Your Monday (VERY Early) Dose of Fandom Positivity, Pimpage and Squee - PGoM style!

[red_satin_doll]

Any resemblance between this image and Edvard Munch's The Vampire is quite unintentional.
Just be grateful I didn't pull out any of my "Excedrin Headache" advert jokes. You're welcome.

** Cast your votes in slayerstillness Challenge 33; the deadline is Tuesday and there are 27 great entries this round!  Then take some time to admire the wonderful winning entries and pretty banners by comlodge for Challenge 29, and by tempertemper for Challenge 32.

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** Then cast your votes for your favorite/best icons in Round 4 of btvsats20in20 - and don't forget to vote in all of the categories: 10 Themes, Category (Shapes) and Artist's Choice.  Voting closes on Thursday, October 9th, so spread the word and let your f'listies know.


I've noticed that there are 21-23 "participants" (voters) listed and not to get persnickity on y'all, but - 23 votes? There's 12 artists, so if every one of the artists votes, plus at least a couple of their friends - that should still be a lot more voters. Now I know for a fact that at least a handful of my friends have voted because my friends are awesome and I hang with the bestest people. However, my nearest and dearest can't be expected to pick up all the slack so go to, people, and make some fan artists happy. It's an easy thing to do.

And if anyone out there is still hesitant to vote because you "don't know art" - tell me the name and address of the person who instilled that abject nonsense into your heads and I will go after them with a shovel. Actually, I'll scold and shake my finger at them. But I promise I will be merciless.

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Banners by dawnofme

** buffyversetop5 Halloween Classic Recs Edition is right around the corner already - how is that even possible? Four days for you to bring your all-time favorite recs of fics, vids, graphics, anything and everything fandom has produced in all the Whedon fandoms! All time periods before 2014 are eligible. Meaning, anything you didn't get to include in the January edition can be included here. I missed last year's classic edition (due to house fire and various other life things that took priority and can be forgiven) but the January edition was a great party, so I don't want to miss this round.

In addition to the banners by dawnofme, check out the snaggable icons by ruuger, kathyh, amavel_bel and eyesthatslay going all the way back to 2005 - the epitome of classic, classy and fun.

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I just voted!


Gabrielle

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

YAY! *flings confetti*

[tempertemper.livejournal.com]

Your enthusiasm for fan arts is infectious, my dear! :)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Just doing my job!

In case you didn't already see it - respectfully snagging your W/T first place winner. I was astonished to realize I don't have anything of yours in my icon gallery and that particular one is just beyond the beyond.

[tempertemper.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted! (LJ won't let me reply there because your comment got screened.) So glad you like this one so much :)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I do, very much so. I've been thinking about getting a new one for a while but that one is just IT.

And I was astonished to realize I had nothing of yours in my userpics gallery (although your awards banners are on my profile page, but that's not quite the same in terms of me getting to show it off to others.)

[kikimay]

Voted. (This voting thing is officially a drug, plus you get to discover lovely icons everytime which is great. Icons are pretty)

Love the banner! I love the coloring of it and the font you used. It feels so young, like a teenage scribbling in the diary.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

This voting thing is officially a drug

It's hardcore, baby. That's the reason for the icon tests - would I work so hard to make these icons if the prospect of prizes didn't lay at the end? No. The silly thing is, do I need prizes? Not really.

Love the banner!

Thank you Kiki! Full disclosure: I had several alts to choose from but reworked this one just last night very consciously with you in mind for the colors.

[kikimay]

Glad to be a source of inspiration XD

I think that it's normal to want the prizes. We want our things to be appreciated and that's it. But you should know that your art is really appreciated here anyway and personally I always wait for your art posts. Keep going like that. *___*

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

i showed this set to a friend of mine who has only seen the first couple of eps of btvs in season 1 and she LOVED the AC1 icon - she got it on a meta level without knowing the context.

That's the biggest prize there is. But it is human nature - or my nature - to feel insecure.. It;s not as though I lack validation from my friends!

*HUGS YOU TIGHT*

(did you read the Buffy/Dru fic kwritten wrote for snickfic's prompt btw? AMAZING.)

[kikimay]

(did you read the Buffy/Dru fic kwritten wrote for snickfic's prompt btw? AMAZING.)

I read it and I love it. Buffy and Dru mirror each others in so many ways. In a way Dru is Buffy's negative. What she could have been in different circumstances.

Your icons are very meta-ish.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I read it and I love it. Buffy and Dru mirror each others in so many ways. In a way Dru is Buffy's negative. What she could have been in different circumstances.

Exacty. I was talking to itsnotmymind last year (just before the apartment fire I think - I started making Buffy - Dru pic spam and saved to the computer that burned up); about the parallels between Spike in School Hard as the leader of a gang and the demon gang leader in Bargaining and then the Dru-Buffy connection hit me very hard and I'd never noticed it before: Dru as Angel's "masterpiece", Buffy as Willow's "masterpiece" (for what greater achievement could there be than raising the dead? And if the show had been serious about Angelus, how much more likely that he would have tried to make Buffy his latest "masterpiece"?), how neatly Dru's "it's dark where the slayer is" fits Buffy in Bargaining; how they are both connected by Angel and Spike, both used abandoned by men who are drawn to them and claim to love them; both metaphorical mother-figures, both seers and "madwomen".

The Dark Princess and the Golden Warrior-Goddess.

Your icons are very meta-ish.

