red_satin_doll

Click on all images below to view full-size (They don't look at all right downsized. 'tis most distressing.) All artwork by me unless otherwise noted.






Gift from my amazing friend and a jewel of this fandom spikesredqueen for my birthday (Feb 2015, not snaggable)




       

"Winged Buffy" banner, a gift from the fantastically talented and generous comlodge, (June 2013, not snaggable)

[Step into my parlour....]


* My LJ is Hugs Central. (Mostly.) Appropriate and consensual ones, of course. Safety and fun are at a premium here, so play nice with each other. Leave the weapons at the door, wipe your feet on the mat, and help yourself to some tea and homemade cookies.

*********



...by any other name. (June 2014)

* Buffy is my Big Damn Hero and my #1 HBIC - because she's flawed and human and real. Because she loves deeply; she falls down but still fights, she grieves and endures, again and again. Because she breaks the rules and finds another way; because of her intelligence, intuition and wit. Because in watching her I identify with my own issues and strengths, and have a renewed appreciation for my mom as well.

* Because in talking about her with other fans, in telling my story through her, in voicing my truth, I discover that I'm not alone in my challenges, faults, and grief; that I don't have to be imprisoned by secrets and shame; and in sharing this, I can bring comfort to others. And because at the end of the day, Buffy gives me hope; and sometimes that's enough to make getting out of bed in the morning worthwhile. And because she is just so freakin' adorable, y'all.

*********




Keep Her Safe (alt 1) (March 2015)

* I love intelligent discussion of , and appreciation for , the ladies of the verse and their complex interrelationships  at the core of the 'verse: mothers, sisters, mentors, students, friends, lovers, enemies, allies. The Buffyverse without it's women would be a cold, barren place:  ("that bright optimism that becomes a great, raw wound-red in The Body" - the_royal_anna ). They bear witness to one another, the hurt one another when they don't mean to, they love even when it's difficult and painful to do so.

* And yes, this also includes Kennedy. No vitriol. No joke.  (Tara would not approve of the hate. A lot of the complaints I've seen about her are suspicously close to those lobbed at Buffy, btw.) Entitled? Yes. Arrogant? Uh-huh - and also loyal, courageous, stubborn and gentle. She's a "queer woman of color..that is allowed to be the hero."

* The Buffy & Tara friendship/connection is one of the most underappreciated aspects of the 'verse IMO. This WILL be rectified. I don't ship Buffy/Tara, but if that's what it takes to get fandom talking about them? A fangirl's gotta do what a fangirl's gotta do. (ETA 2014: I have seen the light of the true religion: Buffy/Tara shipping. I ship those girls so freakin' hard. Now say amen, somebody.)

My OTF/P (August 2014)

*In fact, let's just say "No bashing female characters, period." There's plenty of other places to do that, if that's your thing. The show's failures in terms of the depictions of women, of female sexuality, the lack of mature female characters, the massive fail in terms of race and class? Always up for intelligent, civil discussion and examination.

********

* OTOH, I do reserve the right to bitch about call out their shit criticize objectively analyze and take issue with certain whiny, self-absorbed males on the series and their collective patronizing jackassery. Don't get me wrong, I can understand them, sympathize with them, and so forth. Xander trying to be a "better man" than his father? Even when he gets it wrong? I heartily approve. (I'll still call him out on his shit, though.) It's simple math: Grow up, get real or go home. Also I welcome any and every opportunity to make fun of Angel.  Particularly when penguins are involved.  As well they should be.

********




I Walk Alone, another beautiful gift from comlodge based on her FFL picspam series for Round 18 of seasonal_spuffy.

* I 'ship Buffy&Spike S7 . Love in action is the hardest, most painful and most worthwhile work we can ever do - and IMO it trumps "true love" romantic fantasies every time. (That said, I fully support the right to ship Buffy with anyone you damn well please.) But he is not my central focus here. Nor are any of the men of the 'verse, except in terms of how they serve Buffy's story.  It turns out the protagonist of the "Buffyverse" is some gal named Buffy.  Weird, huh?

This post will be updated frequently.  I'm including some examples when possible because a picture is worth a thousand words.

UPDATED 05 July 2016:
[Links, pretty pictures, and more!]

