Beyond the Roundels

An icon batch I was waiting to post until I'd done the latest retro_icontest challenge, and then nearly forgot about! Most of these have probably been posted here before, although not the retro_icontest The7Days challenge to icon seven different angles from the last seven things you watched. The angles were above, below, left, right, back, front, artist's choice. Plus, all the icons I made recently to complete 100fandomicons and retro_icontest's Island Rumble round, making icons from the same two screencaps & some alts.


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( Rest under here )

Another little batch of icons, with more Bleak Expectations text icons, a handful for retro_icontest (including one I forgot to post), and a few for 100fandomicons, plus some more Doctor Who.

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( I shall give up evil science and take up evil gardening instead )

I'll probably repost these again in a larger set when I (hopefully!) have more - BUT over the last few days, post-doing some larger graphics, I tackled my new graphics editing software again, and managed to finally make some icons! I'm back at the 'child with crayons' stage, but that's usual for me when I've had one of my stupidly long breaks from it, and I'm actually getting an end result that is more or less what I intended now, and I'm SO relieved I could cry. I do like making 100x100 pixel shiny things, even if I'm not the best iconmaker in the world or anything.

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( To go into battle the British soldier has to be incredibly drunk. Aiming is out of the question. )

Mixed bunch of icons made Apr-Oct this year, mostly random, but including a two sets for perioddrama_ic (Heroes + alts & Blue Outfit), random ones for 100fandomicons and a bunch of text icons for Welcome to Our Village Please Invade Carefully:

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( I'm extremely keen to show everyone how fine I am with it all )

Giant Public Eye icon repost! (And I mean giant - I made two sets originally, so altogether I think there are 150 icons. Mostly Alfred Burke and Pauline Delany, but also a random assortment of familiar guest stars.)

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( I always end up disappointing someone )

Skipping about a bit - I've been so tired over the last week or so and where I've had any energy I've tried to put it into my chocolateboxcomm assignment.

Challenge #10: In your own space, talk About A Creator/Someone Who Inspired You.

I rarely know what to say for this one - because it's fannish I think of fanwork creators, and that always seems too difficult. We are many and so many different interactions have inspired me over the years. But auroracloud talked about some of the pro SFF authors who have meant so much to her in being ill. And I thought, there is one creator who's helped me through my illness and inspired me to write quite a few things in the way I have, when I've been able to, but he's an invisible person I know very little about. (I might not like him at all, who knows? Maybe it's better this way.)

Anyway, as plenty of you will know, I have ME/CFS and am home chronically ill and wound up watching a lot of very old TV and among it, the work of writer, script-editor and producer Michael Chapman. I first came across him in Special Branch (1968). (His episode wasn't a standout, but he had written a housewife character with an unexpected side-stepping of stereotyping and sexism in context, and so, I took note of his name, but I didn't know it'd ever be of any more significance.)

However, he also created and script-edited Enemy at the Door, was responsible for the last three seasons of Public Eye, and Mr Palfrey of Westminster. The things that he produced rather than script-edited also show his influence - the importance of small things, quiet continuity and character growth, a sense of compassion and the complexity of humanity in a very understated way, plus impressive historical accuracy in EatD. I've loved a lot of things, but those three touched me probably more than all the rest, and the common link is Michael Chapman. Sometimes you find the right story or creator for the right time, and that was mine.

His individual episodes aren't always my favourites (although some are, especially his S1-2 bridging episodes in EatD, and in Mr Palfrey, where two in particular are just really beautiful), some are a bit dull, even, but while there are lots of things I'd like to see released or found from old TV, Michael Chapman's other TV series that he produced and/or scripted-edited are at the top of my list. I can't imagine I'd be disappointed, because he hasn't let me down yet, from 1960s The Protectors and Undermind to Mr Palfrey. I suppose I'll have to watch his work on The Bill eventually instead (look, there's a lot of The Bill, not much of it edited by him, and I'm dangerously completist, so...), as I'm assured it's also good and he won a much-deserved BAFTA for it.

He's probably therefore entirely to blame for weird origfic canon I use for Runaway Tales & now rainbowfic, because it started out as a Fake 1970s TV show (that was totally script-edited by Michael Chapman in my head). (The Edward/Julia AUs aren't his fault, though. Those are definitely mine. ;-p)

Some quotes, although, as I've said, it's often his overarching influence that's his main strength.

From Mr Palfrey:

On spying: "Our country right or wrong. We leave small matters such as crises of conscience, fastidiousness over the truth to traitors." And: "Who will remember us in a hundred years' time?"

"... a man who restores violins is arguably of more use to mankind than an Air Vice Marshall."


From Public Eye:

Frank: "You can't erase someone on a technicality."
Lawyer: "You're a humanist, Mr Marker."


From Enemy at the Door:

Major Richter: "Would you be happier with a more conventional attitude of hostility, then?"
Olive Martel: "In a way, yes. It would be less confusing. Small kindnesses tend to cloud the issue."
Richter: "Which is what?"
Olive: "That we are at war, and you and I are enemies."
Richter: "And ordinary humanity has no place in it?"
Olive: "As I say, it confuses."

"War must be fought, even if it's only in the mind. You cannot win if you do not fight... but you cannot fight if you do not survive."


Also, his description, in an interview, of The Protectors* as being "about three level-headed people who try to prevent crime from happening." (♥)


* Not that Protectors. Or the other one. The one I'm the only one who's heard of, except liadt because I lent her the disc with John Carson and his hat. Because it's about three level-headed people trying to prevent crime.

27 icons, all made for iconcolors (mostly for its amnesty round), including OUaT, Sapphire & Steel, and Lost.

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( I looked into the eye of the island, and what I saw was beautiful )

Reposting the Heyer icons reminded me how much I like doing quote icons. I thought Once Upon a Time might be a fun source, and so it was. I still have a bunch more, but this seemed like quite enough to be going on with.

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( The best way to show your love for those who are gone is to tell their story )

34 icons made for the most recent round of iconthat, for ladies10in30, and fandom_stocking.

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( Heroes, villains, and fallen princesses )

You won't be surprised to hear that I have a few books on family history and how to and all that. I have two that I like on how to write a family history. One is a UK work, the other US. I picked them up and glanced at them recently, and got rather amused by their respective opening paragraphs once I had them out side-by-side:

( Cut for some quotes )


They are both helpful books, (and I think both authors are starting off slightly tongue-in-cheek,), but I couldn't help sniggering at how much they conformed to cultural type once I looked at them so close together...

Some random icons and mini-sets I've made recently or found lurking on my hard drive. Margaret Lockwood, quotes, some random old TV peoples, and Once Upon A Time.

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( Icons under here )

So I decided it would be better to make icons for the BBC's old 1972 serial about Henry VII, Shadow of the Tower than to babble about it. And then I had too much fun, as you can see, with eps 1-5 (& hopefully I'll do the rest in a second post).


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( To the usurper, every man is dangerous... to the true king, no one is )

Some icons I made last week (the week before?) for The Power Game, including text.

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( Executive procedure Rule 1: always kick a man when he's down, you'll never get a better chance )