Now that the whole FortuneCity thing has died down a bit, I'm dying to get back to something resembling normal—so here are three more in my series of faction icons. (No, of course I haven't had time in the last couple of weeks to make any. These were made earlier. In fact, I even have a few more not yet posted.)

We have here one icon for a character-based faction, one for a couple faction, and one...other. (Very other.)




Les Miserables:

I couldn't post this icon until after the reveal for rarewomen because I'd decided to include Urs's icon with my "treats". Now that you've had a chance to see that, though, you'll recognize the little teddy bear with the umbrella as a tweaked version of one of the three teddies that graced the Urchins icon.

Les Miserables is the couple faction for Nick and Urs, two vampires in Forever Knight who are deeply unhappy with their condition. (There are others, of course: neither Serena nor Alexandra was exactly overjoyed at being brought over.) I chose the background to emphasize their common emotional response: it is rainy, yet there is a glimmer of light.

As for the umbrella, while it is obviously appropriate to the rainy day, it also represents Nick. Yes, I know I usually use a sword for him; but, in this context, his "knightliness" must surely be manifested as a rather different form of protection for our little furry Ursa!




INCArnates:

Season Three opened with so many changes that it caused an immediate flurry of factioneering. The Inca (or Inka) was introduced in "Black Buddha". Although only a guest character (and furthermore killed off at the end of the story), he nevertheless had followers.

Obviously, in making this icon, I went for Incan motifs. The band around the edges of the icon is taken straight from an elaborate tunic. The patterns in the squares obviously have symbolic import, perhaps heraldic. I cut the graphic up into strips, separated the squares, and laid them out evenly along each side to make a border.

For the background, I picked a light-coloured cloth. Cloth was very important to the Incas, who used the finest grades almost as currency. This cloth is actually very coarse by their standards: the best cloth, worn by royalty, was quite sheer. However, the tunic worn by the character in the episode was far more utilitarian.

The stylized figure in the centre is sometimes referred to an Incan warrior. (I think it actually came from a slightly earlier period or something, but the same region.) The original had blue tones; but I altered the colour in order to unify the icon visually.




Pit of Condemned Bimbos Survivalists:

Yes, when I first heard of this faction I did assume it to be a joke. I am assured, however, that it was a real faction, albeit short-lived as an active affiliation. Indeed, it had a website, of which very little still remains on the Wayback Machine.

The "Pit of Condemned Bimbos" is the fannish term for the dungeon in which the newly turned Nicolas de Brabant kept captive women on whom to prey. We saw it in the flashback of "Fallen Idol", where its discovery deeply disillusioned his young nephew and ward, André. In making the icon, therefore, I referenced this scene with a screen capture of a seriously over-the-top GWD snarling over the body of his latest victim.

However, the faction is not for his victims. No, no: these are the Pit of Condemned Bimbos Survivalists. They had every intention, if they were to find themselves in such a situation, of coming out alive. The links on their website were to various sites for weapons, survivalist groups, camping supplies, and what not. I needed, therefore, some strong visual element to indicate the Survivalist aspect of the faction. As a female Rambo didn't quite hit the mark (seeing that the actual "Pit" long predated modern weapons), I decided to go for unarmed combat. It took a fair amount of googling to find a suitable picture, for the woman's pose had to fit the layout.

I finished off with no fewer than three fonts. Besides the fairly neutral font for most of the name, I did "Bimbos" in swirls, and "Survivalists" in solid rock.