polaroid . this

Texture Set 2 - 48 Textures

2013-05-05T05:22:52Z

38 mostly colourful 200 x 200 textures and 10 colourful, 2000 x 1500 textures. :)

.zip

36 icons: GoT, Who, Downton, Miranda & misc.

2013-05-04T07:47:09Z

8 GoT, 7 DW, 4 DA, 3 Miranda, 10 misc. period drama & 4 misc.

01. 02. 03. 04.
05. 06. 07. 08.
09. 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.

Gosh, it has been a while. Icon dump from magicmachine activities Love & Hate: 32 & Music Inspired: 34.

30 icons: 'Never Let Me Go' + misc.

2012-12-17T02:57:16Z

20 x Never Let Me Go for round 14 (story) at 20inspirations.
10 x misc. magicmachine and challenge icons.

Never Let Me Go for round 14 (story) at 20inspirations
01. 02. 03. 04. 05.

06. 07. 08. 09. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Misc.
21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

Texture Set 1 - 50 Textures

2012-11-26T06:24:44Z

This year I have been using a lot of my own textures for iconing which I have been cobbling together from my photography exploits. I thought I may as well see if they would be useful for anyone else. :) This set contains 50 200x200 textures of mixed styles and an additional preview can be found here. Would it be helpful to have them posted individually too? Let me know if it would. Also if you are interested in additional texture sets in future, please do give me a yell because there are loads more where these puppies came from.

.zip

24 icons - Doctor Who, Downton Abbey + misc.

2012-09-29T07:02:59Z

12 Doctor Who - mostly S7
8 Downton Abbey - some S3
4 Misc. (GoT, Spn, HG & Atonement)

01. 02. 03. 04.
05. 06. 07. 08.
09. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19. 20.
21. 22. 23. 24.

21 icons - The Fall

2012-08-31T04:22:58Z

21 icons from The Fall.

For a magicmachine activity:

01. 02. 03.

04. 05. 06.

For theiconquest, Chapter One:

07. 08. 09.

10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18.

19. 20. 21.

[40 icons] harry potter, game of thrones, legend of the seeker

2012-06-07T17:26:32Z

{001-022} Game of Thrones
{023-026} The Avengers, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Merlin, Sucker Punch,
{027-032} Legend of the Seeker, Lost, Spartacus: Vengeance
{033-040} Harry Potter

001. 002. 003. 004. 005.

006. 007. 008. 009. 010.

011. 012. 013. 014. 015.

016. 017. 018. 019. 020.

021. 022.

The Avengers, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Merlin, Sucker Punch, Legend of the Seeker
023. 024. 025. 026. 027.

Legend of the Seeker, Lost, Spartacus: Vengeance
028. 029 030. 031. 032.

Harry Potter
033. 034. 035. 036. 037.

038. 039. 040.

» Previously: [38 icons] game of thrones, supernatural, harry potter, etc ..

» Please credit ofraindrops when using. Comments are ♥
» Do not hotlink or edit--these are not bases.
» My resources. My tumblr.
» Feel free to watch the community for updates :)

20 Game of Thrones S2

2012-05-20T12:10:33Z

20 S2 Game of Thrones icons for challenge 19 at 20inspirations.

On my first attempt at this batch I was looking for artists and art styles that already matched my icons. This didn't seem very much in the spirit of the challenge so I started again and picked Vermeer for my inspiration, making a list of aspects of his paintings I thought I could emulate in icons like choice of scene, composition, subject, lighting and choice of colours. It feels a bit wrong to make even the smallest comparison between his work and these but hopefully some stylistic aspects are present. These are not really like my normal icons so I am a bit hesitant to post them!

ETA: Stealing from fouroux's thought process and just adding a small compilation of the work that inspired the batch here. :)

01. 02. 03. 04.
05. 06. 07. 08.
09. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19. 20.

Icon Battle - 30 mixed fandom

2012-05-17T14:24:43Z

30 mixed fandom icons for a battle between firstillusion and ohgollygeedamn.

01-03 firstillusion
04-06 ohgollygeedamn

07-09 firstillusion
10-12 ohgollygeedamn

13-15 firstillusion
16-18 ohgollygeedamn

19-21 firstillusion
22-24 ohgollygeedamn

25-27 firstillusion
28-30 ohgollygeedamn

firstillusion also has a copy of this battle posted here at illusoir_icons

I am so excited to see these all put together! This was fantastic, thank you firstillusion. A few of the caps don't matched up because we both picked more than we ended up making. :)

20 Atonement icons.

2012-04-28T07:18:26Z

20 b&w or green Atonement icons for round 18 at 20inspirations.

