So after what I considered a successful icon-making, I was high on dopamine and I was really eager to make more. I want to create tiny little beautiful things!! I even considered joining a 20 icons monthly challenge which is ending in less than 5 days even when it's clear that it's impossible for me to finish. In the end I settled with light, non-commitment weekly color challenge which is much more doable. Even then, I was struggling with everything. The subject was not interesting enough, the colors are wrong, the text doesn't have any impact, etc. I submitted in the end, and I was still eager to look for more challenges for me to do.

And then I wondered, with this much fun & sense of achievement, why did I stop doing this? I saw my last icon post was in September 2017. I went through the whole 2018 without making any icons but one. And then I realized... I dedicated my time and energy for traditional art and journaling, which is why I completed a whole journal in about one year (something I've never done before).

As one of the efforts to cut my expenses due to this huge house renovation project, I looked into my credit card bill and decided to end my Photoshop subscription. I might subscribe to it again, but as of now, it is linked to my Japanese Adobe ID and it keeps charging me in Japanese Yen, which fluctuates every month. If I re-subscribe using IDR at least the bill will be more stable.

I always switch between digital art (mostly icon making & photo manipulation) with traditional art so is this going to be one of the turning points?

I need a Tae/BTS mood theme.

I came across that viral Taehyung space bun manipulation image. It is super cute and many people seems to think the same thing. A lot of fanarts were created with that image as the inspiration. I also wanted to do something with it so I made an icon out of it. I created my own version of space bun Tae from the same original image, and I'm loving the result! I wanted to include his arms and shoulders, but Suga was sitting on him, covering his left side, and I will have to draw a left shoulder somehow which.... I'm not sure how to do.
So I just focused on his face.

I finally posted my icon batch for monthlyinspo's round 7 : back to school. The inspiration post flicked something in me, it's just too beautiful. The theme itself is broad, but I'm most inspired by the 'science' section. All the shapes, the bold colors, the texture galore, they're just the perfect beautiful mess I wanted to create. It went well, if I say so myself other than how time consuming the whole set was. I wasn't satisfied and wanted to add something to each of them every time I see them. With the time extension the mod gave me, I managed to make two different complex icons which finally made the cut.


These are the craziest, most colorful icons I've ever made ever.

I was lucky with the first Luhan one, the base was right, it was just how I envisioned it to be. Jungkook, I grabbed the cap on the day they released first teaser for DNA MV. The cap wasn't very good, but I'm very satisfied with the end result. I was working on finishing this batch, focusing on science theme since it requires more complexity. I was scouring through my texture folders and the internet for chemistry and geometrical textures. I was super excited when DNA MV was released and they used chemistry texture on the MV!!! That just made me even more determined to perfect my batch. The MV itself was super colorful with cool artwork and nebulas, I actually took a cap and used it as texture.

( more )

I started iconing again since I got into Bangtan sometime in spring, but haven't been seriously making any until I got back here in summer. Now that I've settled back to the room I rent near the office during weekdays, I have more free time. I started looking for challenges and inspiration to get my creative juices flowing. It's easier to get inspired and motivated when you're given a specific task and timeline. I was doing simple challenges using styles and techniques I'm already used to.

These two for iconthat:

Personally I really love these two because they turned out to be super cute :3 Circle on both icons were a coincidence, I was testing out textures and they just looked perfect with them. These took me a long time and was kind of stressing me out because I couldn't get them right, but in the end I'm proud of the result.

Some of the icons I made for dailyicons:

I like the daily thing because I get a new prompt every day, and being a perfectionist I will try to find the perfect way to fill it. The downside is, since it is daily and we only get 48 hours to fill a prompt, more often than not I chose to be satisfied with whatever I could come up with in 2-3 hours. I certainly can do more to them, but it'll be too time consuming. I love how well the 'triangle' prompt turned out for the Luhan icon.

Oh and I decided to continue my Luhan claim for daily icons, I stopped at 84 ... two years ago. I'm not as invested in him as I was before, but he's pretty and super popular, there are new pics of him every day. I suppose I still can use him as my muse, and it has been working well. I'm finishing my 100 icons claim, finally!

