And to celebrate a very special, generous, kind, supportive, incredibly talented person who is a dear friend, a superb beta-Muse and dedicated to her craft, cover art for velvetwhip's fic, Civilian (Willow, Riley) plus icons.

She just posted the banner itself here along with links to other fabulous birthday presents she received. (Such as angelskuuipo's fabulous Joyce/Angel fic "Hello From the Other Side" which has an absolutely brilliant "Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't anyone think of that?" premise that already has my imagining rewriting the entire canon to accomodate it. But I digress:)

Icons here are snaggable, the posters are not.

Alt versions 2 & 3 (reduced, click for full-size)

   

Icons 4 10:

I've wanted to make a poster for this story ever since I read it in June 2014; a general concept came to mind but I lacked the know-how to make it come together. I made an icon for the story last spring for Gabrielle using the same photo of Blucas. I really love that picture so surprisingly that was the easy part of the poster. The hard part was - everything else. I always knew I wanted "ghostly" images of Buffy and Tara hovering around Riley and WIllow because Civilian is a metaphorical (not literal in Buffy's case) ghost story; Willow and Riley's lives have been affected and are still shaped by the memories of their past lovers. Riley is a bit more melancholy here than in the story itself but the image means to imply the Riley that's hinted at offscreen more than him in the present moment.

Finding the right photo of Aly was the single element that held this project up the longest.  The story takes place ten years after Chosen so I didn't want to use a photo from the series; I wanted something with gravitas as befitted the story and Willow's frame of mind, but I couldn't find one that had the right look for Aly and was of sufficient quality to work with. For someone with two major long-time tv series and several movies under her belt, she's incredibly hard to find photos for that fit the bill. I still haven't come across a fansite for her with a decent photo gallery. (Excluding sites like popSugar, etc.) She either tends to be photographed smiling or the few photos/screencaps I could find with the right mood were mediocre quality. The shot I ended up using is a cap from season 9 of HIMYM.

Resources: Photo of Marc Blucas via The Chosen Two (can also be found at Marc Blucas Source), photographer unknown. BtVS screencaps from Leave Me The White and Bloodqueen. Optical flares (light textures) on poster #3 by daWIIZ (Bessamer Azemi) on DeviantArt.

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :) Posters 1-3 NOT snaggable.

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

Congratulations to the winners of whedon_elite Challenge 127 "Close Crop" marishna, everythingshiny, sweet_lyri and sandy_s!  WE has gone from strength to strength in terms of themes and this was no exception; artists responded to the challenge with a remarkable batch of entries.  I love close-cropped icons so this was a little bit of heaven getting to work with them for the banners. Many thanks to my remarkable Muse-Goddess velvetwhip for her feedback:

Click on the images above to see the banner full-size.

I awarded Banner Maker's Choice to sandy_s. I had a really tough time choosing among the entries for BMC but went with the FFL icon because of it's emotional intensity and focus, and the physicality of Buffy's tear and her skin.

For this banner I went back to the original photo of my landlord's yellow rose, cropped and altered it in ipiccy; added a reproduction antique wallpaper in the background because I liked the contrast between the genuine rose and the ones in the background (although even the real one looks astonishingly fake thanks to the softening and sepia filters.) I chose the color scheme in part because I thought it would compliment but not compete with the skin tones in the icons.

My entries - all icons snaggable, please credit:

1 - 3

Alts:

4 - 9

Because everyone else focused on faces I decided to close-crop hands instead. Hand symbolism in the Buffyverse is one of my favorite subjects, but instead of the handfastings in Hush and Chosen I chose less famous or at least less frequently iconned images: Buffy and Parker in Harsh Light of Day, Willow and Tara's Grave in Help and Tara/Willow in The Yoko Factor.

Of alts my favorite is #9 and I wanted to use that one but decided it wasn't a close enough crop. It's a great, understated moment, aside from the creepily voyeuristic "Spike's POV when he realizes the girls are lovers and figures out a way to get under their skin and upset them to help Adam" of it. Or maybe that's part of the point, because it parallels a similar moment in This Year's Girl where Faith watches Buffy play with Riley's hands and comes to a similar conclusion. Those two moments also make the arguement that W/T is every bit as "legitimate" a relationship as B/R. (Which was important to establish in the hetereosexual landscape of American television at the time.)