01. 02. 03. 04.

05. 06. 07. 08.

09. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

Yes, so I completely and unashamedly made use of the one colour wimp out clause.

Misc Icon Dump

2012-03-02T12:41:03Z

Okay, so this is a bit of a messy collection of icons that you may or may not have seen around the place at various competitions and activities. I just need to get rid of them to start afresh! Sorry they are all in such a mess. :)

magicmachine challenge 18.

01. 02. 03.

04. 05.

magicmachine challenge 20.

06. 07. 08.

09. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

therainbowtree related

18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29.

costume_awards battle.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38.

39.

Tutorial

2012-01-17T02:49:06Z

For narniacmr. :D

I am using PS Elements 8.

I feel like a bit of a fraud writing this because I think the cap/Anna’s face did most of the hard work but oh well! I hope it helps a little bit!

Here is the original cap. I think I got it from RAWR caps over here

STEP 1: Take your image and crop-er-nate it into your desired er, crop. I am a crop-then-edit maker rather than an edit–then-crop maker just because when I resize and crop an already coloured cap it seems to mess up my colouring contrast and just look generally horrible. I use the Rectangular Marquee Tool holding shift (which on a mac keeps it as an equilateral square). Then I go to Image - Image Resize and reduce to 100 x 100 pixels.

You can sharpen a wee bit if necessary (I have elements so I go to Adjust Sharpness and tweak it somewhere from 5-12 depending, don’t think I did anything here though).

STEP 2: Next up I duplicated the layer a few times and set them to Screen. I needed quite a few Screen Layers for this cap because it is rather dark (there are 4 in total, all at 100% opacity but you follow your own destiny and do what you think you need grasshopper). So washed out but look: colours! Tah DAAAH!

STEP 3: Now we all know the best way to fix a washed out icon is to make it more washed out so add a colour layer of pale pink (Layer- New - Layer then I use the paint bucket tool to fill it), like one of those awful, plastic tasting shop bought meringues.

Just click on the Colour Picker and you can type in the code manually if you would like.

Set it to Soft Light at a percentage that suits you (I used 100% here because I am all about extremes, eh hem). This helps to brighten, reduce some of the greens/blues in the cap and highlight the pinks. I find this layer particularly useful for close crops because it helps to clear up pale skin like Liv’s.

STEP 4: What do you mean making something more washed out doesn’t fix the washed out problem? This is a tutorial! You aren’t supposed to have an opinion! FINE. Duplicate your base, drag it to the top and set it to Soft Light. In fact do it twice if you want to like I did. However, it made the beautiful green in Liv’s eye disappear, oh no!

UGH. POND SCUM GREEN.

So, on the second Soft Light layer I used a soft edged Eraser Brush at 100% opacity to remove her pupil. At first creepy:

But then beautiful and emerald-y again! Huzzah! Sometimes I do this on clothing/hair/lips/scenery depending on what looks too dark in an icon.

STEP 5: I wanted to bring out a teensy bit more pink in Liv’s cheek because the poor dear was still looking a tad sickly and washed out. With a soft paint brush and a kind of pale, flamingo pink, I dabbed a little colour on a new layer and set it to Colour Burn at a percentage that looks good (I used 29% here, remember you can always go back and tweak later I guess). Not exactly an overwhelming difference but it will help later on!

STEP 6: Now, as you may have noticed the lighting still isn’t ideal. No need to be rude, I am getting to that gosh. I added a Level adjustment layer (Layer - New Adjustment Layer - Levels) and tweaked it all a bit, mostly brightening but also increasing the darkness of the shadows a bit to add definition.

Here is what my Levels layer looked like but it of course depends on the icon. I moved the white slide to 229 to brighten the highlights of the icon, moved the middle slider a tiny bit to 1.13 to brighten the midtones and moved the black slider to 8 to slightly darken the shadows.

STEP 7: Next I added this texture by …? to the top and set it to Soft Light 22%.

Then I added this (I can’t remember but I have a feeling I made it myself for the purpose of this icon) set on Soft Light at 100%. I was trying to brighten her face and darken the background. You can roughly add some black and white blobs onto a blank layer, set it to soft light and then maneuver it around using the Smudge Brush at 50%-ish until it emphasizes or reduces shadows/bright spots as relevant to your icon. Just experiment I guess!

The addition of these textures resulted in this:

STEP 8: Okay, now is the part where we take the TARDIS back to 2007. That is, I still occasionally selectively blur and sharpen my icons as was quite the fashion back then. I chose to do so here because all of those screen layers and the close crop have left Liv looking quite gritty and have brought out a bit of colour noise. Ew.

