I'd agree with the above commenter about the screencap quality -- 3 and 4 in particular are quite grainy and because you do a lot of anime/2D icons, the quality is really important since it's easier to see graininess in the type of flat smooth colours that 2D animation uses. Granted, I know sometimes it's hard to find good quality caps for certain series, but I think more popular ones like Lion King and FMA should have comms and such that can help.
I like your cropping and you capture expressions very well -- the cropping on Scar (9, 10, 11), I really like those and I think you should try doing more of that off-to-the-side look since you seem to center your subject a lot. Icons like 2 and 6, for instance, you could shift the subject over to the side a bit more to make a half-crop; not all or even most of the subject's face or body has to be contained in the icon. Using negative space can make things interesting, as well.
You mentioned using levels and contrast -- I'd suggest layering on some selective colouring, and using fill colour layers set on soft light or exclusion (a dark blue fill layer put on Exclusion gives a really nice peach-pink skin tone to a lot of anime characters) to get the colouring you want. If you stick with brightening/contrasting only, the icons can look more like bases rather than finished products. I'm actually partial to using curves myself to brighten an icon instead of using the brightness/contrast, too, although sometimes I'll use both -- I find the Curves adjustment gives better control, though.
If I were to pick out your best one in this batch, I would pick 8, especially on the colouring front. It's nice and bright -- though I'd still suggest playing around with more adjustment layers a bit -- and I think if you combined the colouring you did there with the crops you've used for 9/10/11, you'd be well on your way.
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I like your cropping and you capture expressions very well -- the cropping on Scar (9, 10, 11), I really like those and I think you should try doing more of that off-to-the-side look since you seem to center your subject a lot. Icons like 2 and 6, for instance, you could shift the subject over to the side a bit more to make a half-crop; not all or even most of the subject's face or body has to be contained in the icon. Using negative space can make things interesting, as well.
You mentioned using levels and contrast -- I'd suggest layering on some selective colouring, and using fill colour layers set on soft light or exclusion (a dark blue fill layer put on Exclusion gives a really nice peach-pink skin tone to a lot of anime characters) to get the colouring you want. If you stick with brightening/contrasting only, the icons can look more like bases rather than finished products. I'm actually partial to using curves myself to brighten an icon instead of using the brightness/contrast, too, although sometimes I'll use both -- I find the Curves adjustment gives better control, though.
If I were to pick out your best one in this batch, I would pick 8, especially on the colouring front. It's nice and bright -- though I'd still suggest playing around with more adjustment layers a bit -- and I think if you combined the colouring you did there with the crops you've used for 9/10/11, you'd be well on your way.
Anyway, yeah. XD; Hope that helps? ♥ Good luck!