TEXTURES:
colorfilter - Their big 40 pack of icon textures (download link at Facebook here) is still the one I use most often and I haven't begun to scratch the surface of the hundreds of textures within. Also check out the pack of larger 800x600 textures. You can also find the sets posted individually on their journal. I've posted a few more examples of my icons using these textures in the comment thread here.

             1-7


             8-14



texturize - (Many thanks toteragramm for rec'ing this community) One-stop shopping for anyone interested in creating and sharing textures. Be sure to read the comm's very informative "Bible" (guidelines) before posting or snagging. Most of the artists post links back to their graphics journals or to Deviant Art.

lookslikerain at soaked. I've used more of their textures than anyone's except colorfilter's:

          15-20


whitebamboo:

      21-23


jordannamorgan at wolfbane_icons

24


scoobyatemysnax at burnedbreads - includes tutorials.  A tremendous variety of textures including soft glow, grunge, frames, abstract and geometric patterns in any one given set. I like their medium (300pixels) square textures for icons.

      25 - 30

 * broken_places The graphics journal of akilah92

* Evey-V at DeviantArt I like Ericka's soft, painterly, abstract textures, gradients, and text brushes:

31

 * sweetiepebbles Gallery of icon textures and bases at DeviantArt
 * Yeonseb at DeviantArt Vast supply of textures and application resources
 * spiritcoda - creativehangout is their LJ graphics gallery, or check out their DA gallery; some exceptionally pretty textures

FRAMES:
 * FRAMEs & BORDERs for use - Flickr image sharing group
 * Your Picture Frames - Most of the icon frames in my awards banners come from this site.
 * Victorian Frame Company - Mostly HQ photos of antique-style wood frames with carved detail, includes unusual shapes such as rounds, oblongs and hearts:

  32 - 33

SCREENCAPS for Buffyverse
slayerstillness has a list of Screencap Resources for BtVS and AtS, including all the ones I use most frequently; if you know of
any not on the list, send the links to starry_night. Some of my favorites from the list:

  * Pretty as a Picture complete screencaps for BtVS and AtS plus promo photos for Buf (ETA: 12/21/15 site currently defunct)

  * Bloodqueen has all seven seasons of BtVS complete, is one of my primary sources

  * Leave Me the White by _jems_  Spuffy-centric so no S1 or S3 caps and the remaining seasons are incomplete; but some of the best quality
     caps of the series I've found. (S2 is the most complete with 14 episodes capped.) Includes Dailies for Smashed and Dead Things.
     S7 is spread out over three albums including two Miscellaneous albums.

 * Buffy in HD ON Facebook Fan analysis of the problems with Fox's recent "HD remaster", galleries of screencaps, edits, comparisons

 * Shadow of Reflection also has all seven seasons; quality if variable. The early seasons caps compare favorably with
     Bloodqueen's; the later seasons are strangely distorted.

 * Screencapped.net WiP; S1-2 of BtVS are complete; plus one file of promo shots from S1 and the screencaps for Bargaining.
     Appears to be using a new cleaned-up source for it's caps (the so-called "high deflnition" version.) Has a lot of screenshots that
     may not exist elsewhere, but can appear slightly compressed or distorted.

  * The Chosen Two Gallery high-quality promotional and marketing images and magazine shoots of all the major and most of the
     minor characters/actors in BtVS, AtS and Firefly.

  * Kiss Them Goodbye Seasons 1 - 2 complete, partial season 3; also appears to be working off newer DVD's or Blu-ray sources but
      the images tend to be more pixilated than other sources.

  * promo-pictures on tumblr  

  * Buffy Universe and Angel DVD caps

Individual Cast Members Fansite Galleries:
   * Sarah Michelle Gellar France - What it says on the tin. One of my favorite fansite galleries for all things SMG and constantly
     updated. Photoshoot albums sometimes identify the magazine and the original photographer.
   * Glamorous SMG - online since 2003, another fairly comprehensive source.
   * Captivating SMG - relatively new (since 2013), it divides the Photoshoot section by years, which few sites do. Galleries for Sarah's other tv
     series still incomplete or empty as of this writing.