Here is where I get confused about what I did. This layer is a lot darker/much higher contrast all of a sudden so I guess I came back and did this later/came back and adjusted levels. I would suggest just copying all (ctrl+a, ctrl+shift+c, ctrl+v on a mac, I forget what it is on a pc) and then working with that.

So anyway, so let us continue, me confusing myself aside. Blur the skin and any harsh lines (along the edges of the face or clothes) carefully with a soft Blur Brush (I have it set to about 45%) and if you would like do a little sharpen to some areas that lack definition (I have a soft Sharpen Brush set at 28%).

To make it look less stark and tacky I left this layer on normal and set it to 29%:

STEP 9: So the greens are coming along nicely but I still want more pink dammit. I added this texture and erased a little around Liv’s nose because the icon is already verging on too bright in that area.

--->

I set it to Soft Light 38%.

Speaking of it being too bright on Liv’s nose: I next added a blank layer, drew a little smudge of black on in the bright area and set it to Soft light 100% to help retrieve some details.

STEP 10: Ack, once again it is screaming out for some contrast. Copy all and set this layer to Soft Light (I used 81% and erased around the bright patch on her nose). Look at how grainy and horrid it is around her cheek/mouth now, ugh!

STEP 11: Copy and paste all again. This time some serious blurring action is required so I used Gaussian Blur (Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur), probably set at about 1, to really attack this layer.

Then, leaving it on Normal I set it to about 38%.

STEP 12: Copy paste all agaaain. Usually I don’t need to be so drastic about my blurring! I manually enhanced the levels of this particular layer to brighten it a bit and did some more blurring where things looked awful around Liv’s cheek. I also erased her pupil again before leaving the layer on Normal but reducing it to 43%.

I then duplicated this layer and erased basically all of it except the bottom half of her cheek just to give it an extra kick of blur/lightening. I hope my words are still making sense to someone because they aren’t to me! Just to show you hopefully (without the white background obviously):

Which also set on 43% makes it look like this:

STEP 13: Then I added a Levels adjustment layer to darken the shadows a wee bit.

And that is it really! It is pretty simple overall! Any questions just go ahead and ask. I apologise for how long winded my explanations are! Here is an overview of my layers in case it helps. In hindsight I am still not happy with the sharpness/blurriness of this icon but you get the general idea of what I was trying to achieve. :)

If you have any questions about another icon feel free to go here:

Ask The Maker || My Thread

Thank you for reading!

polaroid_this @ 2012-01-03T16:03:00

2012-01-03T08:03:25Z

Ask The Maker || My Thread

Happy new year watchers! If there is anything you would like to ask about the icons I post please bustle on over to this post and have at it. ♥

[38 icons] game of thrones, supernatural, etc ..

2011-12-20T18:12:51Z

{001-030} Game of Thrones
{031-038} Supernatural, The Avengers (trailer), Harry Potter

Claimed Game of Thrones for Round 13 of 20inspirations;

rainbow

{hover for words/inspiration}
01-05
06-10
11-15
16-20

extras {alternates/older icontest entries}

Game of Thrones
21-25
26-30

Supernatural, The Avengers (trailer), Harry Potter
31-35
35-38

» Please credit ofraindrops when using. Comments are ♥
» Do not hotlink or edit--these are not bases.
» You can find my resources here.
» Feel free to join/watch the community for updates :)

polaroid_this @ 2011-11-26T08:28:00

2011-11-26T00:28:42Z

Icon Appreciation Month Awards

I really encourage everyone to head over here and nominate some people/icons that have had an impact on them this year. You haven't got long left to do it though! Every little nom could make someone deserving incredibly happy and I know I am hoping to add a few more today. :D

20 S1 Downton Abbey icons.

2011-11-05T15:52:35Z

20 S1 Downton Abbey icons for 20inspirations challenge 12: light and dark.

Light:
01. 02. 03. 04. 05.
06. 07. 08. 09. 10.

Dark:
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Icon Progress 2007-2011.

2011-10-22T14:24:05Z

Following in the footsteps of firstillusion who posted her icon progress at illusoir_icons. Three icons from every batch I have posted in an attempt to show how my style has changed and hopefully improved over the years. Nostalgic self indulgence for me basically! I chose to pick three from each batch in order to force myself to select some icons which I don't like now but did at the time, and to try and get a good, encompassing mix.

Contains 120 icons, some of them quite embarrassing.

