fun_like_that

Is anyone else having the WORST TIME EVER viewing people's entries? I don't know what the fuck is up. ... Huh. I just cleared my cache. Problem solved. That's only been FIVE HOURS of frustration. Clearly, I IZ SMRAT.

I've been sick with the flu since Monday night and I've gone to a few classes and whatnot but every time I went to make a post or something I just kind of flopped around and said fuck it. But there is something I've been noticing that's irritated the snot right out of me. (Mmm, great mental image, eh?)

( On being lazy when someone makes a tutorial )

( On the issue of selective colouring )

Tutorials should inspire you to try something new, teach you something you didn't know before, show you a new way of doing something. It shouldn't tell you to do something in a certain way on every single icon so you can make 300 icons that look exactly the same.

Some of the best tutorials I've ever seen are ones that teach me a different way I was already doing something, or trying to. This one by letsey_x is amazing. And entries like this at weapons_icons are a gold mine. Looking through tutorials on wallpapers or banners are really awesome because they usually incorporate colouring, textures and sometimes multiple images or maniping. If you're looking for maniping tuts lostt1 did a quick and dirty one here and nemo_88 did a couple awesome ones here and here.

When you're just starting out tutorials are great for learning the basics; it's how I learned because the PSP "help" wasn't helpful at all. But there comes a certain point when you stop being led around your programme by the hand and start experimenting and making your own tutorials. A lot of the time the icons you're drawn to the most probably aren't complex, dozen-layer feats. With a little experimentation it's easy to come up with a variation like it or something even better. Just give it a go!

And now I've finished my slightly ranty-rant. I haven't posted something like this in awhile. I think it's time for a nap. Also, this might be my new favourite icon. *hides*

The best way to get someone to write you fic? ANY WAY THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE SPAMMING SOMEONE'S PERSONAL JOURNAL AND EVERYONE WHO COMMENTED ON A PARTICULAR POST.

Join a community, friend some people, do something in exchange for someone- DO NOT HARRASS PEOPLE INTO WRITING YOU FIC. I figured this would be a fairly common sense sort of concept but apparently not.

You know what? We all make mistakes when we're new to something. We've all posted something without a cut tag or posted to the wrong community or whatever. We've all been cautious about comments and posts in certain comms and people's journals so we DON'T FUCK UP. And you know how we do that? We DO RESEARCH. We check out the user infos and profiles, we read the comm rules, we check out the FAQ. Some people are so goddamn LAZY they can't be bothered with doing their own work. Whether it be the "I don't know if this is allowed here..." posts in communities (and 85% of the time? IT'S NOT ALLOWED) or people posting to tutorial comms or something asking people to make them a step-by-step guide on how to do something- EVEN AS SIMPLE AS USING THEIR OWN PROGRAMME. It's called HELP- USE IT. It's called GOOGLE- USE IT.

I'm getting pretty sick of the "I'm new" excuse, too. Being new doesn't make you deaf, dumb and blind. There are FAQs everywhere, there are help guides everywhere, there are lots of people willing to help you if you approach them with a simple question as long as it doesn't involve spamming thousands of people in a particular community because you want to know if X character's eyes are blue or how to desaturate an image.

Ranting aside, today's actually an okay day. And now I'm going to go tally up and post the results for spn_iconathon and work on BigBang and maybe make some icons.