   *Marc Blucas Source
  * Michelle Trachenberg Web

For other fandoms:
  * All movie/tv caps on Leave Me The White. Extensive collection including Grease, Amelie, Dangerous Liasons, Terminator; Parks & Rec, Veronica Mars etc.
  * Genre Caps HQ screencaps for several fantasy series: Jessica Jones and other Marvel series, Doctor Who (New Who); OUAT, Outlander, etc

OTHER IMAGE SOURCES
* The British Library offers over one million royalty-free digitized images from their vast archives going back to the 17th century.
* The Brooklyn Museum of Art happens to be one of the best art museums I've ever visited. If I had to choose between a visit here
   and the Met, go to Brooklyn. In the meantime, their online collection has a stunning array of images.
* The New York Public Library Digital Collections Thank you petzipellepingo for the heads-up!
* The Graphics Fairy and the Background Fairy - the wonderful team at Graphics Fairy provide thousands of free large HQ images
   adapted from antique and vintage greeting cards, labels, valentines cards and assorted emphemera, DIY tutorials, craft projects,
   etc.
 * morgueFile
*  Archive.org
 * StevenJamesMorris at DeviantArt

TUTORIALS & GUIDES
 * good_tutorial What it says on the tin. The last post was 2013 but still plenty of useful information



 

Please stay safe!

Everyone be good to one another and I don't mean in a "pretend to be nice to each other's face while you're screaming inside" kind of way.  (IF someone is screaming in your face, however, do what you need to do to take care of yourself.)

I plan on attending the Sister march in Rhode Island as I can't go to D.C. (my fault for waiting too long to make up my mind. But Providence is cool.)

I haven't been able to write partly because of my part time seasonal job and partly because - I haven't known where to begin (rage, grief, etc.) And not just because of Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds and George Michael. (At some point I'll talk about that stuff too.)

With all the news about Russia lately and it's ownership of LJ and it's ties to the incoming adminstration that I've blithely ignored until recently,* I've copied my LJ posts over to my Dreamwidth account. But I haven't mastered formatting over there (mostly, how to do cut tags properly. So I've got these long threads over there and it's still a mess.)

Crossposted to DreamWidth: https://red-satin-doll.dreamwidth.org/108319.html

So when I was perusing the list of nominees for Round 13 of wicked_awards the other day I completely forgot that my Mr Gordo icon for  whedon_elite Challenge 147 was also nominated in the Best Icon category.  And boy do I feel embarrassed because anyone who knows me knows I love me some Mr Gordo. Thank you freecat15 for noticing my oversight and THANK YOU again to whomever nominated it!

With a great many apologies for extreme tardiness (and being totally MIA): THANK YOU to whomever nominated my artwork for Round 13 of the wicked_awards. I have no idea who did but it's extremely gratifying. And I am THRILLED that one of the nominated works is the poster for herself_nyc's "Closure (is a silly word)", for Round 19seasonal_spuffy.  That poster is the one thing I made the last year that I would have chosen, if I had decided to self-nominate. I'm really happy with how it turned out and honored that someone liked it enough to nominate.

Thank you also to whomever nominated my Category 2 Buffy icon for Round 17 of btvsats20in20 . That took me by surprise as well and I am very grateful.

ETA: Also nominated was my Mr Gordo icon for whedon_elite. Thank you freecat15 for pointing out my oversight!  *pets Mr Gordo*

My entries for btvsats20in20 Round 18; many thanks to starry_night for allowing me to submit this past the deadline; my computer has been crashing  continually the last few days. Not fun.  Thanks also to my fantastic beta-Muse velvetwhip.


Teasers:        

[GALLERY INSIDE......]

10 Themes
Full Body	Black & White	Plus One	No Eyes	Upside Down
First Appearance	Nature	Object	Weakness	Release
5 Category |PURPLE RAIN
Cat 1	Cat 2	Cat 3	Cat 4	Cat 5
5 Artist's Choice
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3	AC 4	AC 5

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request.

~ If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options than I do, by all means please ask first.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Last but not least THANK YOU to everyone who voted for my icons at btvsats20in20 Round 17 and THANK YOU to tempertemper for the gorgeous little gems of the awards banners she made us! Congratulations to the other winners crazycordy, vanishingspirit, sweet_lyri and debris4spike!

 

Trying to teach myself PS CC is sometimes fun and sometimes sends me screaming into the night. As in last night, trying to correct a photograph of a rose I wanted to have printed and just muffing it up horribly. *le sigh*

The various "sharpen" functions are ones I have not mastered yet at all.  I'm sure I'll love it when I master it but I'm at that stage I was when I transitioned from Photobucket to ipiccy a couple of years ago: "I just want to do this, I just want my little slider bar back, where is the eraser so I can selectively apply this effect?" etc etc etc.  That said I do LOVELOVEOVE the fun effects with fonts - especially drop shadows, contouring and glow effects.