From my own journal, February 2007 to September 2007. Evidence of a lot of scratch textures, red light blobs and tiny text. Good grief, I was so proud of these haha. Some of them look to me like someone else made them just because they are such typical 2007 icons. The lighting and sharpness of the second to last icon in the first row for example. I think with a little tweaking, the last couple of rows aren't too far from what I am making now though. I think overall my cropping has stayed pretty consistent. I got a lot of praise about it from the very beginning so it encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing (and indeed, still do)! Although I remember being firmly against centre crops early on for some reason. That definitely doesn't apply anymore.

Posting at my first community, October 2007 to January 2008. I moved to my own comm because I felt I had 'matured' a bit from some of the trends I had been following (those awful red light blobs) and was getting enough lovely followers to want to separate things from my personal journal. I also had ps cs at this time so there is a little selective colouring/curves use over this period whereas everywhere else I am using ps elements. It isn't as evident in the examples that I selected but I wasn't very discriminating in what caps I chose to use and picked a lot that were blurry to begin with. Not good.

Posted at my current icon community home, polaroid_this, with the lovely dontcockblockme and the amazing ofraindrops, from January 2008 to December 2009. About five rows down you can see a bit of a change. I applied somewhere elite and was told that my icons were washed out and needed more contrast. Very accurate and I tired to implement their advice. Personally I think it helped a lot. As for the first half of this block, I really like some of the crops and lighting and kind of want to give them a tweak/makeover and reuse them! The lone 'bear' icon was from a mini hand (mouse) drawn set I made. I got a few requests for personalised ones in the end but I am not quite sure how they came about in the first place.

At this point I was accepted into magicmachine, May 2010 to October 2011. I don't think anything has helped me more than the con crit I received on my application and the activities there. I am still trying to work on getting my sharpness/blurriness right. I always seem to go too far one way or the other.

Well, there you have it! Thank you for anyone who had a browse, I hope you enjoyed laughing at my expense. ;D I encourage everyone to make one of these and let me know, I love looking at other people's icon evolution.

30 Icons: Supernatural, Dowton Abbey + Doctor Who

2011-10-14T16:21:01Z

7 Supernatural
12 Downton Abbey
11 Doctor Who

Some of these are from old challenges (Supernatural from the magicmachine rainbow activity here and a few of the Doctor Who are from challenges at elitetardis) and some are new. Sorry for the mix!

01. 02. 03. 04.
05. 06. 07. 08.
09. 10. 11. 12.
13. 14. 15. 16.
17. 18. 19. 20.
21. 22. 23. 24.
25. 26. 27. 28.
29. 30.

[83 icons] films, bsg, harry potter, etc ..

2011-09-06T18:18:42Z

{001-010} Legend of the Seeker
{011-020} Battlestar Galactica
{021-040} Harry Potter
{041-044} Buffy the Vampire Slayer
{045-056} Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, Merlin, Superntural
{057-065} Lost
{066-083} Various shows & films (True Blood, Alias, Fringe, Fight Club, etc..), Variations

My icon muse has left me so some of these icons are a few months old, mostly made for 20in20s I never finished & from my tumblr graphics. :|

Legend of the Seeker
01-5
06-10

Battlestar Galactica (made for bsg_20in20, but I never got to finish)
11-15
16-20

Harry Potter
21-25
26-30
31-35
36-40

BTVS, Game of Thrones, Sons of Anarchy, Merlin, Supernatural, Lost
41-45
46-50
51-55
56-60
61-65

True Blood, Alias, Lord of the Rings
66-70

No Country for Old Men, Constantine, Fight Club, Fringe
71-75

Variations/Rejects
75-80
81-83

» Please credit ofraindrops when using. Comments are ♥
» Do not hotlink or edit--these are not bases.
» You can find my resources here.
» Feel free to join/watch the community for updates :)

20 Doctor Who Icons

2011-09-05T15:43:43Z

20 Doctor Who icons for challenge 10 at 20inspirations.

01. 02. 03. 04. 05.
06. 07. 08. 09. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

I do appreciate credit. Thank you for looking!

Inspiration:
01. General theme - trying to sum up the Doctor in one icon. 02. Image - I love this moment, when Rose pretty much accepts that it is worth being mauled by the Gelth to travel with the Doctor. 03. Music - I don't ship these two as such but this was such a lovely moment. A change of pace for Rose while she proved she could think on her feet and Capt. Jack being seductive as ever. 04.
Icon by ohbambi - Jack as the self-sacrificial heroic man of action etc. 05. 'Devoid' - It is clichéd but the Daleks as devoid of emotion, thus solitary and destructive.

