btvsats20in20 ROUND 6: WILLOW ROSENBERG

[red_satin_doll]

ETA 01/16/15: Round 6 Voting at btvsats20in20 open until Jan 18th. Thank you everyone who has voted and commented!

Many many thanks to velvetwhip for her boundless support and encouragement, for the brainstorming sessions and her absolutely invaluable Willow expertise!

This is the first time I've been comfortable enough to make Dark Willow icons; I've needed to tap into a little of that dark side apparently.


TEASERS:
     

10 Themes
Accessory	Purple	Quote	Reason	Profile
Out Of Character	Soft Glow	Bored	Outfit	Re-Cast**
5 Category |HOLIDAY TIMES
Cat 1	Cat 2	Cat 3	Cat 4	Cat 5
5 Artist's Choice
AC 1	AC 2	AC 3	AC 4	AC 5

* Reason: In 2014 I came out of the closet as a Buffy/Tara shipper. This year I'm coming out as a Buffy/Willow shipper...and by "ship" I mean "relationship" in the broadest sense.
I love Buffy. I love Willow. Their friendship was one of my favorite things about the show; it's not only central to btvs, it's absolutely essential - just as the friendships and love I've found in this fandom are likewise absolutely precious and essential to me. I want to celebrate and appreciate, not waste time mired in pointless and tone-deaf fandom wars.

** Aly Sheedy. (The Breakfast Club, War Games; she's adorable and quietly intense on this 1975 segment of the game show "To Tell The Truth", after her novel She Was Nice to Mice was published when she was all of 13 years old. It's a historical novel about Queen Elizabeth told from the POV of a mouse who lives at the castle. Which seems like a Willow Rosenberg type of project. Except that I suspect Willow would hide her manuscript away in a drawer because somebody laughed at it.)

Ironically Alyson Hannigan was already a "recast"  of Willow; Riff Regan played her in the unaired test pilot, but I couldn't find a decent photo of her to work with.



Alts/Extras:

  01-05
  I've never seen this image of Aly used in icons, and I have no idea why not; it's utterly adorable.


  06-07
The inspirations for my AC set. I wish both of these had come out better, and I couldn't find another theme to fit them in.


08
My alt Reason icon, and one of my favorite icons I've made this round. Buffy & Willow (or "Wiffy") fans unite!



09-12

13-14


  15-18

  19-22




23-26

23 was my alt Outfit icon; my entry version is a bit more visually arresting, and has a nice lesbian subtext (it could be an icon for an Impala/Willow shippy fic). But the alt version, with the mummy's withered face frozen in anguish, is sadder and more interesting on a meta level.  25 and 26 attempt to blend a quote from Reptile Boy with an image from Grave; it doesn't quite work because the context the image - a pile of burning books - is unclear.


27-28



This is the first round that I started by making the AC set; I've wanted to have an aesthetically coherent AC set ever since I saw spikesredqueen's pretty Cordelia AC set for Round 1.  So I collaged them together in a row as single images to apply text and effects to all the icons at a time. Then of course I proceded to make at least three more variations, and mixed and matched to come up with the final set of five.

As one does:

29-33


34-38


39-43


44-47

I used the "Oh my goddess" rather than the "White Willow" cap because I think the White Willow cap looks just plain silly.

Comments

[niki1988.livejournal.com]

awesome icons! Willow is the queen

Friday January 9

[livejournal.livejournal.com]

User audela referenced to your post from Friday January 9 (http://su-herald.livejournal.com/769402.html) saying: [...] Icons: Willow [...]

[punch-kicker15.livejournal.com]

Nice work. I particularly like the choice of Halloween for the holiday and the autumnal colors for the Category Set, and Bored and Out of Character out of the themes set.

[spikesredqueen.livejournal.com]

These are wonderful! My how I have missed your artwork and your words behind them! I adore a lot of these and I can really see your progress as an icon maker!

I do not believe I have ever seen the picture of Alyson Hannigan that you used in the Out of Character category before.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

I like the teaser that's the close-up of Willow's face with the sparkly lights. I also like Cat 1. You have that same image (Cat 1) with a more neutral background but I think Willow's colors are more vivid with the bright yellow.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

These are brilliant, as always. (Quite literally brilliant - I love how you manage to make those little 100x100 squares glow without losing contrast.)

And Ally Sheedy as 80s Willow? Inspired.

[kikimay]

Lovely icons. I especially like "reason" because of the soft coloring and the subject (Willow/Buffy friendship) and I like the alt with the heart shape. "Quote" actually made me smile because of the association between the quote and dark!Willow (Which, as you already know, is one of my favorite villains) same thing with "bored now": I just love how you mix past and present with your icons. My favorite icon from the 20in20 is maybe "recast" because I really like the softeness of it.

Let's talk about how brilliant your alts are because, honestly, HOW CAN U?
I LOVE 05. One of the best Willow icons ever even if it's OOC but I just like the coloring, the crop and the text. Also 07! Your conceptually complex icons strike back! Can I tell you what I see? Not only absolutely genius because you blended the images perfectly but also deep symbolism: we imagine Willow raising Buffy from the grave, but actually we see it as if she's almost invoking her from another dimension and the dimension is inside her womb because of the crop. Supernatural/symbolic rebirth: check. You should totally do a large artwork with this idea.

Absolutely lovely 13 and 14 and the "stay close to me" made me giggle because the text is from my favorite icon of yours. Did you do it on purpose?

[teragramm.livejournal.com]

I love these! The coloring is just fabulous! I especially like out of character, soft glow, reason and all to the holiday theme.
You know how you say you can identify my icon by my coloring? I am starting to see a consistency in your coloring. I know I say this a lot but you have come so far from when you first started making icons!

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Color me impressed!
These look so awesome and I love how you captured so many sides of Willow's personality!

My favorites, of course are:
Accessory
Reason (I'm pro-Buffy/Willow)
Profile
Out of Character (ah! such a cute face)
Re-cast (Aly Sheedy is a perfect choice)
Cat 1
AC 1-5. I love the power of that statement!

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

OMG! These are stupendous!!!! Now I have to delete some of my current icons to make room, darn you!!!! That AC set is genius and that is the most original Bored Now icon I've seen! Bravissima!!!!!


Gabrielle

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

Fantastic work, and I love your Willow re-cast so much!

[okdeanna.livejournal.com]

These are all beyond gorgeous! Excellent work!

[starry-night.livejournal.com]

Ack, how did I miss these?!
This is a beautiful set hon. Your icons just keep getting better and better and I love how you work with textures (it took me so long to even start using them myself).

And now for my faves...ok so first up I have to say I love what you did with the ACs. It's really creative and the image choices are suberb. I also really love:
Accessory (Willow was so adorkable in the early days and I love the simplicity of the icon);
Reason (Yes! And also it's a beautiful icon. I love the colouring; it has a rich yet kind of retro look to it);
OOC and it's alts (it's just pretty and I love the light effects);
Soft Glow (same as above - seriously beautiful!);
Recast (excellent choice and I love the warm colouring);
Cat 2 & Cat 5 (love the warm colours again, and great image choices).

[lokifan]

The AC set is so perfect and beautiful. I love your category icons too, especially 3 and 5, and Soft Glow - which was a perfect prompt for you I think.

I hope you're doing all right. ♥

[spikesredqueen.livejournal.com]

I snagged Reason and Ac5 :) Thanks for letting me snag some!

[spikesredqueen.livejournal.com]

I am snagging number 14 on the alternates, if that is all right, I love all the icons (it's so hard to choose between them all!) but the more I look at this one the more I love it. It feels so real, and I love the pale coloring.