Ask the Maker: Complex theme

Ok, Hi people!
This topic is going to be about complex icons
I´m going to divide this on to 3 themes: crops,effects, composition.
I hope this would help you to be a better icon maker< 3
this theme is a suggestion from magicrubbish

THEMES:

Crops: this depend on what you want to accomplishment with your icon
For example:


On this icons the crop is make to stand outt a specific part of the icon(half of the face, eyes).


Effects: this took a different level, if your going to work on b/w pics, or vintage, etc.
My guide here, is to look up to the challenge or what you want to burn out of the icon (fear, calid, saturation, shadows, contrasts).
For example:


On this icons, there exist a few manipulation, on the first one shes cracking( you can look to brushes, textures, this usually helps me to look up to new effects I want to apply. On the second one, the male guy is on the background, and up this cap is a gradient map and them, the textures and the girl. I like to my icons look properly right, shadows, reflections, effects, so be careful how you applied this.

Composition:: Ok this is dependent from the photo to the textures and the effect, all this is connected. I like to use photos where the artist is walking, and different perspective than the usual fort shot. Is simple if you want something complex, the photo has to have with something different.



On this icons I took some photos of artists that are on different position than the typical frontal one. So if it´s floating, you can add some wings, like a falling angel (#4), or his walking out space (#2), really depends on what you want to accomplish and the theme. The background can be pixelated, blur or another effect that you would like to put(#1).