06.General theme - A huge moment for the TARDIS and Rose as they both do whatever they can to help the Doctor. 07. Texture by yunhe - The point of the whole show 08. 'Reunion' - Sarah Jane and K-9! 09. 'Angst' - I don't really need to say anything about this one. I was tearing up just going through the screen caps! 10. 'Previously' - Get it? Because of the way they kill? No? Anyway, I was trying to get across their 'technique' as such. I don't really know how to animate icons but I couldn't think of a better way to portray ~~how terrifying I find them~~ the 'epitome' of their nature.

11. General theme - The Master/Doctor dynamic in which the Master seeks out power and the Doctor is determined to help him no matter what. 12. Music - Martha finds her strength from the Doctor and has to become a soldier to save the world: "If you could only see the beast you've made of me, I held it in but now it seems you've set it running free...Be careful of the curse that falls on young lovers, sounds so soft and sweet and turns them to hunters" 13. 'Heart' - I know Donna provided a lot of comic relief but she also had the most amazing sense of empathy and that was exactly why the Doctor needed her around as his own moral compass was going a bit awry at this point. 14. 'Engulf' - Did I say a BIT awry? I meant he succumbed totally to his own power in the end, engulfed by it as it were. 15. 'Aftermath' - So it all had to come to an end for Ten but it's okay because after all that crying we got fish fingers & custard and Eleven. I loved how this whole scene was basically saying: 'okay, so here is what has changed'.

16. Video - Amy waiting...through seasons. Too obvious? What seems like an eternity for her but is a moment for the Doctor. 17. General theme - I thought this summed River to some extent. Amazing hair? Check. Catchphrase? Check. Smiling like she knows something you don't? CHECK. 18. 'Passage' - Rory just has to go through so much in the pursuit of what he loves. It makes me think of how Ten kept talking about the 'slow path' and that is what Rory actually had to sit through. He had already been waiting but this is when his slow, plodding journey really started. 19. 'Death' - What a way to start a series, gosh. 20. 'Encompass' - All three the same but completely different.

20 Doctor Who Icons

2011-08-16T14:46:57Z

20 Doctor Who, S2 icons for challenge 9 at 20inspirations.

Okay, I can safely say, without ANY shadow of a doubt this is the most difficult batch I have ever made. I don't think I have ever agonised over each individual icon like this before! These are for the complex challenge at 20inspirations and complex is not something that comes naturally to me when I am making icons. That said, I am actually pretty proud of these and even though they may not meet everyone's criteria of complex, compared to my usual style and technique...well, I tried really, really hard haha. My claim was Doctor Who S2 so while keeping the complex theme at the front of mind I also tried to capture some of the important themes and moments in this season so I hope that comes through! Anyway, thank you for having a look! Any feedback is absolutely wonderful and if you would like to use any I appreciate credit and you are most welcome too. :)

01. 02. 03. 04. 05.
06. 07. 08. 09. 10.
11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

Inspiration:
01. Image 02. Image 03. 'Story' 04. 'Parallel' 05. 'Blend'
06.Icon by prettybutt 07. Texture by lookslikerain 08. 'Wordy' 09. 'Mirror' 10. Image
11.'Divided' 12. Icon by born_butterfly 13. 'Story' 14. Texture by blueymcphluey 15. Textures by blueymcphluey and Video
16. Image 17.'Blind' 18. 'Story' 19. 'Sharp' 20. 'Story'

Game of Thrones, Doctor Who + Fringe icons

2011-07-30T14:28:26Z

13 Game of Thrones
7 Doctor Who
8 Fringe
5 misc.

01. 02. 03. 04.

05. 06. 07. 08.

09. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32.
33.

The last five misc. icons were made for a nostalgia themed challenge at magicmachine. You can see the whole collection over here. :)

polaroid_this @ 2011-07-04T17:09:00

2011-07-04T09:09:07Z

Please come and say hullo!

Join the Meme // My Thread

21 Icons: Doctor Who and Supernatural.

2011-06-27T04:27:11Z

16 Doctor Who
5 Supernatural

01. 02. 03. 04.

05. 06. 07. 08.

09. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21.

Thank you for having a look! I really appreciate any efforts to credit my work if used. Comments bring me joy beyond measure. ♥

27 Icons: Doctor Who, Fringe, LotR and The Fall

2011-05-29T16:58:00Z

14 Doctor Who
3 Fringe
4 LotR
6 The Fall

01. 02. 03. 04.

05. 06. 07. 08.

09. 10. 11. 12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27.

This is me clambering back onto the metaphorical icon unicorn so hopefully the long awaited gallop into the sunset has turned out okay!

I really appreciate any and all efforts to comment and credit. Thank you for taking a look!