Oddments and Endments: Let's Just Cut to the Chase Here

 Voting up NOW for two icontests that usually announce winners fairly quickly so head on over without delay:

1) otherworldlyric Challenge 204.  Nine terrific entries using the Spice Girls' song "Wannabe". Not that you'd know that from the elegance of the entries.

Entries for Challenge 205, Cher's "Believe" due July 3, midnight.  (Remember Kathy in "Living Conditions"? Yep, it's that song. And hey, I know everyone made fun of Kathy's love for that song but - I liked it, ok?  And I still like it. Yeah I said it.  But, I digress...)

2) whedon_elite Challenge 120. Votes to be counted later today or tormorrow 'cause fassy does not waste time, y'all. I might have mentioned this one previously; it was an amazingly fun challenge to particiapte in. 40 entries to choose from, which is the most outside of a 20in20 I've had to vote for at one time, and believe me I could cast that ballot five times and come up with completely different choices each time.

Challenge 121's guidelines are up now, and it's back to the normal type of challenge; deadline is July 12 at 3pm EST.

And now that you've voted, here's some treats for playing along, but first an apology: I am sorely belated in congratulating fassy and sweet_lyri for their truly gorgeous winning entries in round 119! Check out the winners and award banners here, and the full slate of entries here. Because of the small number of entries there is only 1st, 2nd and 3rd plus Mod's Choice.

Teasers:

  

The background image for these banners is a photo I took last year of a bare tree branch in a local cove; I layered the image over itself to multiply the brances and fill the space. If you look at the full-size versions you can just see the cricket on the right side of the image. That cricket probably made the photograph for me.

I only entered one icon for this round: "Buffy Blue" (#1) - but of course I have alts. You know me, right?  And yes, I'm still playing with the fabulous images of SMG from Greg Gorman's S5 promo shoot, with no apologies.

    1 - 5

  
6 -9

The challenge was "Color Coded" - match the first letter in a character's name with the first letter of a color. So it could have been simple, as here, "Buffy Blue", or I could have gone more complicated, ie "Buffy / Boston University Red" (yes, that is actually a color. I looked on Wiki. There are tons of colors listed there and people get paid just to name these things? I want in on that gig.)

I went with 1 because it has one dominant color, easy-peasy; but I also love the "ghostly" quality of #2-3. Very meta in terms of the end of the end of S5 - beginning S6. These remind me of an antique etching or pen and ink drawing, and in fact the color of #5 was directly inspired by the color of walnut ink.  I hope kikimay will approve of the warm-tone variations.

As often as always, my fondest appreciation to velvetwhip, the bestest Muse a girl could ask for.