Posting for wip_amnesty


45/100 Luhan icons
for fandom365days

The rule of fandom365days is simple, one prompt is posted every day, we have approximately 48 hours to make an icon before the prompt is closed. During the course of one year (365 days) we need to finish 100 icons with our claim as the subject. I kept making these commitments, but 365 days is a long period and many times I got less emotionally invested in the subject thus lost my motivation to continue. I've made 7 similar claims in total (past and current) and there's only one claim I finished to 100 icons so far.

I was cleaning up the other day and it's sad to see this batch as yet another abandoned claim. I feel like I did a great job with most of them! The comm is now inactive, so even if I want to continue and ask for extension, I can't. I guess it's time to let this go.

( 45 icons + 5 alternates )

( I fixed my graphics comm )

As I was re-coding, I reminisced my muses and how my graphics evolve around them. I've been doing graphics since a very long time as just a side hobby, but got more serious in iconing during my Adam Lambert fandom period. Back then, my muse was Tommy. It was 2009 - 2010 when I was still mainly using LiveJournal, my graphics was not good so I don't think I will go back that far to fix and restore my old graphics comm where all my Tommy arts are. Tommy wasn't a very popular icon subject, and that pushes me beyond my comfort zone to create all sorts of fannish things surrounding him. I did a decent job. I made many-many icons, a fanmix, picspams, etc. He was a cute glitterbaby. My first 'real' fandom experience ever.

( other fandoms )

Now two years apart, I got into BTS focusing on V. To be honest, I'm struggling. There are a lot of factors that contribute to this. One, I had two years break from Photoshop. I haven't been creating or learning anything new. The trend in the icon community changed a lot. I feel so old still clinging to icon styles from years ago. Two, I am very new to the fandom and have very small amount of resources. I need to dig in deeper, scour different parts of the internet and watch TONS of past videos to get my way around. Google is my friend, but there are only so much things you can find via google without base knowledge. It's 4+ years worth of fandom materials, I don't think I can ever catch up. Three, Tae is pretty, but I love him for his personality more than his looks (unlike previous cases). I disagree with many of his personal choices especially in styling and fashion. They hurt my eyes. And feelings lol. Or am I just old and I couldn't understand current fashion trend? I wish the kids have stylists to guide them even during off times or at least when going to the airport when they know, all eyes are going to be on them. But V would disagree with that idea for sure. He's such a free spirit, we should just let him choose what he wants or he wouldn't be himself.

Temporary post

( 100 icons + prompts under the cut )

On Graphics
Last Friday as I glanced through my f-list on LJ I encountered a mod post at inspired20in20. In it the mod was emphasizing to participants to stick to the theme, and that icons for this round shouldn't show clear subjects, and should obscure them in some way. I was so inspired by that post I signed up for the challenge again after 13 rounds! I claimed ... Luhan. Of course. As I was so inspired, I immediately work on my first icons for the batch, and some with clear concept in my mind went great, went okay, but after cropping like 30 pics, I started to get frustrated about it. Because when I see it most of my icons fall on the category of just 'no face', while the point of this whole challenge is to push yourself to create icons beyond your comfort zone, and the concept is supposed to be about obscuring your subject on purpose. I look at my sad batch of icons again at 1 am, alone and frustrated, and they all look purposeless. I need to get on them again and create some complex icons (which is my total weakness). Sketching some ideas atm.

( more randomness under the cut )

<< New icon!! Luhan is so cute, I can't. I CAN'T.

I've been wanting to make a special Luhan icon that I would want to use, because I've made a bunch but they all are made for landcomm challenges that I don't feel like using. Yesterday when I saw someone is using this this pic of Luhan as their profile pic on tumblr, I was immediately obsessed. But it's black and white and so tiny and I had no clue where it's from. I asked the blog owner (anonymously, go me!) and turns out it's a pic from October last year when they visit Shanghai. This pic is newly appeared on weibo. Sadly the original is so low quality　(TДT). But I was really determined to make a decent icon out of that pixelated photos, and I worked on it for hours last night.

Planning to participate in the next round of kpop20in20 if I can get Luhan as my claim :3

On other news, yesterday I bought these cute Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella illustration stickers. So cute!

