EtoilePB's Icon Journal

"Wait, you still make icons?!"

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 23:53:15 GMT

It's been a while, I know.

I ran out of excuses this year, and got talked into NaNoWriMo. In a fit of, "wait, what the holy hell did I sign up for?!," I whipped up a few quick and simple text icons.

Happy Halloween!

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Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:36:52 GMT

Shock! Awe! I'm posting icons!

The two are slightly different. There will be a bigger batch down the line (won't there always)? But I wanted to get this one in here before the 17th. ;)

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Holiday & Event themed Gradients; PS7

Fri, 07 Oct 2005 16:08:23 GMT

This is a file of gradients I've been accumulating for years. It has some holiday-and-event themed gradients -- Christmas colors, Halloween colors, fall and spring colors, that sort of thing.

Being credited on a Big List 'o Resources (icons_by_etoile or etoilepb) is nice if you do that sort of thing. Enjoy!

Click here to download the *.zip file.

(Cross-posted to a few resource communities.)

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 20:20:13 GMT

Ahoy there. This journal's not dead; I just really haven't had the time for graphics-as-hobby between spring and now.

There's a huge redesign of my website coming up; the archives of icons there will be much clearer and easier to access. In addition, resources of mine -- tutorials, brushes, etc -- will start appearing on the website as well.

In the meantime, here are a few samples of stuff I've been squeezing into spare time this summer. Enjoy. :)

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8 (4) LOTR icons

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 00:19:41 GMT

There are 8 icons here, but they're really text-included and text-free versions of the same four icons. The whole thing began when I saw that Arwen screencap and realized how much it looked like a Renaissance painting. I know I've done icons kind of like this before, but I can't help it. To me, something about LOTR demands muted tones, antiquing, and a certain kind of framing.

If you'd like some specific text on one of them I've saved the *.psd files and I'd be happy to add it, but please, don't modify these yourself. I spent weeks trying to figure out how to make that Arwen one -- the first of the bunch, and probably the best -- click.

Rules are in the icons_by_etoile userinfo, but are standard: comment good, credit good, hotlink bad, and so on.

1a.) 1b.) 2a.) 2b.)

3a.) 3b.) 4a.) 4b.)

Enjoy. :)

LOTR icons

Sat, 26 Feb 2005 04:37:27 GMT

Many of these have actually been posted here in this icon journal before, but I'm making like everyone else and consolidating community posts, so now they're all here at once, heh.

Credit is good. Comments are better. The website is woefully out of date. Hotlinking is bad. You know the drill.

.01. .02. .03.

.04. .05. .06.

.07. .08. .09.

.10. .11.

(And not that it matters all that much, but the tiny text on #1 is from the Song of Roland, specifically, a verse on the Death of Roland. Why? Because I Am Geek.)

Happy Valentine's Day... Belated. ;)

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 18:06:32 GMT

I have completely and utterly broken from my standard for the first two... don't be expecting to see much of this business in the future! :-P

As for Faramir, I just got tired of not posting him.

Enjoy!

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Spectrum Gradients

Mon, 14 Feb 2005 19:36:07 GMT

I promise, one of these days soon you'll see graphics here instead of resources. In the meantime, I'm sharing the resources I've got. I've been using these to make the textures I've been sharing (and the green and red texture sets, which aren't up yet).

As always: credit is good (being listed in a Big Post of Resources is fine); comments are better.

Right-click download here!

Rainbow gradients

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 21:34:53 GMT

Oddly enough, I saw fit to make something I almost never use myself, because I think it's fun to make gradients.

These were made in Photoshop 7.0.

Save. Enjoy. Credit (any ol' place) is good; comments are better.

Right-click-save the file here!

Resources: Textures, Gradients!

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 22:04:06 GMT

Hullo! Doing just what everyone else does, I'm sharing a texture set and a gradient set that I made and use often.

As always, comment if you like them. I like comments! If you use them, you should probably toss icons_by_etoile on whatever you use to list your resources.

The gradients are for PS7; the textures are *.jpg files and should work in any program you use.

Right-Click Download for Photoshop 7

Right-click download *.zip file

Eowyn, Faramir (Not Eowyn/Faramir, sorry)

Sat, 08 Jan 2005 07:01:16 GMT

Tell me what you think of these Faramir icons. It's okay to be harsh; I'm not particularly fond of most of them. Even though he's my favorite character, I can't ever seem to make decent Faramir icons. I'm starting to blame Peter Jackson, for not providing me with the shots I need. :-P

So here are the rest of the Eowyn icons I made from that same cap as the last batch, and then the ones I've tried of Faramir today.