This morning I had a little more luck inmproving contrast, brightness, color, warmth etc on a photo I took yesterday of flowers behind the garage, but it still feels like I'm in the "beginner's luck" stage. I didn't even attempt to sharpen either of these, btw. Baby steps, baby steps.....

btvsats20in20 Round 17 last chance to weigh on on three tiebreakers.

whedon_elite still has some ties for Full body challenge 141 so VOTE here if you haven't cast your ballot already. Speaking of whedon_elite, a few days ago I moped that I missed the "flowery" challenge over at slayerstillness but WE challenge 142 is giving us a second chance at the theme.

And back from my perpetual AWOL-ery....

Tonight is the deadline to vote in Round 17!

Don't forget there are three posts for voting: Themes, Category Sets, and AC Sets;

There are only 14 - 16 votes cast so far in each post (there are always people who miss one, it seems), and for the most part I pretty much agree with how the vote is going; there are no egregious errors, no "wtf, people?"

The one exception is that I am surprised that the Content theme isn't more evenly spread; I thought that was one of the most difficult to decide among. (I confess  I really like debris4spike's Bangel icon from What's My Line? The "medieval" stained glass background is so richly and intensely colored, in contrast to the relative neutrals of Buffy and Angel's skin, hair and clothes. The dark shadows cutting across Buffy's torso and around the figures give them depth and solidity in contrast to the flat background, but the shadows also link the figures visually to the leading in the stained glass. It's a deceptively simple little icon but there's a lot of "there there" the more I look at it.

And don't even get me started on crazycordy's beautifully subtle Faith AC set.

Some of of my icons are doing fairly well and I confess that makes me happy; after so many gen icon sets, doing a Buffy set was like a homecoming.  When I was making the icons I had a "concept" for the AC set and put a lot of energy into it, but ironically the Category set, which I spent relatively less time on, is doing better, as it should. I think it came out more interesting and it's one of the better Category sets I've done.

Voting for Challenge 66 of slayerstillness is up right NOW - and once again I have been absolutely abysmal at participation lately. (Which is dumb because I have all sorts of flower textures and imagery that I could have drawn on.) But if I didn't enter I can at least vote and encourage y'all to to do the same.

And voting for Round 17 of btvsats20in20 is also up NOW, and this one I did participate in, with delays. And I have to say I'm pretty happy with my set. It's not showy, the icons are more "naturalistic" but I'm happy with how they came out. But I think "naturalistic" is a pretty good description of the entries overall by sweet_lyri, emmatheslayer, vanishingspirit and crazycordy .The icons are "subtle" and "unshowy" in the best way, because it really forced me to stop and look at them, to pay attention to the details. And I love that. There's a lot of "there there" but you're not being stabbed in the eye with it.  No desperate "Look at me, look at me!" but rather an assured, "Oh, there you are. Yes, come in."

Don't forget there are three separate voting posts: 10 THEMES, CATEGORY SETS, and ARTISTS CHOICE SET

Question: Is it weird that I am willing to pimp the heck out of voting for icontests here (even ones I don't participate in) but never got onto LJ once to promote voting for La'Porsha Renae in American Idol?  I did that on facebook and it was like, I wanted to keep my fandoms separate? Or - I don't know. It was a learning experience. I never watched the show before and thank god it's over, I wouldn't want to do that again. Sheesh. The partisanship, the anger, the racial and sexual slurs, the nonsensical rationalizations...it all made buffyverse fan wars feel like a cakewalk in comparison.

PS to velvetwhip : I see you over there voting!  *lol*

For btvsats20in20 Round 17.  Many thanks as always to my Beta and Muse velvetwhip:

Teasers:        

Cat 2 nominated for Best BtVS Icon ("Something to Sing About") Round 13 wicked_awards, 2016:

10 Themes
Angst	Black	Content	Faceless	Clock
Smile	Levels	NS + Text	Far Crop	Not Human *
5 Category |SING US A SONG **
Cat 1	Cat 2	Cat 3	Cat 4	Cat 5
5 Artist's Choice
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3	AC 4	AC 5

* Not Human: There were no episodes this season in which Buffy was "not human" (a la Vamp!Buffy in "Nightmares"), and because we haven't been informed at this point in canon that Slayer powers have demonic origin (aka the writers pulled it out of their derrieres ) I went with Angel vamping out to feed on Buffy in "Graduation Day 2".

