Another day, another dollar (or so they say). In this case, of course, we are talking about icons—four of them, to be precise. One has been in the works for ages, since I had to redo it almost entirely. Another has simply been waiting its turn for a while. The remaining two are very newly completed indeed.





CERKs:

I don't know if the CERKs consider themselves to be a subfaction of Cousins. I suppose not necessarily. The Cousins are affiliated with LaCroix; but the CERKs are fans of the Nightcrawler, LaCroix's on-air persona. Specifically, they enjoy his monologues.

For their icon, therefore, I selected a screen capture showing LaCroix seated at that curious hexagonal table in the broadcast booth at CERK. However, rather than use it straight out of the box, so to speak, I clipped away the background and substituted a pair of gradients. These actually somewhat simulate the tones of the walls and floor in the broadcast booth, but in a stylized fashion.

One of the gradients runs from blue to navy, and the other from grey to black. Besides clipping them at a diagonal, I reversed the shading so that one gets darker from left to right, the other from right to left. And yes: I clipped out LaCroix's shadow, as well, so that it could also be part of the superimposition.

The icon was completed with the CERK symbol. To turn this into the faction name, I found a very similar font and made a small "s" to go at the end.




Lofties:

I don't think this is a serious faction. (One of quite a few that aren't!) However, it does appear on more than one faction list. It is, of course, a faction for fans of Nick's loft.

But how to make it an icon?

The obvious thing to do, I suppose, would be to use a screen capture. However, when one is dealing with a large four-sided set, there is no way that one can capture the essence in a small square icon. In the end, I opted for three screencaps: across the bottom is a view of Nick's sofa and chairs; in the top left is the kitchen; and in the top right is a view of the water tower.

Across the centre, behind the logo, is a remote. I think it's more visible on the larger version of the design.

Within the logo, I substituted a sun for the letter "o" in the name "Lofties". It's a very particular sun, of course: cropped from one of Nick's paintings (specifically, the one he collapsed onto in "Ashes to Ashes").




Disciples of Divia:

And, speaking of "Ashes to Ashes", I am including here an icon for another affiliation for Divia. "Another", because I have already posted an icon for the Diviants. Of course, she is hardly the only character to have more than one affiliation. In this case, though, the differences between the two cannot be explained. Literally! At any rate, I asked on list more than once without ever getting an answer from anyone.

My research suggests that, whereas the Diviants were created by the mailing list fandom in the usual way, the Disciples of Divia had a strong connection with the fan club for Kathryn Long, the actress who played her. Certainly, there's a somewhat artificial quality to the official Disciples of Divia website, which I found on the Wayback Machine. Having said that, though, the DoD tends to be listed as a faction along with the others, either as well as or instead of the Diviants. (Certainly, not all lists have both of the Divian affiliations on them.) Fans who were members of the Disciples of Divia seem to have behaved just like fans in any other faction.

With no firm notion of the differences in the way the two factions approached the character, then, I fell back on the fact that, in the first icon, I had focused on her Roman origins but omitted references to her return in "Ashes to Ashes". I decided, therefore, that in the Disciples of Divia icon, I would use a screen capture of the leather-clad killer from the later episode.

After looking through the screen captures, I rather fancied also showing the sickle with which LaCroix beheaded her, and which she almost used on him. I was frustrated, though, for I could not find a good view of it. I feared that I might have to resort to using a picture found on line. I found some beauties; but sickles come in quite a variety of shapes, and none of the ones in the pictures was quite the same as the one in "Ashes to Ashes".

Fortunately, when I posted on FORKNI-L asking for help, Cloud promptly sent me a link to the MPICA website; and, among their pictures, I found a gorgeous one of Kathryn Long holding the prop up for auction. All I had to do was clip it out and put it in the icon. (Well, I did patch over her hand, for she was not in costume.)




FK Pagans:

Making an acceptable icon for the Forever Knight Pagans has been a trial and a tribulation. I suspect that, quite apart from the usual complications, the root of the problem is simply that they have for years had a faction symbol that was created for them by Jan J. It is clearly dear to their hearts.

Most of the older factions had black-and-white symbols made for them in 1995-96; and some other factions drew their own symbols, especially if they kept websites. Very occasionally, I have used the original symbols; but, in most instances, I have recreated them in my own way. However, when I looked at the Pagans' symbol, I realized I was in trouble. I could not use Jan's own symbol as it was: it was in colours that were too light to show up well at icon size; and, on her website, she had asked that it not be altered. Nor could I recreate its general design using other materials: some of the bits'n'pieces were impossible to find—or, at least, impossible to find in versions that I felt I could appropriately use.

So instead I debated building the icon around a screen capture from "Queen of Harps", since Gwyneth is the one devout pagan we know of in the series. (LaCroix's religious devotion I consider rather dubious.)

In the end, though, I decided to blend various pagan symbols. I looked on line, and considered myself fortunate when I found three that fitted neatly, one inside the other, in a circular pattern: an outer sun circle, holding a crescent moon, within which was a Tree of Life.

Well, both the moon and the tree were in an interlace pattern; and the Pagans felt that that made the icon too Celtic. (I think, too, they were predisposed to want an icon based on their original symbol; and it took a while for them to realize that I simply couldn't do it.)

So I went off to find substitute symbols. I kept the outer ring, which had come off a mirror or picture frame, or something of the sort. The moon shape is, if I recall correctly, a Japanese bottle opener. The crystal ball is a motif from Jan's faction symbol. Indeed, I tinted it blue because that's the colour she used.

The star got added just to fill in the space.