01. 02. 03.

04. 05. 06.

07. 08.

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 02:53:02 GMT

I suppose in a way, you could consider this a lesson in just what cropping and blending modes can give you. :-P

I have here a bunch of icons of Eowyn, all from the screencap. More to follow later, and when I've done more, I'll make the community rounds.

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

All text is from the book, except the last, which has come from having "Arwen's Song" on repeat all day.

LOST!

Thu, 16 Dec 2004 02:44:42 GMT

Something brand-new: a few LOST icons.

These all have lyrics from Guster's "Keep It Together" on them. There are going to be more where these came from, but I don't know when. After I've made more, they'll do the community rounds and go on the website. In the meantime... Enjoy!

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More LOTR icons

Sun, 21 Nov 2004 01:52:19 GMT

I made a whole batch of those sort of grungy, browned-out LOTR icons. I've already done the community rounds with them, but now they're here, too. They aren't on the website yet, but they will be.

If you like these icons but your favorite choice of character isn't among them, and you'd like to see one done of him/her/it, say so, and I'll probably do it. Now that I've got the hang of these they're quick work. :)

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Back to where it all began...

Tue, 16 Nov 2004 21:20:21 GMT

Just a small handful of LOTR icons. I think there are more coming in both these styles soon, reworked... or not... I dunno. I just don't like sitting on huge batches (though I'll hold off on community posting with small groups), so here.

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By the by, I reorganized the website a week or two ago, and it's much, much more usable now.

Still More Baseball

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 05:36:15 GMT

Now mind carefully: these are icons of HOPE, not icons of CERTAINTY. I do not know and do not surmise to guess what will happen in game 4 (or 5, or 6, or 7). Are we clear? Good.

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Also: I made a 100x100 brush out of the Sox Logo, and that *.abr file is right here, for PS 7+.

Four more Sox icons

Fri, 22 Oct 2004 02:58:33 GMT

As the subject line says! Take, share, and enjoy. Comment if there's something else you want to see and I might be able to squeeze it in. ;)

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BOSTON RED SOX!

Thu, 21 Oct 2004 03:22:20 GMT

It's only the 8th inning of game 7 of the ALCS, but I'm hoping against hope that these will be in demand after tonight, too. Perhaps more to come later; it's hard to churn these out so quickly!

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EDIT, an hour after WE WON THE GAME: I'm working on some Schilling ones (and yes, soultoad, Schilling's ankle too), and some different players, and some team shots, and some different styles, but it's going to take me a bit (I churned these out between the 5th and 9th innings). I will definitely have another batch ready by midday Friday, though, for all your World Series needs!

A few more "Hero" icons

Tue, 28 Sep 2004 00:45:23 GMT

I just posted the whole batch to takenote_icons, but here are the three I didn't post here before:

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Hero icons

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 14:53:38 GMT

It's only three, and two of them are really the same, but I couldn't resist because it's been so very long since I posted any.

The character in both is ai, meaning "love," since I think that's the motivating force for, well, almost everything in this movie.

When I have a half-dozen or so I'll post to communities.

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[Hmm. For some reason the text-free one always uploads mangled, but on my computer it looks just like the one with text, only without the text. This perplexes me, and I will have to work on it. In the meantime if you want it the way it's supposed to look let me know and I'll IM it to you.]

My first brush set!

Mon, 26 Jul 2004 05:09:01 GMT

So I just made this brush set, and I posted it in 100x100_brushes, but it needs to go here too.

It's a 25-brush set. There's a sample image behind the cut. Please right-click-save the *.zip files for the brushes and the image pack.

These brushes were made in Photoshop 7.0. I'd appreciate comments, please. I certainly don't need credit every time you use them, if you do, just throw icons_by_etoile onto your resources page. Thanks!

The *.abr set for Photoshop 7+: right-click here!

The image pack for Everything Else: right-click here!