** Category Inspiration: "Breathe (2am)" by Anna Natick: I decided to focus on the episode "Anne: for this set.
'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe


Alts:                      1 - 6


                         7 - 11

* bangel_4e has offered to delay the deadline for Round 17 of btvsats20in20 until Monday and it is all my fault - AGAIN - so I do apologize to the folks who actually got their gorgeous sets in on time: crazycordy, vanishingspirit, emmatheslayer, debris4spike and sweet_lyri.

* Thank you to whoever nominated me for "Favorite Creative Artist (Buffy Fandom)" at the 2016 Fanatic Fanfic Multi-Fandom Awards! I had never heard of the site before and I'm ticked pink and blue and orange and ever color Crayola makes. I have no idea how to tell you to vote for me because I cannot figure out their website for the life of me. If anyone here does please let me know? Voting closes tomorrow and I just found out about it. ETA: Voting starts April 11 (thank you velvetwhip for that update!) Speaking of voting and awards:

* Voting for the Willowy Goodness Awards has been extended to APRIL 3RD due to a relative lack of votes - thank you velvetwhip for reminding me to vote! It's a shame that voting is low because there is no lack of quality in the nominee roster.

[NEVER FORGET....]

1 - 5

6 - 10

Alts:

11 - 15        

* bangel_4e's Buffy/Bangel set is much more gorgeous-er, of course, be sure to check it out. Especially since it's apparently her last (for a while.) But then again all the other sets submitted for Round 2 thus far are well-nigh awesome and deserve your attention.

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request.

~ If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options than I do, by all means please ask first.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Yes, there are ties that need to be broken at whedon_elite but  setentpet has cleverly decided not to reveal what they are. She's simply requesting more people vote at the original post, which only heightens the suspense in my opinion.  Well played, indeed. Now goest thou and vote. ASAP.

Speaking of voting, only 13 ballots have been cast at Round 16 of btvsats20in20, which is kind of sad. Do you understand what that means? Never mind the long hours spent slaving over a hot stove in front of a computer making icons, that means only 13 or so people have appreciated bangel_4e's super-adorable Lorne banners for the round, and that just ain't right!

 So I'll make it easy for you to join in the fun:   THEMES       CATEGORY ICONS & SETS   ARTISTS' CHOICE ICONS & SETS

BTW, the rules forbid me from promoting my own work so I wouldn't and won't. However there is nothing to technically forbid me from saying that Set #1 in the AC sets deserves more looks than it's gotten. And I don't know the artist all that well beyond a few exchanges here on LJ and I won't even say their name. I just think it's a nifty set. And this is NOT to take anything away from any of the other wonderful sets. The rest of the competition?  I'm pretty cool with so far. I'd always like to do better than I'm doing but hopefully that will just push me to improve. (Once again I feel I've hit that "brick wall" stage of things. Or maybe I just keep running into different parts of the same damn wall.)

Weirdly enough, I am actually allowed to promote my own work when it comes to voting for Viewer's Choice at the rwsawards but I really haven't because...I like my own poster for "Closure" and am thrilled that it was nominated, but boiiko and Restfield's (aka rbfvid) entries deserve to be in the lead. Both of those posters are the total package in terms of aesthetic and technical merit.

I have no opinion to offfer on the Reader's Choice section - there is a list of terrific work, many by people I know, love and respect, and really not a bad one in the bunch. So you're on your own there. But do vote while you have the time. It takes but a minute.

For btvsats20in20 Round 16. Many thanks to my wonderful beta-Muse velvetwhip!

Teasers:    

[The knowledge gained from a computer, is, uh, it... it has no, no texture, no, no context.]

10 Themes
Center Text	Party	Shadowed Profile	Personification	Plain Background
Bright Yellow	Dream	Flower Texture	Touch of Color	Fiery
5 Category |TELL YOUR STORY ICONING
1.The Beginning	2.Conflict	3.Climax	4.Resolution	5.The End
5 Artist's Choice
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3	AC 4	AC 5

I consider IRYJ to be one of the most underrated episodes of the series.  Sorry, but I do not get the hate. It's got the introduction of Jenny Calender (did I mention I'm a G/J shipper?); and right off the bat foreshadows the idea that she is not what she claims to be; some great dialogue; a Willow-centric episode; Buffy looking out for Willow's welfare (she was only concerned when she realized Willow didn't actually know this "Malcolm") and the first instance in the series of me being truly afraid for Willow and her proving that she's smarter and more resolute than I gave her credit for.

