Well, here it is...

Something to reflect all my areas of fangirl squee.  Not perfect but better than the draft image I had.  Maybe I can even tweak this one a bit more, make the edges fade a bit so they blend in with the white background...  Or something like that.

Wondering if I should add a new mood theme too... have been thinking of a Supernatural one (either Sam&Dean or just Sam).  Though I still like the Daniel Jackson one, it's a bit plain-looking.  You can have more than one mood theme, can't you? You can only use one at a time, right?

Regarding the upcoming "LJ Strike," I am somewhat indifferent about it.  I had no idea what it was about until very recently.  I checked out the details...  and I still don't understand much of them.  They're taking away free accounts for new users? I can't believe that.  Seriously?  I can understand the ad-free ones, as nothing is really "ad free" anymore and mine certainly wasn't ad-free when I first got my basic account. I don't even remember having that option - though I've had my journal since mid-2006 so was this a later addition?

I checked out the referring post regarding the strike and I have to cease all posting beginning 8pm tonight till (I'm assuming) 8pm tomorrow.  Is this really going to make a big difference in the long run? Is it really going to make the people running LJ sit up and take notice?  I'm just asking a fair question here.  I don't know if I'll have anything to post about tonight into tomorrow anyway, so if I don't post at all it won't necessarily be me taking part in the strike.  Call me a traitor but I really don't have much inclination to do this, at least at this time.

Okay, more like "bi-fandom"... lol

I've been sitting on this art for so long, I never had a free moment to get it all together and post. So, what do I have? A bunch of Stargate SG-1 and Supernatural icons and headers.

The SG-1 stuff is mainly from extra S10 promo pics, and some Ark of Truth promo pics (none that are spoilery). All are Sam/Daniel, except I think there's just one general Daniel icon floating around in there. I also have several headers, again all Sam/Daniel (friendship or whatever else you choose to see it as... they're all made with screencaps from my own collection).

The Supernatural icons are from episodes 1.22, 2.02, 2.18, 3.10, 3.11, and some of the new-old promo pics that have just surfaced. I also have 2 headers from episode 3.10, and several from 3.11 (same design, but different fonts).The pics from episodes 3.10-3.11 are from screencaps by annabeth_fics  (thankies!!). Credit not totally necessary but appreciated. The textless icons can be used as bases, but I'd like credit for the bases if you do use them.

So, without further ado:

Icons

001-006: Stargate SG-1
007-042: Supernatural

So just throwing out some random stuff...

First, the comm sg1_five_things  has unscreened the prompt 39.04 "5 Times Sam and Daniel Went Out Together (as friends or on a "date")." Mine is posted there and there are a bunch of other nice ones as well. Check them out here

Second, I've noticed that The Legacy (Repro Images) site has been leaking some of the new-old Supernatural promo pics from S1 and 2. Speaking of which, their message board seems to be "On Hiatus." Anyone know what's going on with that? Anyway many of them have shown up in the dean_sam  comm. I noticed karmicunderpath  took one of the pics and tried to improve it ...take out the overwhelming bluishness of it... I thought she did a great job. I got kinda curious and wondered if I could do anything with that pic myself. So I tweaked the color balance and saturation a bit, did some shading, and here is what I came up with:



Not really much different from hers, and I think hers is a lot better... but I was just playing around with it and seeing what I could come up with.

And since I'm still bored, I thought I'd swipe this meme from ckll


I promise I will have some new icons to post by tomorrow or Tuesday.

In a week or two I'm going to be changing my header... I love the one I have up now but winter will be over soon (thank goodness). Plus I was thinking of having something up there to reflect all areas of my fangirlishness. I was playing around with Photoshop earlier and this was what I came up with:



(click on the thumbnail to enlarge... I think it's a bit large to just post normally here)

I don't think it's too bad but I'm still not 100% happy with it.    Maybe because I don't think everything is blended uniformly enough, or it's not as seemless as it could be.  I still have quite a bit to learn about making graphics. I make small leaps and bounds when it comes to icons and things like that (more of which I need to post soon), but still find things like this to be a challenge.

Is there any advice any of you more experienced artists could offer? I may try again with PSP and see if I can get better results, but I'm not really counting on it.  I'm basically too poor to afford PS CS, so I guess what I have to work with is pretty basic.