Sun, 27 Jun 2004 19:51:36 GMT

I made a tutorial and posted it in icon_tutorial today; I've also put it below, verbatim. Enjoy if you're so inclined. :)

-----------------------------------------

I was specifically asked to make a tutorial for these, and since nobody's ever asked for a specific tutorial from me before, I couldn't resist. (Flattery will, indeed, get you everywhere. *grin*)

This tutorial was made in Photoshop 7, and should be more or less applicable in any version of PS5+. Do not ask my about PSP, because I do not use PSP and do not know how PSP works and cannot answer you. The tutorial is graphics intensive. I haven't gone into as much detail on the really basic steps as I usually might, but I have included a labeled screenshot of the PS7 desktop, and if you need more description on any of the steps I'll be happy to explain. :)

First things first. Here's a labeled screenshot of my PS7 desktop. I made it for another tutorial (a complicated one that I still haven't finished), but since Photoshop stays pretty much the same every time I open it, I think it's okay to recycle. *grin*

Okay, good. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's begin.

1.) Select and crop an image.

I know, that pretty much speaks for itself, right? But it needs doing. I have picked a lovely hi-res studio promo pic of Professor Remus Lupin, and I have used the CROP TOOL to put him right where I want him: in a new image, well framed, and at a resolution of 72. I went to IMAGE -> ADJUSTMENTS -> BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST and to IMAGE/ -> ADJUSTMENTS -> HUE/SATURATION and changed my base up just a little bit, but because I was starting with such a high-quality image, I didn't need to do very much to it (not even FILTER -> SHARPEN -> SHARPEN, which I probably do to 75% of my bases). Your mileage may vary.

(You may feel free to use this base of Lupin for this icon or any other, if you wish.)

2.) Contrast through desaturation.

A brief explanation: this is the order in which it is easiest to make this icon, not the order in which the layers appear in the finished product (and certainly not the order in which I first made this icon). This, in fact, is the order of layers in the finished product (you may want to refer back to this image later on):

Now, back to what we were doing: duplicate your base twice by right-clicking on it in the LAYERS MENU and selecting DUPLICATE LAYER. Now, take the top of those and go to IMAGE -> ADJUSTMENTS -> DESATURATE. This is one of my favorite tricks for mucking about with the contrast on an image. Put that desaturated layer on OVERLAY for a blending mode, and then bring down the opacity to something reasonable (for my icons, usually around 40%). Doing so will have just changed your base like so:

Original: With desaturated overlay layer at 40%:

3.) Creating, and balancing, the Blue Exclusion Layer.

The Blue Exclusion Layer: trendiest of all trendy tools, it has a place in very few of my icons because I'm naturally contrary. Sometimes, however, it's just what you need.

Create a new layer (I use keyboard commands: SHIFT+CTRL+N). Select your FILL TOOL, and then in the COLOR SELECTOR put in a nice shade of dark blue. My color of choice for this icon is #000458. Set that layer to EXCLUSION blend mode. Then bring it down to around 50-60% opacity. Notice how the image is now much bluer than it was. While a cool effect, old photographs are not blue, and so we need to balance it out.

Remember how before I said to duplicate the base layer twice? And then we didn't use one of those duplicated layers! Well, now we're going to. Take the middle copy of the three -- it, and the bottom, should be as-yet unmodified. With that layer selected, go to IMAGE -> ADJUSTMENTS -> HUE SATURATION. Make sure you click the little "colorize" box, as shown here, and drag the sliders until you've got something fairly heavily into the red, like so:

And now your image is ugly. Ha-ha! But this is temporary. Take your RED layer and put it on OVERLAY. Then bring the opacity down to something in the 20-30% range and put that layer between the desaturated layer and the blue layer (refer back to the layers sequence, above). At this stage, you've got something like this:

4.) Brushes!

And now, it's time for some texture. There are only two brushes used in this image, and both are by quebelly.

The border brush is in this set, and the scratchy brush is in the "icon random" set. Go give her props for being the brush maven and don't ask me about it, because to date I've been too lazy to investigate doing it myself.

Anyway.

As you can tell by looking at my layers menu up there, I've duplicated eash brush several times; how many brush layers you use, in what precise colors, and in what blending modes, are things that will really depend on your personal taste and on the base you're using. Let's start with the scratchy one. ALWAYS USE A BRUSH ON A NEW LAYER. I use it first in its normal position, in white, and leave the blending mode and opacity alone. Then I tricked about with it a little: going to IMAGE -> ROTATE CANVAS -> 180, I rotated my whole canvas. Then I created another layer and applied my brush on that one. Don't forget to rotate the canvas back afterwards! I also rotated my image another 90 degrees, so that it was upside down, and applied a copy of the brush in a very dark brown. Satisfied with the number and intensity of the scratches on my "photo," I moved on.