Finally I decided to create a new comm on DW for my graphics : battlerain

I've been contemplating for a while, whether to import my old graphics comm, or to just continue posting there since fandoms are still more active on LJ anyway, or start fresh here. I figured a fresh start would be a better option since my fandoms has changed, and I don't use my LJ anymore other than for commenting at comms. I didn't import my own journal, so I don't see why I should import my graphics comm.

Anyway, I spent some time last night setting up the new comm and I'm pretty satisfied with how it looks. It's simple, clean with small fonts. Yea, I'm too lazy to look for new layout so it's the same layout as my old graphics comm, just with a little tweak on the header. And the first post is so colorful, I love it.

I feel like I haven't been doing anything creative for a while, so I was very happy to find active challenge communities on DW.

Last night, I managed to transform this :
to this :
which is an accomplishment because that cap gave me hell.

For graphics challenge communities, I'm currently participating in theaviary which is a lot of fun, iconthat, participated once in fridayfive, and the magical20in20 challenge in caffeinatedmagic was soooo tempting but in the end I didn't enter because of ... reasons.

As for the non-graphics, I signed-up for snapshot_bingo which seemed to be so exciting and fun reading about it. Plus, I have a new prosumer camera I bought before Japan that I'm totally in love with. But when I tried to get snapshots for some of the prompts, it's actually not that easy. My life is too boring, I need to explore more.

( my bingo card and more )

Another new icon! *points at icon*

I just have to have a gif icon of my obsession and I saw these gifs on tumblr in which Eunhyuk was saying "Yeaaah!!" when asked to say a phrase started with the letter Y. (Immediately followed by Yesung's slap on his head, lol). He's very smily and cheerful and cute in that gif so I looked for the video and made this icon! Overall, I'm quite satisfied with the result :)

The wallpaper-ish background color matches Eunhyuk's face color scheme perfectly, I didn't have to edit anything and it was already under 40 KB :)

On other news!!! I GOT A NEW JOB! And it seems very promising in terms of compensation and work environment so I am very very excited to start. It doesn't start until November though. And until then!! I have to suffer through this endless amount of work in my current office.

My iconning skill is rusty I spent so much time working on the 5th one (-____-).
But I love them all \o/ Fresh green and fresh faces! So much Kyu, too!

I know Eunhyuk, thanks. I needed that (T_______T)

Join thefandomzoo!
A landcomm on Dreamwidth celebrating all fandoms through graphic, writing, and game challenges. The Fandom Zoo is open to television, film, comics, books, and games. Our three teams are The Badass Bears, The Drama Llamas, and The Party Penguins.

ROUND 2 STARTS SOON APPLY HERE

I was so determined to finish this project so I can move on to working on more important things (like my translation). So today, all I did was trying to finish it, making covers, coding the posts, contemplating where to post, checking my spelling and broken files, etc. Finally it is done, and now I'm so tired.



I think it is super cute, I still think my Andrej mood theme was the best I've ever made, but I'm going to use this new one anyway! I paid for a month DW account so I can create custom mood theme. I know SJ is no longer that popular on LJ because nowadays everyone seems to be on tumblr, but I'm sure someone out there will appreciate it.

ps. mood themes are taking forever to make! I don't understand how kohler could make like 1 in just three days.

This is a picspam for "Bad Romance" challenge at thefandomzoo. On this challenge we have to make art or fics on crack ships, crossover, non-con and rare or unlikely pairings. It's one tough challenge! I went with Robert Sheehan (who played Nathan from Misfits) and Paul Boche (male model), for no apparent reason. I just think that this is a very unlikely pairing since they are from different origins and work for different industries. (Though yeah, Robert is 24 and is 183 cm tall, Paul Boche is in his early twenties and is 185 cm tall, I totally could go behind this ship :p)

Anyways, picspam is below :


( picspam under the cut! )

FIANLLY FINISHED THIS POST OMGGG
first challenge entry for thefandomzoo

( Part 1 : Androgynous Male Model Andrej Pejic )

( Part 2 : RPF Pairing Adam Lambert/Tommy Joe Ratliff )