(and in case you were wondering, my fangirl areas in order of appearance are: 1. Cam and Vala/Ben Browder and Claudia Black (from Stargate SG-1 and Farscape); 2. Stargate Atlantis; 3. Stargate SG-1; 4. Sam and Daniel/Amanda Tapping and Michael Shanks (from Stargate SG-1); 5. Supernatural (Dean and Sam); and 6. Doctor Who)

Here are some resources that I use to help make some of my art. These are mostly brushes, fonts and textures, but also some screen caps. For my art, I mostly use my own caps, but there are still times where I haven't been able to capture that perfect shot, and someone else has. I'm not going to go and claim them all as my own, though. So, here's a small list:

float textures by Lee

Hybrid Genesis

belladona

Obsession of the Moment





stargatecaps.com

andreas_ri @ LJ

ETA July 2008: The caps for my season 3 Supernatural picspams were taken from downloaded episodes courtesy of dragynville , posted at dean_sam

ETA September 2008: The caps for my season 4 Supernatural picspams are also taken from downloaded episodes posted at the comm above.

meleada textures

I'll be sharing some new artwork soon, both Stargate and Supernatural.  Watch this space.

Here are 25 icons and 3 banners. I went art crazy again this weekend...hee. Mostly playing around with colors, lighting, and text. Tried following some tutorials I found online, but most of them are for Photoshop 7.0 or higher, esp. CS2, and only having PSP 8 here at home they're not translatable when people have Selective Coloring and whatnot... So I just experimented for the most part.

Icons: 25

6 x Dean
19 x Sam

from episodes 1.05, 1.16, 1.18, 1.19, 1.21, 2.02, 2.11, 2.15, 3.03, 3.08 (not spoilery).  Textless ones can be used as bases, but I'd appreciate credit.  As always, feel free to take if you like them. Credit not completely necessary but always appreciated.




Banners: 3, all 600 x 150in size.

1 x Dean
2 x Sam

they use images from episodes 1.16, 1.21, 2.02, 2.11, 2.18, and 3.08 (again, not spoilery).  Can be used on profile pages, for headers, forums, wherever. If you decide to use, just credit me as jessm78   with a link to my LJ.  That should be fine. :)




Also have a question... I'd really like to make a banner/header/whatever with pics of Dean from the end of 2.02, just to reflect his angst in that episode. I have the caps I need, but I'd like to include some song lyrics. Anyone have any suggestions for lyrics that might work for something like this? I'd greatly appreciate it.

cross-posted to dean_sam

I'm in the middle of updating my profile page, and I want to add a Supernatural (and J2, if possible) lovebar.  I've seen a few people with them, but I was wondering... has anyone made any to share? If so, could you point me to them? I would definitely give credit.

.... or I suppose I could just make my own too.

ETA: I've found some I like and I may make my own general SPN one.  But if you see any nice ones anyway that you'd like to give me a heads up on, please feel free. :)

Snurched this one from sg1danny 


Impossible-Quiz.com - Fun Hard Quiz

Now, onto the icons. I don't *think* I've posted any of these here before.
15 Stargate SG-1 icons:
13 x Sam/Daniel
2 x Michael Shanks and Amanda Tapping (one of which comes from this promo pic from Ark of Truth (not spoilery at all)

( Icons! Wheee... )

And now some wallpapers. One is a Christmas-y type of collage, and the other is the next in my episode series - for TBFTGOG.

( 2 Sam/Daniel walls... )
And now for the last wallpaper... I put it under its own cut because I fear repercussions from it.... *grin* It can be taken as either Jack/Daniel or Sam/Daniel, depending on how you see it. And a big, huge, honkin' warning: If you are a diehard S/J shipper, or a S/J shipper with no sense of humor, I'd advise against clicking on it. Most of the S/J shippers I've met in LJ have been very nice, but I'd just like to be better safe than sorry.

( Daniel's ponderings... )

MS Online has now posted pics of Michael's appearance at Collectormania in the UK this past weekend... check them out here

Hopefully a little preview of what I can expect this coming weekend at the Creation con in NJ. Not too crazy about those sideburns but I hope he keeps his hair like that... I love the length. :) </shallow mode off>

Speaking of the con, I just got my photo op ticket in an email (form that you have to print, fill out and bring to the con). I am getting excited about this. :) Anyone who has been to a Creation con in the past year or two, and has gotten a photo op with any of the celebs... I have a question. There's a little FAQ in my email about what to expect at the photo op. They say that the actor is seated in a chair. In the photo ops I've seen over the past couple of years, everyone is standing and the celeb has his/her arm around you. The email says they are seated...

So anyone who's gotten the photo ops and the ticket for it in email.. did your email say this also? Were things different when you went, i.e actor stands with you w/arm around you? I guess I am obsessing over this but the reason I ask is because when I went in 2004, both MS and I were seated pretty far away from each other and he had to put his arm around the back of the chair, not me. I felt I was about a million miles away from him *pouts* I noticed the photo ops for the Chicago con were a lot better so I really hope they are this way in NJ too.

