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red_satin_dollWhat do you do if you're trying to make icons for the upcoming round of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
btvsats20in20 and feeling horribly uninspired? AND you've been feeling exposed and tender the last several months, as your skin has been partly scraped away? If you're me, you go back to a fanart you made two months ago (just after Round 3 of 20in20), tinker with it a bit and decide you're finally ready to show it off:
(teaser image)
btvsats20in20 and feeling horribly uninspired? AND you've been feeling exposed and tender the last several months, as your skin has been partly scraped away? If you're me, you go back to a fanart you made two months ago (just after Round 3 of 20in20), tinker with it a bit and decide you're finally ready to show it off:
(teaser image)The Night/Lost in the Woods (click all images below to enlarge)
ETA 01/03/15 Thank you![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rbfvid for rec'ing my art at buffyversetop5!
I forgot to mention earlier that the trees in the background are a photograph I took of the woods around my yard at night, adjusted for color and saturation.
ETA 01/03/15 Thank you
rbfvid for rec'ing my art at buffyversetop5!I forgot to mention earlier that the trees in the background are a photograph I took of the woods around my yard at night, adjusted for color and saturation.
01Warm palette or cool palette? I like them both.
02This piece has three "godparents": It was inspired specifically by some comments pickamix made about Buffy's wounds some time back that got me thinking about my own swirl of fuzzy feelings that I'm reluctant to examine. What IS going on when I look at Buffy in this moment? Sympathy of course, a desire to tuck a blanket around her in a "motherly" way; self-identification for my own psyche and wanting her to have the things I feel I don't (comfort, sympathy, nourishment.) But - is there a sensual component as well? Auto-erotica, masochism turned outward into sadism? All of the above? Is that unhealthy or merely human?
Hard to sort out what it all means. Easier to just make the art.
pickamix made about Buffy's wounds some time back that got me thinking about my own swirl of fuzzy feelings that I'm reluctant to examine. What IS going on when I look at Buffy in this moment? Sympathy of course, a desire to tuck a blanket around her in a "motherly" way; self-identification for my own psyche and wanting her to have the things I feel I don't (comfort, sympathy, nourishment.) But - is there a sensual component as well? Auto-erotica, masochism turned outward into sadism? All of the above? Is that unhealthy or merely human?Hard to sort out what it all means. Easier to just make the art.
The line of text comes from Morphine's song "The Night"(Lila), which also inspired some of my Tara icons in Round 3. It's really a perfect fit for the women of the Buffyverse in general, all of them ordinary and extraordinary all at once; but I've identified that song with Buffy most especially ever since I watched the series: "You're a folk tale / the unexplainable...."
This is also dedicated to
bone_dry1013 for the many, many enjoyable hours (and I do mean hours) we spent last year talking about our mutual love for Buffy on her blog, dissecting her psyche, her pains and burdens with a fine tooth comb. It does feel a bit like sadism, somehow, when I love her so much; how can it be so comforting and discomforting all at once?One of the most disconcerting things about this image is that when I lightened the screencap, which was quite dark, I really saw how odd Sarah's eyes look, each one focused in a slightly different direction. How is that possible, even? I have no idea but I can think of few images from American tv in which someone looks more truly injured, and utterly lost. In fact it's the complete opposite to the previous of image of Buffy in that episode, unconscious on the ground after her fight with the Ubervamp, blood spattered across her face and yet looking impossibly glamorous.
03I'd considered adding images of other girls throughout the series, or specifically focused on S7, but I preferred for once to keep this relatively uncluttered. The trees in the background are my own photograph taken in my yard and that I've used before in icons but never in a larger piece. I added the lyric fragment after I saw the "bar" of light that the filter provided across Buffy's face; serendipity. I adore old-fashioned typewriter fonts and the fact that this is "rough around the edges" makes it a perfect fit for the image of Buffy.
I made other versions that were cropped more tightly, cutting off the bottom, but decided I preferred to leave a little "breathing room" around Buffy visually. I also made lighter, brighter versions but I felt the background patterns competed too much with the image of Buffy. I also had a go at something on "meta", Buffy's monologue from Becoming, Pt2 superimposed over the image. I'm not sure it really works the way I wanted. (Going back to the original typewriter font might have been a better idea?)
04I have no idea what that stuff that looks like lettering in the upper right corners of these is. (It's not text.) It seems to be a combination of the color filters I used, the tree image, and Joyce's curtains plus a bit of sharpening. A "pattern" popped out and I liked the mysterious/ambiguous quality of it.
Tell me what you think of all this - the art, my psyche - , while I fix Miss Summers a hot meal. Civilized concrit and feedback is warmly appreciated.
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Date: 2014-10-21 03:31 am (UTC)*hands you a mug of dark chocolate cocoa and tucks a warm blanket around you*
Gabrielle
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Date: 2014-10-21 03:35 am (UTC)*snuggles into blanket*
ETA: I meant, of course we prefer the same one. And THANK YOU, very very much.
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Date: 2014-10-21 04:04 am (UTC)::admires shiny art::
And some very nice meta to top it all off! I do love that last image with that quite from Becoming.
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Date: 2014-10-23 08:04 pm (UTC)Oh thank you very much for compliments!
