088: will you say to me when I'm gone / your face has faded but lingers on (original) (raw)

Because I recently began worshiping at the altar of Michael Ealy's face, I fell in love with a little series called Common Law. (Warren Kole's face is rather adorable, too!) And thanks to that love, I have this mishmash post of oddities to present. I've been working with this show's caps over the past month, and I think the icons are pretty much in chronological order of my having made them, so hopefully, you can see the coloring steadily improving from the first to the last pieces. Some of the first blue ones look super washed out, which is odd because they look more vibrant when viewed in PS. It's been happening a lot lately, but I don't know what's going on there, so whatever. Is it obvious that I kinda flail wildly about while creating icons? I hardly ever have a clue what I'll do with an image when I initially open it in Photoshop, but I do constantly focus on improving my weakest points. One of those is definitely extracting subjects from their backgrounds, so I've been trying to improve upon that lately, and the results aren't always visually arresting. I'll confess that #23-26 really didn't turn out as cleanly as I'd intended, but it's hard for me to scrap something that I've put so much effort into, so I'm including those pieces anyway for the sake of posterity. If nothing else, they're kinda funny to look at, and I'm sure they'll grow more hilarious as time goes on. Sharpening is also quite a problematic area for me, so I need to keep practicing different techniques to achieve more balanced crispness. Anyway, I hope y'all enjoy the icons and will check out this awesome show, too! WES AND TRAVIS FO' LIFE!

This batch goes out to the fabulous deny1984, who is a big fan of Common Law and whose screencaps made these icons possible! Denitsa, you know I've been a fan of your work for ages and that your coloring never fails to blow my brain out the back of my head. It's so very YOU and something I could recognize even if you ever posted your work anonymously for any reason. Also, I've been using your gorgeous textures for ages, including in one of my fave icons of this post (#18)! Thank you for providing amazing resources to hoards of makers out there and for giving me something to aspire to, coloring-wise. Keep up your incredible work, my dear! :)

Any little snippets of feedback, concrit, and/or general icon talk are very much treasured and appreciated, so please do share any thoughts you have on my work! I never mind criticism as long as its given in the spirit of helping me evolve and strengthen my skills.

NOTE: When you snag something, please credit me and the comm, so people won't friend my personal journal when they're merely searching for my graphics. Many thanks!

TV (Common Law)