I admit this one's a very selfish choice. I've been meaning to do this challenge again for a long time. I've already picked random icons for myself a few times over the last few years but never managed to actually work on them, so I'm using this round to give myself a kick in the ass. :D

I hope you love the idea of this challenge as much as I do!

This challenge was originally posted to somein30 in December 2021 here.

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Challenge Post by neonspider





( Icon Crossing )

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ORIGINAL RULES - for reference only

HOW TO ASK FOR ICON PAIRS

If you want to play, reply to the thread titled "Ask for icon pairs here" with a link to your icon journal/tag. I'll reply asap with twenty randomized
pairs of icons from your posts (this may still take a while, please be patient!). Please note that you should have at least a few public icon posts for me to be able to do this.

If you've had previous icon communities/journals, they won't be included in the randomizing, only the icons in your current community count. I could make an exception if you've moved to a new icon community very recently so that there's only a couple of posts (say, less than 100 icons in total) in your current one; in this case also provide a link to your previous community/tag. Some of you might have a very long iconmaking history, and if you want to limit the randomized icons to your newer work only, specifically request this in your comment and provide a link to the oldest post you want to be included in the randomizing.

If any watermarked Photobucket icons or icons that give me those weird "imgprx" links get randomized, I'll reupload them to Imgur for convenience and clarity.

Asking for pairs isn't considered a signup, don't worry if you can't get the set done!

+ Create 5-20 icons for the challenge.
+ All icons must be new and made specifically for the challenge
+ Please make an effort to look at and to leave comments to other participants' posts

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NEW RETRO_ICONTEST RULES - mandatory

Pretty much all the original rules still apply, except for the minimum and maximum number of icons. So please stick to the original rules.

You can either ask me for ten random icon pairs or randomize your icons yourself. You can also do both, especially if you want to make more than ten.

a) If you want me to randomize icons for you, I will only give you ten pairs - for ten icons to make. Just comment on the thread below with a link to your icon journal. The same rules apply as detailed by neonspider above.

and/or

b) Randomize your icons yourself. I trust you not to cheat. Some old icons might look hard at first glance, but that's also what's fun about it. Here's how to do it yourself:

Instructions for randomizing

Choose a randomizer, e.g. https://www.random.org/. Count the number of your icon posts in your journal: either you check how often your tag was used (under manage tags or in the tag sidebar if you have one), or if you have a dedicated icon journal, the number of posts is mentioned in the profile. If you don't want to go all the way back, you can leave out the oldest ones.

Set this as the maximum number in the randomizer. Let the randomizer choose a number for you. Put that number into the url bar, e.g. if your icon journal is iconpraise, put this:
https://iconpraise.dreamwidth.org/?skip=23 <-- put the number you get here. In my example with 23, this will make the 24th post appear right at the top. Then you look at how many icons are in that post and randomize another number to get a random icon from that post (or just pick one manually "at random"). You have your first random icon!

Do this 40 times if you want to make 20 icons. Leave the icons in the order you get them, do not rearrange! 1+2 will be the first pair, 3+4 the second, and so on. Of course you can also do it more or less often depending on how many icons you're planning to make for this round.

-> you may enter as many icons as you like. minimum 1 icon. no maximum limit (except if you want me to randomize pairs for you, lol. I will not give you more than ten. If you want to make more, you will have to randomize them yourself).
-> submit your icons as a new entry into the community. if there are more than five, put the rest under a cut or a link to your unlocked journal post. tag your post with round number and your username (or ask me to tag it for you).
-> Arrange them in a way that it's easily visible which are the parent icons and which are the new child icons. You can use the provided table, but you don't have to. Of course you can also look at the somein30 round for examples of how to post.
-> PLEASE submit the URLs along with your icons. I'll only put the first five per person into the roundup post. Either you only list five, or I'll take the first five.
-> make an effort to leave positive feedback on other participants' posts. <3
-> read the full rules here in our userinfo.

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This comm generally runs from mid-month to mid-month every month, always ending on Fridays. There is no voting. I will make a roundup post containing up to 5 icons per person after every challenge.

Deadline for round #35: Friday, February 13th 2026 your end-of-day