I spoke to my close friend who is an artist, darksahdow on DA if you've ever seen her work, since you had mentioned (I think in the chuunin post) for comments on improvement and this is what was said:

xSharinganHeirx: they asked for comments on improvement :P
darksahdow: on icon making?
xSharinganHeirx: on their icons yeah
darksahdow: she could use some work on choseing the right font and color
xSharinganHeirx: yes, but i'm not always good at that and not uh.. i don't know how to suggest improvements on that XD
xSharinganHeirx: like.. without redoing icons of hers with better examples
darksahdow: icons and on re-sizeing a picture, that what she needs to imporve xD
darksahdow: u could show her better exampls
xSharinganHeirx: hmm where do you mean resizing a picture? maybe i'm too tired to notice that XD
darksahdow: http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w251/SPkathrine/Icons/NaruSakuSasuIcon.gif like this one
darksahdow: its badly edited
xSharinganHeirx: ah yes
darksahdow: other than that and the font the rest is good
darksahdow: it would be nice if she added more texture and design to the icons to make it more creative
xSharinganHeirx: i think a lot of her creativity is in the crack/witty text
xSharinganHeirx: like i love some of it, even if the icon itself isn't that great
darksahdow: her words might be awsome to read
darksahdow: but the font style doesn't go well with the image
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So, in order to offer examples I did actually remake one of my favorite icons of the post that could use a slight makeover! I hope you don't mind as I'm only trying to help. ^^; The link is a bunch of variations using one or both of the textures listed below or solid colors that better compliment the rest of the icon.
http://s167.photobucket.com/albums/u149/ladygith/spkatherine/

Photoshop CS2
Font: Candara
Textures used:
Celestial Star designs (http://celestial-star.net/) soft light #29
Yumei-k @ 100x100_brushes my mind #48