#9 is my favorite alt but I decided it wasn't a close enough crop for the theme. I like the contrast between Tara's strong looking hand and delicate embroidery on her blouse, and the softness of Willow's hair and sweater.  I also think that of the Buffy/Parker icons I might prefer alt #4 to my first entry, but hindsight is 20/20 and all that jazz.

A Vague Disclaimer is No One's Friend:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what  icons you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments however are appreciated :)

~ All artwork by yours truly except where otherwise indicated.

And of course, there are icons to go with:







  1 - 4


    5 - 9


The stitching overlay is from a photograph of black leather. I wanted an image of Buffy wearing Angel's jacket from S1, but I couldn't find a screencap that showed the jacket clearly or that conveyed the mood I wanted. Then I noticed that a shot in Teacher's Pet when she first receives it is echoed almost exactly in a shot in Wrecked. I was going to set them side by side on the poster but decided to layer the earlier screencaps atop the later one. The image of Buffy is now a bit more "illustrative" than photographic per se; she looks melancholy and elegant; I matched her features pretty well but there is still something slightly, almost imperceptively "off" that suits the story and Buffy's mindsetvery well. You'd have to really look to notice. It's Buffy but just slightly altered so that the image no longer belongs to any episode in particular.

Click to enlarge. Teacher's Pet cap from Bloodqueen Gallery; Wrecked and Tabula Rasa (Tara) caps from Leave Me the White.

***

Tara was more difficult, simply because there are far fewer images of her. (Even searching for images from other movies and tv appearances turned up next to nada.) The red-pink around her throat and chest is from a light texture by lookslikerain; and I like it in part because it subtly evokes her fate at the end of the season. I let her face emerge from deep shadows mostly to cover up that awful, awful you-gotta-be-kidding-me "hairstyle" they gave her in Tabula Rasa.

Alternative versions of the poster, including the two earlier rejected versions (click images to enlarge to full-size).
Textures by lookslikerain and colorfilter.


      10 - 11
ETA: Everyone calls #10 "the gold one" (L) including me, so "the gold one" is shall remain.  (As opposed to the official "mood indigo" version at top which Gabrielle herself chose. I love them both. Can you see my dilemma?)


      12 - 13



      14 - 15




    16 - 17




    18 - 19



This first two versions of the poster design, using a photo of black leather as both the background and the primary texture. In theory it's nifty, in execution, annoying. The cross in #21 is from a design by a company called Affliction on one of their leather jackets. This was my first go at layer two versions of Buffy's face, and it's even more like a drawing than the final version. I tried the same with Tara in #21, layering shot from OAFA and Tabula Rasa, but it didn't look as interesting. Something was missing. Switching out Tara's profile from TR so that she seems to be looking at Buffy makes the composition more dynamic and suits Gabrielle's story better. "Seeing" - not merely looking but truly seeing and paying attentioon - is a very important theme in the story.

21 - 22

The Usual:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments are appreciated :)

Belated congratulations to the winners of btvsats20in20 Round 10, slayerstillness Challenge 48!  And awoefully belated THANK YOU to everyone who voted for my icons in both contests.

Banners will be forthcoming shortly for the winners of 20in20: killing_kurare, snogged, spikesredqueen, sweet_lyri, tempertemper, and teragramm, with further apologies for the delay.

Teasers:  




I didn't seem to realize until after I jumped in the task that this round consisted of 2 sets of 20, ergo 40 awards to be given out. And this just happens to be the round where everyone actually, finally, requested banners. (I could never understand why in previous rounds one, maybe two people would request banners. It's comforting to know I'm not the only banner hussy in the neighborhood anymore.)

So how did I do this round?  Better than I'd realized! Two winning theme icon:Power (Tara), and Last Scene (Lorne); and six character icons: Faith, Joyce, Oz, Anya, Kendra, and Lorne. Kudos as always go to velvetwhip for being an incredible, indispensible Muse. There are times when I resist her advice or think, "But I like this one better..." and realize after the fact that no, she was right the first time, and if I've got half a brain I'll pay attention.

