...but I couldn't resist not posting this:

MY SECOND FIRST-PLACED ICONTEST!!!

& just in case you didn't catch it, here's the first.

and just because i feel like reminiscing some more, this and this are the first icontests i ever placed in--there's two of `em because if you check the date, you'd see they're only about an hour apart. that must have been a good week for icontesting. didn't win as first, but at least i placed :P

[ish happy-happy-joy-joy]

sorry about it being all bleach XP at the time i started iconing i was into both the anime and manga, so it was a natural progression considering the amount of resources i had at hand. by the time i was waiving off bleach however, i had already joined too many bleach-themed icontests; so much so that i couldn't afford joining another theme. ah well. maybe next time ;)

in other news, thanks to neko_hime_lj bombarding me with mp3s at 1:30 in the morning, i discovered this really cute, if not a bit creepy, video. watch it! its only a little over a minute and a half.

in other other news, CONGRATS 06-A APPS NEW MEMS!

If you've been playing around with image editors as much as I have (aka, a LOT but you still end up sucking), you'd know there are a lot of coloring styles commonly used in icons:

Muted	Peppermint	Elegant
exhero	yachiru	colorfilter
Pastels	Grungy	High-Contrast
phrixus	killpanic	baka_bunnies
Artistic	Monotoned	Gradients
crazydiamond_	psychodragon82	_kodora

...just to name a few.

And so, I decided to look back at my I-colored-this-manga-image-myself icons to see what my style of coloring is. And guess what? I'm all over the place 0.o; When I started out I had a lot of phrixus' and ashke_icons' prettiness, but a lot less colors. Not enough to be monotone though. My crammer icons were usually grungy, a cross between killpanic and psychogragon82. Recently though, I've been leaning towards high-contrast.

What I've failed at though are real pretty muted manga icons, ala phrixus, _kodora and exhero. Its their styles that I've never been able to recreate. I'm always following how-to tuts but mine still end up differently. I guess it really has to do with my own style.

With that in mind, I'd like to ask if anyone would be interested if I put up a coloring tutorial based on my style of coloring, which I would call high-contrast, but if you come up with a better name I'd appreciate it. I'm thinking it should be based on the last icon I made:

From this:		To this:

Bleach Episode Numbers ahead.

( Part 3 of a 3-part post )

Bleach Drawings & Diagrams ahead.

( Part 2 of a 3-part post )

Bleach Symbols & Logos ahead.

( Part 1 of a 3-part post )