MSN Icon of the Month


Every month, an outstanding icon submission will be selected and featured here along with a brief interview with its artist. If you'd like to submit an MSN display icon to the site, please do so by sending it to messengerstuff at staff dot mugglenet dot com; make the subject of the email "MSN Display Icons" and be sure to include your name so we can give you credit!


January's Featured Icon



Kelly Jean Williams


About the Icon:

Explain what we're seeing in this icon:
Just Robert Pattison's lovely face, with a few PS tweaks.

What programs did you use to make it?
Adobe Photoshop CS

How long have you been working on icons?
I haven't really been doing icons in specific for any amount of time. I have had a love for graphic design and photo manipulation for about 6 or 7 years now. If making an icon strikes my fancy, I just do it. Sometimes they fail, sometimes they look pretty good.

What was the process involved in the conception and creation of this icon?
I found one of my favorite pictures of Robert, cropped it down, sharpened it, then went to playing with different ways of manipulating it. I don't remember everything I did to it before I stuck with something, but I believe what I finally did was use a Bleach Bypass plug-in on it, and then tweak the colors. There may even be a gradient overlay in there, although hard to see.

Is there somewhere that we can find more of your icons?
Sadly, no. But I have a gallery showing and of my photography and other graphic work (maybe a few icons) here.

Do you have any advice for icon artists that want to make icons of your caliber?
Find yourself a good editing program and just play. Play and play until slowly but surely, you begin to make things that really stand out. It takes practice, luck, skill and a lot of tutorials! Spoono.com is a great place to learn.

About the Artist:

Name: Kelly
Age: 20
Residence: Illinois

Which HP book was your favorite?
h, the ultimate question. The books conveniently keep getting better and better. It's sort of a tie between GoF and OotP. I love GoF for so many reasons; The outside characters that add more to the story, Rita Skeeter, and whether it shows much or not, all of the characters mature a lot throughout the book. It's a great transition between being children and adults. But, really, I think I'm going to have to go with OotP. There is so much torture - mentally and physically - facing the characters, and the fact that they pull through it having learned something, having their bonds strengthened. I dunno, it's just a great story and I believe it's something that everyone can learn from. There is also a lot of great humor from the twins in OotP - just as there is in every book. It's really hard for a Harry Potter fan to answer this question with only one answer haha.

Which Was your favorite film?
GoF for sure. It was just very well done, right on the mark. As usual a few things were left out, but this time it was done well. Not like in PoA where the entire marauders back-story was left out. That really disappointed me.

Who is your favorite character from the series?
Everyone loves the trio, or at least one of the trio. I do adore Ron. But I'm really going to have to say the Twins. They remind me so much of my friends and, well, of me. They may give you quite a bit of grief, but when it comes down to it, they're true to the core.

Which house would you hope to be sorted into?
Well I'd hope to be sorted into Gryffindor. I seem to relate to all of the Gryffindors in the story and of course, that's where the heroes are!

Is there anything interesting about yourself that is worth mentioning?
Not particularly haha.


Archive of Featured Icons