Thanks for your encouragement. This batch was harder than the previous ones because the screencaps were much less ideal. This is the 4th episode of the show, and also the first major character interaction episode. A lot of the action takes place in a confined space, there were lots of good face shots to build icons from. This was an especially good episode for Teyla, Aiden and Elizabeth but not so good for Rodney. The lighting artists who lit this episode, gave me great help with better effects. And I think some of the make-up especially for Elizabeth was much improved.
The top large icon (Sheppard being revived), is a terrible icon visually but it is a very important scene for fans. So I tried to make it as clean as I could. I took a character out of the foreground and de-cluttered the area around Sheppard's head to simplify the image. It is still too muddy. I'm not sure the icon-sized graphic is readable. The floor is all cloned in, and not a very good job, but considering I did it without a grid, it came out okay. And at Icon size no one will notice the bad cloning.
John kneeling in front of the Wraith was another terrible screencap. I could only do so much with it, but it is a compelling image and needed to be included. There were several other images I just couldn't make work. I'm hoarding them in a separate file to try again when I understand this program better.
The real challenge is how to present characters in the middle-distance and have them recognizable. I've only just started working on those difficult icons. I'm also leaving spaces within some of them to include type. That's a whole other level of complication.
After I post the next batch I'm going to take a short break from icons and do some writing. Vacation writing sounds wonderful to me right now. I am packing some more before I go to bed tonight, I'm slowly getting things organized. I will call you later.
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Re: Look out world, here she comes!
Date: 2009-10-07 03:22 am (UTC)The top large icon (Sheppard being revived), is a terrible icon visually but it is a very important scene for fans. So I tried to make it as clean as I could. I took a character out of the foreground and de-cluttered the area around Sheppard's head to simplify the image. It is still too muddy. I'm not sure the icon-sized graphic is readable. The floor is all cloned in, and not a very good job, but considering I did it without a grid, it came out okay. And at Icon size no one will notice the bad cloning.
John kneeling in front of the Wraith was another terrible screencap. I could only do so much with it, but it is a compelling image and needed to be included. There were several other images I just couldn't make work. I'm hoarding them in a separate file to try again when I understand this program better.
The real challenge is how to present characters in the middle-distance and have them recognizable. I've only just started working on those difficult icons. I'm also leaving spaces within some of them to include type. That's a whole other level of complication.
After I post the next batch I'm going to take a short break from icons and do some writing. Vacation writing sounds wonderful to me right now. I am packing some more before I go to bed tonight, I'm slowly getting things organized. I will call you later.