iconfiend100: Zaphkiel (Angel Sanctuary)

Made for: iconfiend100
Subject: Zaphkiel (Angel Sanctuary)
Themeset: Gamma
Completed: 50/100
Last update: September 30, 2007

Warning: Major spoilers!

( How can I make you understand? )

Yes, I've lost my mind.

[I figure the icon post itself will get crowded enough as it is, so I won't clutter it with more fangirling.]

So Angel Sanctuary finally broke my resolve not to mass-produce LJ icons. I mean, I've made all of my own default icons, but those are less of the, um, "artistic icon-making" style that I would adopt back when we still made AIM icons. But the art in Angel Sanctuary is just so pretty. At first I told myself I was just going to make a lot of bases and post them to angelsancicons. But then I realized that cleaning up manga scans is a pain, and if I just went ahead and made icons out of some of them, I didn't even have to do that step because the pixellation would be masked by the colors and textures I was using. Oh, and discovering textures was also good. Slap a manga image onto a texture and play with the blending modes -- my sister likes Hard Light, but I prefer Linear Dodge or multiple layers of Screen -- and you, too, can make gorgeous-looking icons.

So then to be a masochist and to "motivate" myself, I promptly decided to make an iconfiend100 claim. I told you I tend to be really impulsive and wanting to do things now now now when these kinds of urges strike me, right? Just like with translating.

It didn't really take me that long to settle on Zaphkiel as my subject. [I would do general Angel Sanctuary, but that feels like a copout: not challenging enough. Like making 100 icons isn't a challenge just by itself.] Of my collection of bases, there are 5 characters that warranted their own directories -- Belial, Katan, Katou, Kira, and Zaphkiel [and Raphael will probably get one once I go through more of the chapters with him in it] -- but Zaphkiel was really the only one that had many different faces that could fit the themes in an icon challenge. Katou might have worked, but there's already a completed iconfiend100 challenge on him, so it would have felt redundant. I love Belial, but he always has the same expression -- or at least, I only like him when he has that expression. D: And too much time with Katan, cute as he is, makes me sick of his kissing up and unwavering loyalty to Rociel, whom I dislike greatly. Kira probably would have been the easiest choice of the 5, but for some reason I just didn't feel like it. Maybe because there are tons of Kira icons already, and I'd only want to focus on his sexier shots and ones with my preferred ships, which are far short of a hundred. On the other hand, I'd seen several requests for Zaphkiel icons, even though I'd found several good ones by going through the old posts on angelsancicons. So Zaphkiel it was.

I can't really say he's the character I like the most, but he's the character I like for the most reasons. [After this, he'll probably either be my most beloved or most hated character, depending on how hard I have to work to eke out those last few themes.] I mean, he's genki yet enigmatic and shrewd, which already nets him big points. Then it turns out that he has a tragic past, during which he was sexy and badass. I'm not sure what you could add to make me love him more. Perhaps some ersatz English courtesy of Okiayu Ryoutarou. ^o^ And, uh, a happier ending. But since this is Angel Sanctuary, that last is probably asking a bit much.

I guess the other thing Zaphkiel could use is some better pairings. ( Cut for spoilers and some disturbing ships that I do not endorse. )

Anyhow, I've been making one to two icons a day right now, but I imagine that will slow down greatly once I'm only left with the hard themes, and school starts, and I have fewer bases, etc. etc. Although after repeatedly going through the Zaphkiel chapters, I've actually acquired about 70 pages or so of bases, and some of those have more than one usable shot, so the 100 problem is at least superficially solved.

But man, that table looks awfully empty right now.