Thank you sweetie. I actually do some things just for the prettiness! *lol* And sometimes my concepts get in the way of good design. My eyes icon for this catagory would have been more interesting as an essay because I was trying to make that little image convey too much - and make the viewer work too hard, I think. When I "get it right" it's terrific and I'll spend the rest of my life trying to "get it right"

[kikimay]

And if the show had been serious about Angelus, how much more likely that he would have tried to make Buffy his latest "masterpiece"?

Personally I was thinking about that. Buffy was going to become Dru 2.0 in Angelus' mind, but she saved herself. It would be interesting to explore Dru as a mirror: Dru as the woman who didn't save herself.

how neatly Dru's "it's dark where the slayer is" fits Buffy in Bargaining; how they are both connected by Angel and Spike, both used abandoned by men who are drawn to them and claim to love them; both metaphorical mother-figures, both seers and "madwomen".

The Dark Princess and the Golden Warrior-Goddess.

OH GAWD THIS. Parallels are life, honestly. The possible scenarios are interesting and it could be interesting to explore the further connections in fics. (I'm thinking about my story Shanshu, my darkest one. I made Buffy kill Dru as a first act of her destruction of Angel ... sorry, my mind races)

Thank you sweetie. I actually do some things just for the prettiness! *lol* And sometimes my concepts get in the way of good design.

Prettyness is so important and pretty icons are so precious, but you often get that.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Excellent pimp post!

I got my votes in at SlayerStillness. Good luck to you and all the other participants.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thank you m'lady! (Is it that obvious I put stuff in ? *lol*)

Did you enter anything this round?

I'll be curious to see who the winners are, this is an interesting batch - a "quieter" subtle set overall, not much in the way of showy or flashy. Appropriate to the fall season? My first place vote was easy this time, everything else was up for grabs.

[snogged.livejournal.com]

No. I did not have a chance to enter.
Looking forward to knowing the winners though.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I was just NOW typing a message to you that the sign ups for round 5 of btvsats20in20* are open and I'd love to see you sign up - and you already have, hurrah!

*we GOTTA come up with an acronym for that comm, srsly

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Yes. I did sign up for that. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm also excited.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit nervous, but I'm also excited.

YOU'RE nervous? Whoa does that make me feel better knowing that (I mean, you have so much more experience in this; and you'll do something fabulous, I know) but I completely understand, as you well know. :)

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Um...I don't have any experience with 20in20. This will be my first one.
You're the pro here!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Me? Get out of the city, girlfriend. ;D

[ruuger]

Whoa, nostalgia... Those old BuffyverseTop5 icons really take me back. I was a total newbie in Buffy fandom in those days (in fact, I'm not entirely sure if I'd even seen S7 at that point yet) and I remember I felt really honored when yourlibrarian asked me if I'd make some icons for the community.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

i told yourlibrarian that yours and kathyh's icon's were probably my favorites of those sets - I'm in awe of the exceptional beauty and quality of them. (And they're nearly ten years old at this point?)

Now do explain to me again dear why you no longer make icons (or fan art in general?)

Thank you for peeking in and commenting!

[ruuger]

The main reason why for the last five years I haven't been making so much graphics is because I bought an apartment where my desktop was in the different room from the television and I couldn't use Paint Shop Pro on my netbook :) It could may now, though, since I've bought a proper laptop.

And I actually have been making graphics, but mainly just on request for big bangs and 'personal commissions'. It's been mostly The Mentalist artwork, though, since it just feels like no-one cares about Buffyverse fanworks anymore - or at least my fanworks. I've gotten exactly three comments to my Buffyfic this year (last year one of my BtVS fics didn't get a single comment), and the last time I did an icon/graphics request post, no-one requested BtVS graphics, which surprised me because before most of the requests have been Jossverse stuff.

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

I love the normal again banner. What program did you use?

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thank you sweetie! I have a couple of others with different crops and colors of the same cap I might still post.

And it's all ipiccy, except the initial crop and then final adjustments (incl signature) were done in Photobucket. I was trying to reproduce the effect of a PB filter but with better picture quality (aka disguise the pixelation). It's not exactly the same but I like the colors and light.

The "normal again" text is "sketch block" font in ipiccy. As you know, I can't keep track of exactly what I did with an image in ipiccy unless I write everything down (which I don't) so I'm not sure what setting I used for the word "again" for that coloring.

(I love talking art, now that I can understand at least 50% of the conversation. :)

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

the reason I asked is because it look like the exclusion setting in PS and I thought you had taken the plunge.

(I love talking art, now that I can understand at least 50% of the conversation. :) 50% isn't too shabby and I bet that in 6 months you will be up to at least 75% ~_^

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

The exclusion setting...hmmmm...

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/basics/shapes/add-subtract/

Oh I've been dying to be able to do things like that!

I'll consider that a compliment. No, for this one i didn't have to do any 'cutting' of the image, their was already a lot of negative space, and the coloring is of course inversion but then 'screen' coloration or something something adjusted for warmer colors and added a desaturated light leak at the crown of her head at about 50% opacity but erased the parts of the light that were beyond her head. Or something something. :P

I bet that in 6 months you will be up to at least 75% ~_^

I'll see your bet and raise you a nickel. :)

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

I have never tried anything like that tutorial. Exclusion can be used for many things but can sometimes look like a negative (kind of like your banner.)

Monday, October 6

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User rahirah referenced to your post from Monday, October 6 (http://su-herald.livejournal.com/751757.html) saying: [...] Normal Again - Buffy manip [...]