Questions About Artsy Stuff

[book_junkie007]

Okay, so I have some questions. I would like to start making icons/gif sets, particularly from Firefly (I just rewatched Out of Gas and I have an urge to icon/gif the whole ep), although other fandoms are taking my fancy as well (hello, Mitchell and Being Human). I'm just wondering how I could get started with it. I downloaded Gimp, because I don't want to spend the money on Photoshop, and I know I would have to get a Photobucket account or something similar in order to upload my photos to the internet.

I don't have a lot of experience with icon making or gif sets. The most high-tech my icons get are screen caps taken by me on my iPhone (because I'm a good little scientist and am terrified of copyright issues and plagiarism) from my DVD, uploaded to my laptop, and adjusted slightly in Preview on my Mac. I haven't done anything more fancy than that, and any help that people could give would be very welcoming.

Comments

[inkvoices]

I have GIMP, but I'm far from expert in it. I use Picmonkey and I lot and I'm working on an icon tutorial for people stating off in graphics making, because the stuff I started with is easy pie. So I'll work faster on that rather than spamming your lj *grins*.

But essentially: google for sites with screencaps (alas, one of the better Firefly sites is closing), crop to 100x100, play, upload to photobucket or lj scrapbook or other hosting site, post. If you're worried about copyright, rather like fanfiction icons can be seen as transformative works. Some people do post disclaimers. I post a link to a list of resources that I use to make my graphics :)

Hope that helps, and will work speedier on that icon tutorial x

It was closer to finished than I thought, so here :)

[cookiegirl]

Yay, welcome to the art-making world!

I can give you some tips if there's something specific you're wondering about? In general if I'm making icons though I would crop to 100x100, adjust the lighting curve to make it lighter as most screencaps are dark, adjust the contrast to make it brighter and more vibrant, and then sometimes put a texture layer or colour wash over the top. (I don't know whether that's enough detail or not?)

As far as uploading goes I would recommend imgur.com over photobucket as photobucket has a lot of issues, and imgur is sooo much quicker to upload to and easier to link to.