Since the show's just finished and all.

[goodbyebird]

hauntes | iulieki | imaginary_lives

imaginary_lives | talipuu

icon praise: iconmakers with comms on DW

[laisserais]

staircasewit posting at snowglobe has a great eye for capturing character. Check out their Orphan Black and Amy Pond icons for some great examples.

I've recently begun to notice quixotic's work at malagraphic. Really love the clarity and richness of detail. This is a perfect example:


easycompany posting at easystreet does some amazing stuff with saturation and detail. Their icons are so crisp, and there's always such movement and drama. My particular favorite is all of the Being Human UK series. Flawless set.

thisisagraphicscomm

[laisserais]

thisisagraphicscomm is host to icons by both timetobegin and naushika. They are each talented and great fun to play in comms with. I'm coming to recognize each of their unique styles. I love this icon by timetobegin
, which I feel encapsulates some of my favorite things about their style: beautiful composition and a great feel for light and shadow.

And I'm loving naushika's use of color and texture. Especially in their most recent Longmire set @ smallbatchicons - Here's one of my favorites:

iconmakers @ smallbatch

[laisserais]

dhamphir does some fantastic work with gifs, and is really generous with their offers to personalize icons. This one's really beautiful:


I'm new to tree's work, having just been introduced to it via a .psd post at smallbatch, but am already a fan. In particular, I love their love for Inara:
Such a fantastic crop!

descartes hasn't been around much lately, but I always loved seeing their contributions @ smallbatch. Such a great eye for color:

icons that are gorgeous

[laisserais]

Derek/Stiles:

by sandrine - Love the use of space and shadows here. Gives such an air of gravity to the composition.

Jewelry ad:

by boundbooks, posting as part of a larger (awesome) set at chromicons. Love the composition.

I'm totally in love with this Idris icon:
by arobynsung, posted as part of an amazing set at chromicons. I'm a sucker for old-timey coloring, which they did pitch perfectly here. But also HANDS. And smile! And fabulous cropping.

Can we talk about the pure perfection that is this icon?

I see it on chemm80's journal a lot, and I love it. It's by mickeym. The BW is perfect, losing no gradations, and the framing! Perfect. The light! Gorgeous.

Praise: Vikings

[goodbyebird]

theotherayn | tupupilaazul | gydas

drivemytardis | appleindecay

Today Oct. 8 is Icon Praise Day. So if you have some icon makers you'd like to praise - on any theme(maker, fandom, character, technique, etc.) - now's the time!

two more iconmakers with comms on dw

[laisserais]

swannee

colls is fabulously multi-talented, and you can find most of their fannish work at swannee. Check out the icons tag for some fantastic examples of texture usage. Am especially in love with this one:


goodbyebird

I feel like everyone already knows how awesome goodbyebird is. But in case you don't yet, let me explain you a thing. Her comms are forsquares, smallbatch obvs, and comicbook_icons. She's fantastically talented and I love her use of color and her ability to crop, but if I had to choose one thing to really praise about her, I'd say it's her dry sense of humor. Her icons always make me laugh. And they have a way of capturing the spirit of a scene that I'd felt but couldn't articulate. Case in point:
Also, I'd never considered how fun comic books were to icon until her comicbook_icons request fest. They're way more forgiving than sometimes-crappy screencaps.

5 gorgeous icons I saved recently

[naushika]

schryosel | riodecwmtaff | starkwars


goodbyebird | iulieki

Praise: comics + close-crop

[goodbyebird]

erewhile | paintable | descartes

daphnie_1 | onetouchdonnie

icon comms that I love

[laisserais]

Although it's apparently defunct, I always loved the work they did over at fiendunderpin. Such awesome clarity of detail, and you could tell that all of the makers had a great sense of humor.

fandom_icons! What would DW be without it? I love that it's thriving, like a central multifannish hub for everyone on DW to gather around. I feel like as long as I have fandom_icons on my flist, I won't be out of the loop. Such a great resource, too, for finding new icon makers to adore.

iconthat: the comm that if it didn't exist, we would have had to invent it. It's like the sluttier cousin to smallbatchicons: it sees more action, but both have a strict limit to five icons per post. <3 Maybe the best part is that they usually give you the caps to work with, and I'm extremely lazy.

One of my new favorites is nexticon. It's SUCH fun playing off of the other members, and seeing how random we can get in each round. It's the sort of comm where you make an icon inspired by the previous icon post. We've gone from tattoos to chicken in five steps! (steps that included Sherlock and Charlie's Angels.)

comms on LJ

[laisserais]

So even though I never really hang out there anymore, LJ is the birthplace of a lot of good comm ideas.

Some of the best include: icon_tutorial, where everyone's so amazingly kind in sharing their knowledge.

While anon_icon can be a little treacherous, I really love the anon praise threads. Because posts like those help stimulate positive conversation about graphics in fandom.

And of course, this entire thing wouldn't be happening right now if it weren't for iconpraise. Such a fantastic idea for a community!

Another really inspirational comm @ LJ has been icon_talk, where there is everything from 'ask the maker' to tutorials, to general chatting and sharing techniques. A great place to hang out and get inspiration.