And some of the stuff about computers and the internet turned out to be rather uncomfortably true.

Alts/extras:

  1 - 7

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request.

~ If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options than I do, by all means please ask first.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

[BANNERS AND ICONS INSIDE THE GALLERY.....]

 

I love how the neutral background makes the icons really pop. I confess I didn't really appreciate teragramm's Wesley/Lilah icon until I saw it on TT's banner. Check out the rest of the winners and banners here.  My entries:

1 - 5

As per usual, 1 & 2 are not the ones I would have picked to be winners. Those were the two I looked at and thought "oh crap, I wish I could do better than that. Ah, nobody will give those two a second glance."  Especially since I rarely icon W/O & W/T. And I just adore the old-fashionedness of Oz's gesture.

Re: the Buffy & Willow icon, I went back and forth between #5 & 14 for the longest time (ie an hour or so) because I love the retro coloring of 14, especially the blue/white curtain in the background. (The pattern is a texture by lookslikerain. Thank goodness for the off-white curtains in the screencap.)

Alts/extras:

6 - 11

12 - 14

Somewhat off-topic and spreading out my 15 minutes of fame past tolerable limits: I am very amused by the fact that excerpts of my conversation with buffy comics cover artist Steve Morris on DeviantArt re: his cover for S10.24  has shown up on both Slayalive and Buffyboards. My conversations with him have turned me into a fan btw; he always answers any questions or comments I've had and is a delight to talk to about the process of making covers, his inspirations etc.

The memorably named Voyeur and Hairy Eyeball categories of rwsawards are open NOW. These are the only two categories of RWSA that are voted on by the readers/viewers. My poster for herself_nyc's "Closure" is one of the nominees but all the nominees are amazing. Go vote and make your favorite artist and author happy!

* Thank you to the voters at actress_ic Challenge 111 for voting my Lillian Gish icon Best Crop, and congratulations to the other winners erinm_4600, dragonydreams, vampgirl_nisha, ciuciuvaraworld, sandy79 and mops1980! This is my first time entering this icontest and it's very encouraging.
Thanks as ever to my darling beta-Muse velvetwhip for her input. My entries this round are dedicated to her because of our shared love of silent films; and she requested the Alice Joyce icon, introducing me to an actress I'd never heard of before.

1-4 are my entries, 5-6 the alts. 1, 2 & 5: Lillian Gish; 5: Dorothy Mackaill; 4, 6: Alice Joyce
        1  - 6
Winner, Best Crop

Resources: "Frames" on 1 - 3 by scoobyatemysnax;  floral prints on 4 -6 by colorfilter.

Speaking of betas, the final slate of nominations for Round 11 of rwsawards have been posted and THANK YOU to the darling person who surprised me with a Best Beta nomination!  I understand these awards are judged (rather than popular vote) and thank goodness; becaus I can find so many of my favorite fics of the last year in any given category, I'd be paralyzed with indecision. I don't envy the judges one bit; the nominations slate is a Who's Who of some of the very best writers and artists in Buffyverse fandom right now. I'd name off all my friends who have been nominated but we'd be here all day so, trust, you're better off checking it out for yourself.

Feb 3rd is the deadline to send nominations to darkgoddessgege for Round 11 of  the rwsawards, so it's your last chance to nominate your favorite authors and artists in buffyverse and SPN fandom.  Check out the list of current nominees here.

I noticed that at the moment there is only nomination in the "My Marker" (best beta) category, foxstarreh. It's possible that there are other nominations pending in that category but if you have a muse who has shaped your work to be the best it can be, by all means give them a little love with a nomination. Betas are unsung heros, serving as muses, editors, collaborators, teachers, sounding boards, task masters and selection committees.