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Date: 2014-10-21 07:17 am (UTC)I have done some icons ... in fact about 1/2 way through ... those first few were basic colour use ... now I'm stuck for inspiration!
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Date: 2014-10-23 07:54 pm (UTC)I have done some icons ... in fact about 1/2 way through ... those first few were basic colour use ... now I'm stuck for inspiration!
Halfway through? You're way ahead of me sweetie; I have a handful of icons, TONS of variations of each, but nothing cohesive and not even close to half done.
Starry_night provided a link to the 20inspirations comm that inspired the rainbow prompt; there really is a gorgeous range of styles, including some beautiful muted sets that are to my liking. (I adore richly saturated color but in my own work I tend towards muted tones and even earth tones, go figure.)
http://20inspirations.livejournal.com/tag/%2331
The downside is that they are of such high quality that I looked at them and feel more than a little intimidated!
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Date: 2014-10-21 07:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-23 08:02 pm (UTC)A suggestion, what about using Justified instead of Centered as text alignment? It always seem to do the trick when I want the text in my graphics to appear more imposing&elegant. ;)
Do you mean having the text wrap within the boundaries of the image automatically (left or right justified)? I assume you're using PS? ipiccy is rather unwieldily when it comes to text and this frustrates me, in addition to the limited amount of fonts I can use. It doesn't "wrap" to remain within the borders of the image, I have to manually hit the spacebar when I want the text to continue, otherwise it just keeps going in a single long stream.
And a lot of these fonts have a huge amount of space between lines, so I often end up making each sentence or line a separate text box (or layer.) I've done a bit more with font since I made these banners and it I did it again I'd stretch them horizontally.
Does PS automatically wrap/justify text?
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Date: 2014-10-23 08:32 pm (UTC)/Does PS automatically wrap/justify text?/ - I don't know about PS, with Corel you can choose what kind of text alignment you want other than choosing the usual option of font size, bold/ cursive/underlined, etc.
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Date: 2014-10-23 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-23 09:38 pm (UTC)And keep it up, my dear, don't lose heart! :)
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Date: 2014-10-23 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-23 03:17 am (UTC)You know I have an unhealthy admiration for general!Buffy - thanks to SMG's performance and intensity.
Oh god yes. This is maybe up there with the images of her on the stairs in Afterlife, or maybe worse, because not at all pretty to look at. Those moments when Buffy is holding herself together with superhuman strength, trying so hard to be strong for everyone else because it's expected of her: Becoming; Prophecy Girl; cracking jokes at her own expense about "love doctor Buffy is not in the house" in IWMTYL; Anne, Helpless, Afterlife, Showtime...Sarah nails it again and again and again.
The Buffyverse does not exist without Buffy.
And who among us can't identify with those pressures to "be strong" past the point of endurance?
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Date: 2014-10-21 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-22 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 12:00 pm (UTC)I really love the first two. The text suits them so perfectly.
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Date: 2014-10-22 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 01:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-23 03:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-21 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-23 03:27 am (UTC)Tuesday, October 21
Date: 2014-10-21 10:12 pm (UTC)Here from buffyversetop5
Date: 2015-01-03 05:23 pm (UTC)Re: Here from buffyversetop5
Date: 2015-01-03 05:33 pm (UTC)I also posted the top piece along with some different art for pickamix at
You must be reading my mind or something because I'm trying to put together a year end art post and am SO behind. (And yes, I am woefully remiss in not posting at top 5. I look forward to doing so this week.)
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Date: 2015-01-03 08:22 pm (UTC)I like how she's faded and the background's faded and the text is one of the clearest objects in the image, but I find the text going over her face disconcerting.
And now looking back I'm liking the top of the big images because the difference between the tree branches and the night sky is more distinct.
Here from Buffyverse top 5
Date: 2015-01-03 08:42 pm (UTC)Re: Here from Buffyverse top 5
Date: 2015-01-04 02:10 am (UTC)I forgot to add in the post that the trees in the background are my own photograph, taken in the woods around my yard. I fiddled with the color and saturation a lot to get them that deep blue color before I added it as a layer.
Re: Here from Buffyverse top 5
Date: 2015-01-04 09:54 pm (UTC)Isn't it wonderful, this ability to use bits of many photographs to create something entirely new. :D
Re: Here from Buffyverse top 5
Date: 2015-01-04 11:09 pm (UTC)Sometimes it leads one off into an entirely new direction with a piece.
*nods* I experimented with blending the image of Buffy from Nightmares into this; it didn't quite work but it led to several other interesting images and icons and a lot of my art that combines mulitple images of one actor, or two different ones, to "tell a story". (Including the "Sky warrior" icon *points to icon*)
Isn't it wonderful, this ability to use bits of many photographs to create something entirely new.
It's utterly addictive!
Here from Buffyverse top 5 as well :-)
Date: 2015-01-03 10:37 pm (UTC)I'm really enjoying all the
Re: Here from Buffyverse top 5 as well :-)
Date: 2015-01-05 07:56 pm (UTC)Thank you! At the time I couldn't decide which I liked better either (obviously); since then I've decided I prefer the first one with the warmer tones.
And I agree with you on the long quote one - I like the idea more than the execution of it. I tried redoing it with the same transparent typewrier font in the other banners but it just didn't work IMO.
And every round