Grrr Argh!

[katysam]

I bow to all you animated icon makers. You seriously rock! Seriously.

I have attempted to make my first Supernatural one and talk about frustrating! It's taken me over an hour (or more) to come up with this:

Thanks to psychoactivtoad for the inspiration. :)

How hard is it to get in the required number of frames, the right background image and text, and still keep it to 40kb or less? *sigh*

Anyone got any handy-dandy animated icon tips?

Comments

[ckll.livejournal.com]

Excellent!! (claps)
keep up because animated art becomes obsession :D

[katysam.livejournal.com]

Really? I'm not sure I could get obsessed with something so damn frustrating. *lol*
The problem is I've got these ideas in my head for more and I would love to make them but I'm afraid they are going to eat up far too much of my time ;)

[ckll.livejournal.com]

You can make them when you have time :)

[bobbinrob.livejournal.com]

lol I feel your pain
are you making them with avi files or frames?
you have PS right?

[katysam.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you'd sympathise ;)
I'm using frames. I didn't know I could use AVI files...
Yep, CS2.

[bobbinrob.livejournal.com]

hehe :p ah ok I only ever used frames for a full animation once, I now always use Avi files, I find them easier
but theres a good tute here: http://nyaubaby.livejournal.com/32559.html
for frames
CS2 FTW!

[katysam.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! *hugs*

The tute looks very detailed and at first glance I can already see where I was going wrong time-wise.

I'll have to take a look at using AVIs at some stage too. Thanks for the tip. ♥

[blackbirdj2.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would also recommend the tutorial by nyaubaby. I couldn't make animated icons if my life depended on it, and when I found her tutorial a lot of things became clear to me. My frustration with icons is also the 40kb limit. That is soooooo limited. *sigh*
But anyway, your icon is looking good! ♥

[katysam.livejournal.com]

The tute does look very good. I'm going to study it and see if it can help me. I'm sure it will. I noticed one part where she mentioned she once squeezed 40+ frames in an icon. I was struggling to get 11 in and keep it under 40kb.
Thank you :)

[blackbirdj2.livejournal.com]

If you have that much frames, you really have to cut back on the colours sometimes, and that really sucks because the pretty colours lost on Jensen and Jared is never a good thing! ;)

[katysam.livejournal.com]

I noticed after I posting the 'Bachman' icon there was an option when saving to change the number of colours. I fiddled with it a bit and going from 256 to 128 didn't seem all that noticeble and cut the file size down by about 10kb.

[blackbirdj2.livejournal.com]

Exactly. But with a lot of frames, you have to cut back to about 32 colours sometimes, and that's when it gets really bad! :(

[munibunny.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to learn how to make them but I don't have the patience for it. I like it.. Bachman Turner Overdrive... *snort* You should have heard me when Sam said it... Of course, I was the only one flailing at the time.

[katysam.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have the patience either. *lol* I can't believe it took me so long to make one itty-bitty icon.

I love the fake names they use on the show. They are like little 'in-jokes'.

[psychoactivtoad.livejournal.com]

I LOVE it! Glad to be all inspirational-like. I snagged it, hope that's ok.

[katysam.livejournal.com]

Yay! \O/
Of course that's ok :)

I've been given a link to some instructions for making animated icons so once I've studied them and figured out exactly what I'm doing, you might want to look out for new and improved 'Bachman, Turner, Overdrive' icon ;)