Hoping my pictures turn out okay too. In 2004 they were horrible (except for the ones of Don S. Davis in the hotel lobby), last year they weren't much better (except for some pics of Teryl Rothery). One of the gals I met last year is going again and is sitting up front - she volunteered to take pics for me if I gave her my camera. I'm going to see if I can bring a backup camera too... maybe I can get some decent pics while I'm on line waiting to ask a question. I'm going to ask MS if we will see more of the friendship between the original teammates, especially Sam and Daniel, in the movies (thanks for the idea, majorsamfan !).

I'm also going to give him a Daniel drawing I just finished:



(click to enlarge)

My scanner cut off parts of it but it's supposed to say "Thank You for 10 Years of Daniel Jackson". I know Creation says that photo ops are the best time to give gifts, but I know people have given him gifts during the Q&A so I think I will do that just before I ask my question. I know someone gave Teryl Rothery a gift during her Q&A at last year's con.

I am also thinking of bringing my "Authentic Sam/Daniel Rebel" t-shirt but I don't think I want to wear it the day MS appears. I am worried about his reaction to it, LOL ;)

Just heard that Don S. Davis had to cancel his Saturday appearance because he will be filming a movie. I'm happy for him and wish him luck even though it's a shame he had to cancel. I wonder who they will be getting to replace him, or if they will be getting anyone at all this late in the game (Steve Bacic canceled earlier this month and they got Alexis Cruz to replace him... not that it affects me much since he'll be appearing on Fri and I'm going Sat and Sun).

And finally.... (wow I'm long winded this morning... LOL) I have some new artwork to show. Mostly wallpapers and icons, which are mostly Sam/Daniel (the episode series), although I have one Daniel-centric wallpaper. See them behind the cuts...

( Wallpapers: 4 x Sam/Daniel; 1 x Daniel )

( Icons: 7 x Sam/Daniel )

Feel free to snurch if you like... again credit not necessary but always appreciated. :)

So, after finding a cool tutorial by mercscilla (here), I went icon crazy again. Most are Sam/Daniel, but there are also a few lone Sam and lone Daniel ones, as well as a Jack/Daniel (friendship) one. Snurch as many as you'd like. Credit not necessary but appreciated.

(note: first icon was made using tutorial by chris4short (love it!). Most of the icons' tiny text are from brushes by realcdaae (find them here).)

( Icons: 14 x Sam/Daniel. 3 x Daniel. 3 x Sam. 1 x Jack/Daniel. )


And now for the wallpapers: five new ones in my episode series, from Fire and Water to Cor-Ai (there are two different ones for Hathor). Again, they are mainly friendship.

( 5 Wallpapers; Sam/Daniel )

I have a few new wallpapers in this ongoing series I've been doing to share. Also have been going nuts making icons this evening.

The walls are S/D friendship and cover Thor's Hammer to Bloodlines. I'll be doing the next few soon. As for the icons, I just made a whole slew of Daniel ones. Several S/D ones in this batch as well. Again please feel free to snurch - credit not necessary but appreciated.
( Wallpapers: 3 x S/D; Icons: 12 x Daniel. 3 x S/D. )
Want to wish all my fellow friends in the US a Happy Independence Day. Probably won't be online much.

So I didn't watch Unending on Friday, except for the last minute or so (have to say I loved the little tribute SciFi had during the end credits though). I saw it in March and tried to put it out of my mind, but everyone is buzzing about it again, pictures are showing up again, and it's bumming me out again.

I've made a few banners....
Maybe there is something wrong with me but I find it hard to believe sometimes when people keep insisting they're still friends.  Can you actually prove that? Can you take an episode from season 10 and say "See? Daniel still cares about Sam (and/or Teal'c)" ? I know people tell me that they've been friends over the course of 10 years, built up this foundation and it's hard to believe it's just gone.  But who's to say that it isn't? How do you know something didn't happen between them to cause them to stop caring about one another?  I just hate the way TPTB have made things seem this way.

I also read an interview MS gave on Gateworld.net and he mentions one of the two DVD movies.


Anyway I'm sorry for being so negative... just all the hoopla over Unending and Daniel/Vala in general is depressing me a little.  Nowadays it seems like you have to ship D/V in order to be a fan of Daniel... so I guess I can't be a fan of his anymore unless I support that ship. :( 

*off to catch up to reading fanfic to cheer myself up... hopefully*