I wanted to nominate velvetwhip in this category for all the work she does as a beta for my icons and artwork, but she has already maxed out on the number of nominations she can receive. As well she should. But it's worth pointing out that art betas are just as eligible to be nominated in this category as writing betas. (And yes, I have confirmed that with darkgoddessgege.) I am well-nigh certain that I'm not the only person using a beta-muse for help with my artwork because all artists (visual artists, writers, etc) need feedback. Art doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Anyone who knows teragramm knows what a wonderful, talented artist and supportive, all around nice person she is, and so the news that she's been named the new mod at whedon_elite is very happy news because I can't think of anyone better!  Let's join setentpet in giving teragramm our best wishes!

[OH LOOK ITS THE LOVER.....]

1 - 4

Arranged roughly from most painterly/stylized to photographic/realistic.  I'm really pleased with how #1 and it's alts (below) turned out.  I layered several textures by lookslikerain that give it the look of a post-impressionist oil pastel by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas or Toulouse-Latrec.

Alts and extras:

5 - 10

I couldn't resist stealing teragramm's idea to make the Buffyverse ladies redheads. (Teragramm's are much superior, of course.)

       11 - 15

        16 - 20

....because HERE be 3 tiebreakers for Round 15 of btvsats20in20. And we all know how feliciacraft feels about tiebreaker voting but darn it, it's a happening thing and if it leads to more of her brilliantly satirical stanzas I make no apologies.

And HERE be voting for Challenge 135 "Red Heads" of whedon_elite; 33 - count' em, 33! - gorgeous icons to choose from for 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Best Crop, Best Color and Most Creative.  Most rounds of WE lately haven't gotten enough entries to warrent the full voting slate; this time everyone came out to play and they brought their A-game.

Voting is such sweet sorrow.

And totally off-topic:

* I've read Buffy comic S10 #23 and overall I quite enjoyed it.  I may at some point even choose to discuss it.

* Things I didn't know I needed in life until I saw them: I came across two Orphan Black/Buffy videos today on YouTube by Orphan Crack:
  -- Orphan Black credits Buffy-style by Orphan Crack; spoilers for all three seasons.
      I love how the credits list the characters rather than the actors. (Although it would be funny to see "tatiana maslany" repeated)
  -- Orphan Black + Buffy musical episode sets the OB characters into the episode "Once More With Feeling", specifically the number "I've got a
     feeling" and it works suprisingly well. The biggest giggle is Felix being assigned Xander's lines.

[Gallery One....]

    1 - 2

#1 - Lens and optical flare light effects by daWiiZ on DeviantArt. The challenge this round was "levels" so I layered two or three light textures over one another, then created the repeat in ipiccy's collage setting. I also wanted a background that would suit the outer space setting of lookslikerain's Firefly/Serenity icons.

#2 - The base image of torn paper and the grunge overlay are by AmaranthusCaudatus on DeviantArt.  Thank you teragramm for the link to this resource!

*Who am I making fun of here? Myself, obviously.

[Gallery Two...]

All banners 990x300, click to view full-size.

    3 - 4
Tatiany Maslany, Alison Brie and Sarah-MIchelle Gellar

    5 - 6

    7 - 8


*************

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)
~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request, they are not "bases".
~ If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options than I do, by all means please ask first.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Next projects on my plate:  icons for whedon_elite, slayerstillness and actress_ic;
                                           fiction posters for velvetwhip, kerkevik_2014 and dragonyphoenix

1) For slayerstillness Challenge 60 vote for your favorite icon for the third place position.

BTW, did you vote at btvsats20in20 Round 15 yet?  Good.  Now have you signed up for Round 16 yet?

2) And by the by, did you know that dragonyphoenix posted the artwork she commissioned from me for her excellent Anya/Snap crossover fic, The Letters (84 Charing Cross Road)?  (TTH post here.) But you will have to read the story to find it because  it's intergrated into the text. And FYI, the actual text of the artworks is entirely her concept. I just followed marching orders.

At AO3 she also included a marvelous story banner by Restfield aka rbfvid.

3) My friend kerkevik_2014 has been writing up a storm - a very quiet storm that snuck up on me and took me entirely by surprise.  His latest is a Buffy/Faith fic, "Casablanca" (not to be confused with shapinglight's fic) that is poignant and mournful and like all of his work is a prose-poem unlike anyone else's.

Last year I sort of asked him to write Buffy more often (actually I may have whined about it a little, but never mind that.)  He's come through while remaining true to himself in his own beautiful way.  This story is actually part of the birthday gift for elisi, the 22'verse that includes stories of Spike and Illyri, Riley Finn, Xander and Buffy, etc. Also worth a look - a charming, gentle Tara, Dawn fic (post The-Gift): Like Seeing Your Very Own Self Looking Back at You.