5.) Final aging touch: another exclusion fill!

Same routine as before: create a new layer and use the PAINT BUCKET to flood fill it. This time, however, pick a nice dark brown. (I used #472B00). Leave it on top of all the other layers you've got, set it to EXCLUSION, and drop the opacity (in my case, down to 40%). Wasn't that easy?

6.) The Border!

I've already shown you the brush I used; I chose it because I liked its resemblance to the corners of old photographs. However, I was faced with a small problem: I didn't want it to be either too bright ot translucent. Achieving the right balance took three layers.

I used a color just *barely* off-white to apply the border, then I duplicated the layer twice, for a total of three border layers. ALL THREE LAYERS are set to SOFT LIGHT, at 100%. If you play around with the blending modes and the opacities yourself, you can see here especially how much they can make a difference, and why so many icons can have upwards of twenty layers in one still image. Of course, as in the rest of this tutorial, your choices may vary, depending on the base with which you began. I got this:

7.) Text and text effects.

At last, the finishing touches. :) I always use the TEXT PALETTE for my text; if you want to too, you can get it by selecting WINDOW -> CHARACTER. It's very useful. It's easier to show a screenshot of all my settings than to describe them one by one, so here it is:

I believe that text hue is the same barely-off-white I used for the border (it's been a while since I made the icon, so I don't actually remember, sorry). And any standard serif font will work just as well; I'm just especially partial to Garamond at the moment.

Now, you may have noticed that little polygon of color under the text (in my layers image, I called it "slashbox" because I couldn't think of anything else). That's the very last step. First, zoom in on your icon a little bit -- say, to 300% or so -- just to make it easier. Then select your RECTANGULAR MARQUEE TOOL (that's not marked in my desktop image; it's the one in the top left corner of the toolbar, just above the lasso tool) and select an area just about the size of your text, like this:

As soon as you've done that, create a new layer. Don't deselect that area! Pick a color, and use your paint bucket to fill that new layer -- which is just a little selection under the text -- with some shade. I ended up using a very dark brownish mauve (#33232C). This, though, more than any other step, will depend on your original base. I saved my Moony icon as a *.psd file with all the layers in tact, and then made Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs by just swapping the three base images. But this part, the enhancement under the text, I had to change all four times, because once it's been set to SOFT LIGHT, the blending mode I used, it reacts differently. So tool around with the colors and the blending modes until you've got the kind of balance you like. (In my case, I got it right after I rotated the layer, and it invovled using a duplicate layer, as you can see.)

The last step, which may actually be the next to last if after doing it you realize your choice of color and blend wasn't so great after all, is to rotate that little rectangle. Make sure you've got its layer selected, and then go to EDIT -> FREE TRANSFORM. Drag it around until you like the angle.

8.) Save and gloat.

Seriously, that's all that's left. :) I used this template to make four icons:

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And the source images for all four were of various quality and hue. So this should work with most images, I think. And as is always the case with an icon tutorial, I espect that anyone who has made it this far will pick up a trick or two out of the middle, rather than following the whole thing step-by-step. I hope you can if you want to, though, and as I said before, I'll be happy to elaborate. :)

Harry Potter and the Obsession that Wouldn't Stop

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 03:47:34 GMT

Hullo. Some more Harry Potter icons. They've all been posted in the communities by now, so if you care about them you've seen them already, but that's okay, because this is my icon journal and I can post what I like. ;)

As a matter of courtesy, I'd prefer that you didn't modify the text-free ones yourself, though I'll be happy to put text on for you if you like. (I know that I can't reasonably stop you, so I won't bitch you out if you do, but I am asking nicely.)

Screencaps by teh_indy again, who has far more patience than I will ever have. ;)

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The obsession with Harry Potter continues

Tue, 22 Jun 2004 05:11:48 GMT

I haven't posted these in any communities yet, because I'm going to hold off until I have a bigger batch. (But when I do, they'll be cross-posted in hp_icons, goodhplotricons, and probably takenote_icons as well. But that's later.)

Share and enjoy, as always. You might notice that two of these finish out a set started in the previous post, and as such, I've reposted those two. They're all up on the recently rearranged website.

PoA screencap credit to teh_indy.

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Tue, 15 Jun 2004 03:05:34 GMT

This is very strange for me, you must understand, but I've just made a small batch of Harry Potter icons. I've never done Potter before, so do make sure and tell me what you think. :) Same rules as always, of course.

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