     1 - 5

  6 -7

My favorites of my set that didn't win this time? Probably Willow, Angel, Cordy, Giles and Drusilla. If Lorne has been my lucky charm this past month, Drusilla has been my newest obsession. Speaking of Dru.....



While I've been delayed with the Round 10 banners, the banners for Challenge 48 proved a bit easier to do. Congratulations to sweet_lyri, teragramm and debris4spike, who has returned after an extended absence and has been missed; and thank you to everyone who voted my Anya and Drusilla icons second place and most creative!


feliciacraft mentioned to me the other day the dearth of pretty Anya icons, so I hope she finds this one to her liking:

         

      8 -12

The Anya icon was probably the simplest icon of this set - the image was already so pretty it was just a matter of gilding the lily. The Dru icon was inspired by a conversation I had with double_dutchess the other day about how the star texture by whitebamboo in one of my IWRY alts for the last SS challenge looked like a "crown of thorns". The main image in the banners is a photo I took the other day; bright orange liliies seem very "summery" to me, and I thought that the colors would go nicely with the winning icons. Artwork by yours truly.

Alts:
   

You know the drill, Baby Jane:

~ DO NOT RE-POST TO OTHER SITES (INCL. FANPOP) OR LJ COMMUNITIES WITHOUT MY PERMISSION!

~ Take what you like for personal use but please credit if used :)

~ No hotlinking!

~ Comments are appreciated :)

Vote in Tiebreakers for Round 6 of btvsats20in20. Make sure to vote in all three at the post; voting closes Friday January 23rd; which gives you at least a day to beat your friends out of the bushes and encourage them to vote.

buffyversetop5 is officially closed this session, which means no more posts this round - but it's like a party where the kitchen is closed but there's tons of food and drink still overflowing the buffet table and another gallery wall you probably haven't seen yet. I got in four posts of wonderful fics and artwork recs - better late than never? - thank you to yourlibrarian and petzipellepingo for hosting such an incredible party twice a year.

Right now I'm enjoying three fics that you can expect to see on my Top 5 recs for next January - why not start early this time around?:

Answering Prayers by velvetwhip (Joyce/Angel, early S3 AU) is a marvelous, funny, touching "deleted episode" that focuses on Joyce's personal journey as a Slayer's mom but also as a woman and a person in her own right as she tries to find answers to where her baby girl might have gone and finds more than she bargained for. Why aren't there thousands of such stories?  Why has Joyce been so overlooked in fandom?  I don't know but this fic feels like an oasis in the desert and just might become the story that future fan writers build off of and around when it comes to writing about her.  So far it's very PG (up to chapter 3 and no sex scenes) and I have no idea where Gabrielle is taking this. But I cannot wait to find out.

the kids are alright by kwritten (Tara, Dawn, Buffy/Tara, S7-AU) the next segment in the B/T Finding a Balance 'verse, this one focuses on Tara's relationship with Dawn as surrogate parent, in a late seasons AU in which the women of the 'verse support and love one another, damaged children doing their best and somehow managing to keep the darkness at bay. I don't associate this author with "fluff" and this is - and it isn't. Again I ask, why aren't there a thousand fics about the Tara & Dawn relationship? This makes a lovely pairing with brutti_ma_buoni's "The Real You".

Palimpset by spuffy_luvr.beer_good_foamy (Buffy/Spike - or is it, Buffy/William? - and Willow, AU S10 comics.) The link takes you to the epilogue, which has links to the previous four chapters. Think shades of "The Ballad of Randy and Joan" and beer_good_foamy's "Building Character" but plottier, a wild ride with intricate issues of identity and agency roiling beneath the surface. I need to reread it before I can comment on the last two sections. It's incredibly subversive on several levels, not the least of which is the key role Willow  and the Willow/Buffy relationship plays here; their friendship is not the sidenote in a spuffy fic, it's absolutely central.  I've said this before: spuffy_luvr is becoming a Willow author of note.

The only theme for Round 5 of btvsats20in20 is "Rainbow" and we were given a lot of latitude in terms of how were were allowed to interpret it.  As much as I love rich jewel-toned colors I went rather muted with these (in contrast to my Round 4 entries.) There was no real organizing principle beyond that.  I enjoyed working in a wide range of styles and trying my hand at new techniques, from simple crops to complicated blends.

