image and try some fancy blending. Add some text, etc. Even if most of the icons don't make it off my hard drive, it's at least fun to push myself, and to try new things. I often find new techniques or some look I like. And sometimes the alternates are horridly awful, but I already saved that first version I liked, so yay!

Example:

I made the first icon, and it's totally reasonable, but I thought it was boring. So I made the second one by changing the colors, applying a gradient and a texture, but idk, I just wasn't feeling it. So then I went back to the first icon again and messed with that more to get to the third icon, which I liked a lot.

Basically, just keep pushing yourself to do more!

Possible downside: sometimes I have too many alts and then I can't choose which ones to post. Hah.

2. Smudge and/or Soften those Cut Outs

In order to get softer, less jagged edges on people when I cut them out of their backgrounds, I always smudge and/or soften around the edges. Double tip: do this large scale. I will grab a screencap and, at full scale, cut them out of the background, smudge the edges, then reduce the size to icon size (or working size; I usually work on a canvas of around 300x300).

My go-to tool is usually smudge, around 50% opacity, 25 hardness. I apply it in quick, light strokes. You don't want to melt someone's face, just take off the hard edge. Here's a comparison of straight, unsoftened cut-out-of-background (on the left) versus an application of smudge tool (on the right).

Full size:

Shrunk down to icon size:

Ok I admit the difference is subtle but it makes more of an impact on some caps than others haha. I think it's especially noticeable around her chin, here.

Here's some other examples. On the left is an older icon back before I started smudging edges, and you can see the cut-out is kind of harsh. On the right is a more recent icon in which I smudged the edges of the cut out. It looks smoother and more natural, and more integrated with the icon as a whole, I think.

3. For Ethereal Glowy Icons, Get Rid of the Subject

You've heard of duplicating a layer, gaussian blurring it, and lowering the opacity, yes? Well this is that but NEXT LEVEL. (I might be overly excited about this. I really like doing it and you will see it all over my icons, lol.)

Take your cap:

Instead of just blurring that, using the clone tool, extend the background over the subject of the icon (as a duplicated layer):

It's fine that it's messy. Because this is what gets blurred. (This also works for replaced backgrounds, esp with gradients.)

Then, selectively erase the top layer. (I usually use a nice big, soft brush at 6% opacity and work in many applications to eke out what I want.) Purposely leave overlap around the edges for a nice soft look.

Then icon as normal!

Tadaaaaa. I just happened to grab a cap with a really plain background, but you can use busy backgrounds too. Just blur is enough that the idenfitiable background images become pleasant color blobs/gradients.

A couple other examples:

4. Save a folder of icon inspirations

Whenever I see an icon that someone made that is just TOO DANG PRETTY, I save it in a folder called "icon inspirations". If I'm feeling creatively stuck or looking for inspiration, I open the folder up and think about what I like about the icons. I never set out to copy icons directly (cause that's rude!) but I might look at an icon I like and think "oh, I love that gradient, I wonder if I can do something similar". I never get anything that looks remotely like the icon I'm inspired by, because I never have any idea how the original icon maker made it. But I often end up with something pretty anyway!

Also, just having a big folder of pretty things to look over puts me in an icon-making mood. Sort of sets the tone, if you will. Plus it's a way to recognize fellow icon makers as you'll have a ready stock of icons to pick from for the next icon praise post! (And related to that, try to remember to save the username of the person who made the icon so you'll never forget. I usually just make the filename include their username when I save it.)

Example, my icon insp folder:

5. Blocking

I'm a big fan of "throw stuff up there and see what looks good."

But in general, I find there's two aspects of putting together interesting blocking. The first is to use a lot of contrasting caps. Contrast in color, in subject (eg some close ups, some far away), contrast in size (I chop up caps into differing sizes), and so on.

The second aspect is repetition. Repeating certain images or themes draws it all together into a cohesive icon. Usually when I repeat an image though I change it up by cropping the image different ways, flipping some of the layers, maybe changing the color of some of them, or puting a texture on it so some of the images are affected and some are not. So it's repeated but still making the icon dynamic.

Examples:

6. When to Close Crop

Gosh I love close-cropping. But it can be very, verrrry tricky to get a nice-looking close crop. What I've learned is:

a) start with the closest, highest-res image possible. Basically I don't close crop unless the screencap is virtually entirely the person's face.

b) the subject should be at an interesting angle

It's hard to figure out what an "interesting angle" is until you just try 2048205 close crops and have 99% of them look ugly but basically, tilted up, tilted down, or in full profile are my usual go-tos. The "interesting angle" thing has a correlation, I've found, to point a. When filming shows, and they do a really close close up, they have to make it interesting visually or else it's just awkward and weird to be up in someone's face. When it's more zoomed out, like shoulders up, it's more about just putting them in the frame rather than making their face interesting. So more zoomed-out shots are less likely to provide an interesting angle.

Close up, interesting angle:

Zoomed out, uninteresting:

7. Don't Discount the Weird Caps

Sometimes you come across a cap that you're like "wow, that'd be a perfect cap.. if only this little aspect of it weren't there." Well, you know what? TRY IT ANYWAY! I especially love caps where the person who is the focus of the shot is partially obscured by another person. I also like caps where the subject is in motion and looks kinda blurry. Once you've shrunk it down and sharpened it, it actually looks pretty cool, imho. Also, if a cap looks pretty good but the shot is just mid-blink, well.. crop the eyes out! lol. Or also, if the cap is slighty out of focus, again, when you shrink and sharpen, you won't even be able to tell. Caps with text/images along the bottom - you can crop it out or in some cases clonestamp over it.

Examples:

8. Near versus Far

When blending together two different caps, I find a very easy way to achieve a good-looking and interesting icon is to use one cap of a close-up image, and one cap of a zoomed-out image. The contrast between the two is immediately visually interesting.

I find it really challenging to try and put together two images where the subjects are about the same zoom level/size. I tend to run into problems where it looks like one person with two faces, or something. So I go for really obvious size disparity. I also tend to favor the zoomed-out image being cut out and pasted on top of the bigger image. But also a "split screen" effect is interesting too.

9. Bring on the Symbolism

A really nice finishing touch is using an image or symbol that fans of that thing will immediately recognize and understand. It kind of creates a ~story element to your icon and sometimes just looks neat too. I often will scour the internet looking for clip art, official art, imagery from comics or other official media to integrate into my icons.

10. Try to Communicate With your Icon

Don't get me wrong, making a pretty icon out of a pretty cap for pretty's sake is fine, and I do that all the time, haha. But when I'm feeling ~artistic I try to convey something more with my icons. Whether it's a mini story, an emotion, a glimpse into a relationship or a character. I will strive to communicate more than just "pretty person" to something a bit deeper. I have no idea how well (if at all) it ever comes across but it does personally push me to try and really think about my subject and what I can do to bring out whatever message I'm trying to say. It's personally rewarding, at least!

Examples: