Hercules Icons

[debris4spike]

I am actually up to date with icons! Missing out one challenge for a couple of months has made me relax and get organised on time.

This month for character20n20 I am following my last month's set of Iolus with one of Hercules, as portrayed by Kevin Sorbo, from the series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys ..... which I used to watch about 10+ years ago with friends after an evening of fencing. I was always a Herc fan .... and loved this second reminder of why I enjoyed the show so much.


Here are the teasers for Round 63 -


   









10 THEMES

Center Circle	Close/B&W/Contrast	Face Block	November Sky	Orange
Painted Hair	Painted Negative	Recast	Simple	Soft Glow

CATEGORY

one	two	three	four	five

ARTIST'S CHOICE

artist's choice 1	artist's choice 2	artist's choice 3	artist's choice 4	artist's choice 5

As ever, all are snaggable, although credit would be nice. The credits for the brushes and textures can be found at my icon journal ... d4s_icons

Comments

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

Very nice set! I really like ac2, painted negative and center circle. Vice job!

[debris4spike]

Thank you very much.

Those light texturesI had on AC 2 are just so effective, aren't they?

[setentpet.livejournal.com]

Nice work. I really like your category set as well as your recast choice.

[debris4spike]

Thank you very much.

That re-cast was one of the hardest prompts ever given!!

[halliwell.livejournal.com]

Nice set. Especially like Orange, Close/B&W/Contrast, Catone, Catfive, artist's choice 1 and artist's choice 4.

[debris4spike]

Thank you very much - the close/B&W was hard, so glad it worked.

Yes, I like AC1 as well!

[halliwell.livejournal.com]

Welcome. Miss this show so much. Yeah that was a new one for me to do as well, so I agree on it being a bit hard.

:)

[debris4spike]

I have found that doing these hard challenges that make me "stretch" my few skills.

[laurels.livejournal.com]

The recast icon made me chuckle! I like your Category set a lot also.

[debris4spike]

Thanks very much about that Cat Set ... hard to know sometimes which way to take the colour choices sometimes.

The recast was a hard prompt.

[punk4life1315.livejournal.com]

I really like November sky, simple, ac1 and ac5. :)

[debris4spike]

Thank you very much ... as you can see AC 1 is one of my faves ... points to icon!

[act3scene1.livejournal.com]

Your icons have really come a long way since you started! I haven't made icons in ages. (years?) I'm actually feeling the urge to make some. :)

[debris4spike]

Aw, thank you so much.

Some of the challenges on these 20in20's are hard, but in attempting them I find I have to stretch my brain.

I love your clarity in your work ... something others don't seem to achieve.

[act3scene1.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm so happy to see that you still use some of them! <3

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

My favorites here? The entire AC set. (Keep in mind I don't normally gaze at "beefcake" *lol*)

You've used that light effect before of course (for 7 of 9 in ST?) but I love how you make it look quite right for each icon whenever you use it. (aka I envy your use of it and your way with it.) Overlaps and wraps around the character's head perfectly.

There's something special about AC and I can barely put my finger on it. That granulated background is another signature effect of yours, as are the geometic art deco-ish not a border border lines on the side; I'm sure you've used them together before but this combination is very very right. This may be my favorite use of your granulated background barring the gold Spike icon, and even at that - green is so hard to work with and it's very natural here, a great earth tone that implies the forest environment, the color is variegated in the right ways - and then that ironc geometric touch is just enough to add contrast and make the entire thing really pop without drawing focus.

And AC1 is just so so pretty - out of focus with a purpose, and the colors are both warm and melt together like a watercolor. Brava!

[debris4spike]

Certainly he has some good shoulders on him!!

Although you comment that green is hard to work with, I suppose I tend to find it easier than most, as I see so many colours in shades of green, so know what I like to see ... works if I keep a basic palette on the icon.

I hadn't thought of the lines as Deco (you make me sound very clever that way! I have a friend, who is off LJ at present as is very poorly, but he does some amazing effects with the lines, mine are more basic.

Yes, I like AC1 ... my favourite of the 20.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Although you comment that green is hard to work with, I suppose I tend to find it easier than most, as I see so many colours in shades of green, so know what I like to see

So your way of seeing color serves as an advantage? You had some lovely shades of green in your last btvsats set, along the lines of light clear tones like celadon and jade that I love.

I should actually amend my earlier statement about green - the hardest color to work with was indigo in terms of, what exactly IS indigo as distinct from blue and violet? I'm still not entirely sure because there are so many variations on "indigo"!

Do you have a link to your friends work btw? I admire people who do good work with lines and shapes - "line" is something I haven't mastered and it's funny because I love art nouveau where the quality of line is of utmost importance (although this is more obvious in deco, which is nouveau stripped down to it's essence.)

Yes, I like AC1 ... my favourite of the 20.

There's such a warmth to this one, like red wine or summer nights. I'm noticing the blurring at the edges only now, and that's a good thing - the blurring was there but it didn't stand out as an element, it's subtle. I've seen a lot of bad use of blurring (my own work included.)

[debris4spike]

Oh boy, the Indigo colour was impossible for me. I had to download a colour and keep it open at all times to use my colour picker that GIMP has.

AC1 was actually totally done on iPiccy!

He hasn't got as many "line" ones as sometimes up ... but this is the link to his user-pics here ... although as he is f-locked I hope you can get it.

(Thought I would use my Iolus icon ... another gorgeous body!! He is Herc's friend in the series if you have never watched)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Oh boy, the Indigo colour was impossible for me. I had to download a colour and keep it open at all times to use my colour picker that GIMP has.

I went to wikipedia to find the number (what is that six digit ID called for each color?) so I could type it into my ipiccy color selector, but the article I looked had several different variations of indigo and what they called "indigo" looked more like violet to me. It got extremely confusing.

AC1 was actually totally done on iPiccy!

And this is why I haven't abandoned ipiccy yet - I'm still mastering it and there's a lot left to learn, even if I have to struggle through myself? (also, this new version of {PSE for Mac Maverick is turning out to me more unwieldy than I expected - my sweetie still misses her old full version of PS that got destroyed on the old computer.)

Do you remember how you got that warm glow? I looks like you're using light leaks? (I'm on a real kick with light textures lately, and there's that lovely default one in ipiccy that's red and violet that i use a lot in fact I used it in the Buffy/S6 icon from Gone *points to icon*, desaturating the image and rendering in browns and ivories first.)

Oh I wonder how AC2 would look with some applied red/violet light leaks on the outside of that light curve? *ponders*

but this is the link to his user-pics here ... although as he is f-locked I hope you can get it.

Yes I can thank you - some terrific icons! I love the clarity and simplicity of so many of these, focusing on the characters and not on special effects so much. (Something I need to keep in mind. FX can be addictive and distracting from good design.)

I'm sure Jamie and I have chatted - maybe here on your journal? - although I haven't friended them yet. I should probably amend that. Thank you for the link!