See, not every post I put up is longer than the Constitution. Some are only as long as the Gettysburg Address. "Short and sweet" is a relative thing.

[THE GALLERY AWAITS.....]

Round 13, "The Pack"

    1 - 3


      4 - 7

Crossovers with the movie "Possession" starring SMG.

Round 15: (Buffy-heavy at first. Of course. This is me, this is my brain on the Buffyverse.)
             8 - 14

            15 - 21

    

              22 - 28
After I cleaned the cap up I finally saw that the picture on locker behind Buffy is vintage comic book art, possibly a blow-/print of a Roy Lichtenstein piece, with the SDHS "Razorbacks" pennant covering the eyes of a pretty blonde woman in the picture. Meta commentary on the storyline or just an inside joke?  The fact that we see Cordy blindfolded later and no one can "see" Marcy Ross suggests either reading is possible. It seems to coincidental to be a, well, a coincidence.

         29 - 34

          35 - 40

        41 - 45
The flashbacks in the episode look great as screencaps but they're hard to work with; they're overlit as opposed to the rest of the early seasons material, which tends to be underlit.

      46 - 49

Also, I need to take some tutorials on working with skin tones for people of color, especially dark tones and not turn beautiful deep browns into weird shades of orange-red, or flat black. (We've just acquired PS btw, so I'm still fumbling along in ipiccy.)  #49: for the theme "green" I thought, well, I'll just tint the entire icon to go with the chalkboard behind her. Except that it doesn't look very good. Green skin? Usually associated with sickness or aliens? I should have known better. Plus, "black" skin reacts differently to tinting than "white" skin does.*
   
But it's the second association that bothers me. Our culture has a nearly long history of excluding black characters and actors from science fiction, horror and fantasy in literature, film and tv, except as background filler or literal "space aliens", demons and monsters. People of color as people just did not exist, with count-on-one-hand exceptions.

This may be changing now, I guess - slowly - but this is the reality I grew up with and "it's starting to get better" (by whatever yardstick you want to measure "better") doesn't undo decades of absence. So it just makes me uncomfortable, even if I don't "mean anything by it", I'd rather not go in that direction.**

*    I realize I'm still using phrases like "black" and "white" that were au courant when I was growing up...in the 1970's and '80's.

** Using my personal comfort as the yardstick here is arguably problematic.

*****

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)
~ Icons with blank space can be personalized upon request, they are not "bases". If you wish to personalize because you have PS and more font or fx options
   than I do, by all means ask.

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

A collection of "random" pieces I have loved this year - click images or go to original links to view full size:
(ETA: This was a post that was meant to go on the buffyversetop5 and I hit the send button a couple of minutes too late. *Note to self: learn time management techniques!*)



1) Birthday Banner for me by spikesredqueen (February)
SRQ knows my love of the Buffyverse ladies. This pairs beautifully with teragramm's WInged Buffy banner, no? And well-done manips never fail to impress me (because I've seen far too many bad ones).

MORE after the cut:


[STEP INSIDE THE GALLERY....]




2) I Walk Alone art picspam set and banners by comlodge for seasonal_spuffy Round 18 (May)
comlodge took the "simple" flipbook concept and turned into something incredibly sophisticated;  then she converted merged the images at my request into a single banner for my LJ. I know of few artists (if any?) who can combine luminousity and grunge effects in a single image.




3) Look Both Ways by boiiko - the rightful winner of the seasonal_spuffy Round 18 Banner Poll, and the only banner for the SS banner poll I've seen done in a hand-painted style. (It was actually done on computer, but it sure fooled me.) Almost elegantlly spare, the composition is deceptively "simple" and packed with layers of complicated emotions. More, please.


4) Out of My MInd from the btvs episode poster series by no-literally on tumblr. This is an ongoing project and every one of the posters is a masterpiece of graphic design; but I chose this one to display because of the incredibly clean, simple graphic that, like the other images on this list, is deceptively complex. Look close at the text and you'll see Spike's dream of kissing Buffy, floating above Spike's head - the dream and the dreamer visualized.



5) Wrecked from the btvs episode poster series by maradyeries on tumblr. , Haunting, jaw-droppingly gorgeous work in the style of "modern-day aesthetic" gifspams popular on tumblr right now.