red_satin_doll: (Prophecy Girl Willow vintage)
[personal profile] red_satin_doll
ETA 01/16/15: Round 6 Voting at [livejournal.com profile] btvsats20in20 open until Jan 18th. Thank you everyone who has voted and commented!

Many many thanks to [livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] 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.






Date: 2015-01-10 12:29 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] 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.

Date: 2015-01-12 05:34 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] red-satin-doll.livejournal.com
Quite literally brilliant

Oh my gosh thank you!

Ancient Chinese secret: I used some light textures I've found online that I hadn't tried before AND - I finally figured out what the "Burn" photo editing tool does. Basically, it allows me to deepen shadows anywhere I like with precise control. So like my sweetie does with her paintings, it helps me lay down my darkest darks right next to my brightest brights. It's simple and really rather fantastic.

And Ally Sheedy as 80s Willow? Inspired.

:D I don't even recognize most of the folks in other people's recast icons because I don't watch many movies or tv so I had to go retro. also, the hood of that coat - I immediately remembered Willow's eskimo costume.

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