5 of my Favorite Icontest Awards Banners for Slayerstillness this year (and 1 bonus)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Five banners that are works of art in their own right (by other talented fan artists) in no particular order. The banners shown here are ones I admired and have influenced me as an artist whether or not I participated in the individual challenges. Check out the banners AND the winning icons that adorn them at the links below:

By comlodge:

Challenge 22 "A Room Full of Empty" (April)

Challenge 26 "The Same...but Different" (July)

Challenge 36 "Ye Olde Vampyre Gang" (December)

Janice's banners are very specific to the individual challenge themes and have a particular theatrical quality to them, a mise en scene suggestive of stage sets. Challenge 22 is moody and atmospheric; 26 and 36's banners are lush, densely layered, evocative of Victorian drawing rooms and vintage photographs gently fading in an attic trunk. I love her fearless use of textures to "degrade" the images in beautiful ways.

By tempertemper:

Challenge 32 "It Takes Two to Tango" (October)

Challenge 35 "Least Favorite Eps" (November)

Challenge 32's banners are typical of what I think of when I think of Temper's "style" (also typified by her own first place winning icon): warm, soft and inviting glow, muted color palatte. #35's are entirely different; each banner is carefully and precisely coordinanted to the individual icons in terms of colors, and textures so that they seem to be organic extensions of the icons themselves. Manage to be both eye-popping and understated at the same time. The banner for rua1412's first place winner is particularly stunning.

Bonus by starry_night

Challenge 23 "Simplicity, It Works for Me" (May)

I am color-matching's bitch. No apologies. Deal with it, kids. The background starry chose resembles a watercolor painting in the rain, soaking the paper. "Pastels" are difficult to pull off without being too-sweet but these hit the spot, matched to their respective icons; while a subtle mix of fonts keeps things interesting without pulling focus..

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

Excellent selections and bonus points for recognizing a category of art that is too often entirely disregarded!


Gabrielle

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thanks for stopping by and commenting!

I wanted to do at least one icon post but there are SO many good icons made just this year that I don't know where to start. Selecting fics is hard enough.

a category of art that is too often entirely disregarded!

I'm so glad you agree! I'm really stunned by the care and craft that goes into banners (which folks generally do not sign, although they'd sign their wallpapers); why should they be treated as "lesser"?

(Of course I may be a teensy bit biased myself.)

[petzipellepingo.livejournal.com]

Those are nice, thanks for posting.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome, it's my pleasure!

[tempertemper.livejournal.com]

Whoa thanks so much for the kind words I am very moved. I just adore banner making - it's such fun to showcase someone else's art :)

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You're welcome hon, it's my pleasure to highlight awards banners, they're entirely unsung. And now that I've done some I really appreciate that they require no less effort and care than icons, wallpapers, etc. Perhaps a bit more, if anything.

I just adore banner making

Me too. :D

[snogged.livejournal.com]

Very cool!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thanks hon, we've got some great artists in this fandom. (Speaking of which...I hope to see more of your wonderful art works this year if you get a chance.)

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

Oh, thanks for making this post! These are wonderful banners, and it's a shame that they usually remain unnoticed outside the comms.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

You're very welcome, it's my pleasure to place these in the spotlight!!

Awards banners have been nearly as big an influence on me, I think, as other artists' icons have. You don't see a lot of fic posters or very large wallpapers in this fandom (well, you do, but I'm not a member of Deviant art or on tumblr, so I mean here on LJ.)

[kikimay]

Lovely banners! I especially love the Willow/Buffy one.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Isn't that one so pretty? I love all the banners here.

Every time I see one of temper temper's banners for a round I didn't enter, I kick myself because I WANT one of her pretty banners SO BAD. That is, I have a banner by her, but I want more, greedy child that I am.

I also want to make banners that look like her's when I grow up *lol*

[yourlibrarian]

It's so good to see lots of activity on the fan art front for the Buffyverse.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

And I don't have accounts with deviantart or tumblr, which is where most of the fanart is being displayed nowadays; what's on LJ is just tip o' the iceberg.

Thank you for hosting such a great site! I'm glad I was able to participate this round.

[yourlibrarian]

We're always so happy to see people contributing. It's true, Tumblr is a hotbed of a lot of work. I'm hoping over the next year I actually get more time to spend on that account.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Do you have a lnk to your tumblr account? I didn't see a link on your LJ.

I find the format of tumblr sort of counter intuitive. It does allow folks to "like" something in a quick and dirty way, so you can see at a glance that people are looking at your stuff, but having an actual conversation seems a lot harder, and trying to figure out the source of something that's reblogged is tricky.

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, it's here: http://yourlibrariandw.tumblr.com/

As you can see I've hardly used it in the past year which is the main reason I don't point to it. But it can also be very addictive as soon as I log in!

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I have been noodling around on tumblr accounts all morning and holy COW, is it addictive!

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the kind in depth words. Love to make make banners and use it as an excuse for a story telling exercise while paying homage to the artists they are made for.

[red-satin-doll.livejournal.com]

Hello you! *WAVES* It's so good to hear from you again, I'd almost forgotten this post myself! I was hoping you'd see it eventually.

You are very welcome and it was absolutely my pleasure! I wish I'd planned this round a little better and not waited until the last minute - but the idea of a banner rec list literally came to me at the last. I think it's a worthy subject though - if drabbles can end up on rec lists why not awards banners? Now that I make them I really appreciate all the time and care that goes into making them.

an excuse for a story telling exercise while paying homage to the artists they are made for.

Exactly right. I don't see that as any different to writing stories, just a different medium. If any thing, there's the complication of telling multiple stories at once with a banner: the fact that an awards comm exists and someone won award X is one story, highlighting the themes of the banner itself and hopefully extending/participating in it is another story, the story of the artist's choices in making the banner to suit, etc etc.

Think about it long enough and it becomes a black hole we could all get swallowed up into. Fortunately I don't; I just go with what works when I'm making banners and the rest usually takes care of itself. :D Thank goodness!

And they've been such a huge influence on my growth as an artist - more so than "wallpapers" simply because I see them far more often.