1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20

*********************************

As I am running behind with this post (apologies to starry_night and the other artists who got their work in on time), alts and extras will be posted separately. (And I have many, trust.)

(FYI: The two Willow icons are my favorites of the Willow/Vamp Willow icons I made. I should have made these all Buffy for continuity but I loved #1 & 4 just too damn much not to include them here. I wish I had really planned this better from the get-go and included more Buffyverse women.)

btvsats20in20; Please vote in three TIEBREAKERS for Round 4 (Cat & AC placement and promo picture) and remember to vote in all three. (None of mine btw, so no vested interest here. Nor any kickback or payola deals for the pimpage. No money changin' hands. Not even brownies. I'd accept brownies. With or without nuts.)

Sign-ups for Round 5 "Rainbow Challenge" began today and will remain open throughout the round as always. This time there is no need to announce a claim but themes will be forthcoming; see the sign up post and this post for details.

    02-05
I couldn't remember where I got the phrase for #3 until I looked again at velvetwhip's userpics the other day; although I was vaguely aware of a debt to Barbara Krueger (and goodness knows how many graphic artists.) I had always wanted to do that combination of text overlay with out-of-focus close-up.


      06-10

        

11-14
I had a lot of fun playing with this cap.  Really.  To other folks these might be old hat but to me they were something in the way of luminousity I'd never achieved in an image before. I didn't even notice until I was nearly finished with the set how the flame from the candle disappears into her hair but I love that it does. The trees in #13-15 & 23-25 are from a photo I took in my backyard.

15-18 You're not seeing all the deleted efforts. You're welcome!

19-21
Lessons learned: Save everything before I add text.  Apply the shine effect (21) after I save a textless version AND after I add text. I didn't. I wanted to add "Yoga is good for the body and soul". Couldn't scrunch it in, and the shine made it hard to read.

22-25
The resemblance of the trees to scars on Tara's face was one of those accidents that pleased me and completely freaked me out; unintentional in any case, and you can read into it what you like, or nothing at all. Be back before Dawn....




 

PLEASE VOTE NOW in three tiebreaker votes for slayerstillness challenge 30! Don't forget to vote and press the button for each tiebreaker individually. Unlike Sister Red here. I make the mistakes so you don't have to. You're welcome. (Most creative is an interesting, um, conundrum for me. I'll explain all when the votin's over.)

LOOK AT THE PREZZIE I GOT!! "The Things You Find in Vending Machines" a season 4 ficlet with my beloved Buffy Summers and Tara Maclay (gen, set immediately post New Moon Rising) from the superb velvetwhip as, of all things, a surprise thank you for the banner I made her for her wonderous "Soft and Pink and Very Sad"!  THANK YOU so much. dear!  This one is on the humous side of Gabrielle's palette - Buffy and Tara have a brief, awkward conversation in the dorm hallway - but there's a wonderful complexity to it, as is true of Gabrielle's work.

As I've noted elsewhere on my journal and hereabouts in fandom, Tara's store of courage, strength and even self-confidence is overlooked and underplayed not just in fandom but on the series itself.  She pursued Willow in Hush, not the other way around, after all. I don't need the metaphor of monsters and Little Bads to recognize the courage that takes, and that it took for a young lesbian in the 1990's. (I know from experience.)  Of course, Buffy would recognize and respect that in Tara. And of course she would want the best for her beloved best friend Willow. Gabrielle NAILS all that right here in a very short scene. (And the last line, as you'd expect, is ACES.)

It also hints at something else as well: the stereotype cherished by some straight women and lesbians, that a lesbian relationship is inherently nicer than a hetereosexual one; that women together are kinder, sweeter, more understanding, etc. It's a pretty fantasy, and terribly untrue. But completely understandable that Buffy would view W/T through that lens. And Gabrielle doesn't make a deal of it, in fact you mightn't notice, but it's there, lying beneath the humor and that's the important thing.

THANK YOU so much Gabrielle, I'm truly honored!  (If I'd known the gift of a banner would lead to the gift of a fic I would have worked harder to learn how to make banners sooner!)