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stripped in

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I've been looking around a lot to find interesting brushes to use in icons, and this particular location has turned out to be one of my favorites. She creates icon-sized brushes of all different sorts, for all different kinds of techniques. I'm still learning how to best apply them, and sometimes I get brilliance and sometimes I get WTF results.

Anyway, please check out Mustie's Brushes on LJ and Deviant Art. Her work is wonderful, especially the icon sized brushes. You'll see me periodically reference them in my tutorials, and I'll admit here, I never remember exactly which brush, from which set, I've used (there are too many!).

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Posted by

stripped

I don't know, I think you capitalized on it quite well in that icon!!

I've found that my way of using them often involves the steps of...

-- stamp a mask
-- do something with it
-- scream EWWWWWW and hide the layer
-- lather/rinse/repeat until I like it

What I want to do is learn how to MAKE brushes that are that brilliant. Hers are really amazing.

Posted by

paian

lol, your process sounds very familiar to me.

Thanks, about the icon! I was very pleased with how that one came out. Stamping masks is just still so much of a mystery to me. It's one of the techniques that make me go 'omg there is so much power in this program and the possibilities are so limitless' and get overwhelmed and run away for a while. *g* It's also one of the things I have mentally checkmarked to Work More With. Maybe even today ...

It'll be fabulous if you start making brushes!

Posted by

stripped

Somehow that process doesn't translate well into tutorial (although I TRIED to explain it with the one I posted today *grins*). But IDK, I think even if I knew the technique better, that's still a part of art. And the joy of electronic art is that we can say EW and make it go away with a single click without making it go away permanently, in case we need some piece of it later.

Part of the reason I started doing

fandom20in20 was to convince me to do more with icons than just crop & curves which is what I do normally. Then maybe slap a little text on. I'm looking back at earlier icons I've made and just WINCING now. I've been learning a lot... practice? At least challenges inspire us to do a LOT of practicing, right??

I may try to make a few with the next round of the challenge. I just have to remember to actually save and stuff them into a file if I like them. I've got some vague idea how to do it now... I need to spend time playing with it... which *laughs* sounds familiar all over again, yeah?

Posted by

paian

I was just looking at that tutorial, and I think you did a really good job explaining!

I also looked at the links in the polls at

severalplums, and I'm excited at the prospect of challenges that include making the resources you use.

I do love non-destructive editing. Wish I had something as handy as Layers for fic, where I wind up with documents littered with commented-out deletions, and auxiliary files of extra material. With images, there it all is in one handy stack of layers! Until I starte combining different layers and stamping the results without noting which layers I combined ... aaaaaaa ...

Definitely save the brush results you like!

Posted by

stripped

Was it too long-winded? That was my biggest worry. Especially since I was trying to describe a particularly late night thought process.

Oh I think the idea of the one with all the images and making all our own tools sounds fascinating. I've been um... PS keeps distracting me today and yelling "make brushes with me!" and I actually made one I kind of liked. I'm not sure it's USEFUL yet, but it stamped out pretty, anyway. It might be a better brush than mask.

*tests* Oh yes, definitely a better brush than mask. Ew.

I am now thinking of writing in layers... man, it'd save me scribbling in the margins! I use a program for my novels called Scrivener which actually LETS me write in the margins and on index cards... I can't live without it because it saves me SO much madness.