Faction icons XXXVII
Here we have another mixed bag of icons.
The first, at least, is easy to characterize. The Vachonettas are, I think, the last of the couple factions to have their icon done. As they involve the pairing of Janette with Vachon, they must have few members. Offhand, I can't think of any stories involving those particular characters as a couple. Indeed, they never actually meet in canon!
Like the Early Birds (whose icon is posted here), the Third Shift was a faction by courtesy, being primarily a chat room for people whose schedules made it hard for them to join in the regular group. Whereas the Early Birds rose early, the Third Shift worked late. They therefore held their chat in the late morning, around brunch time.
As their name suggests, the Nitpickers revelled in closely examining the aired episodes in order to uncover mistakes. It didn't matter whether these lay in the script itself; the various stages of filming each episode; the backstory to the characters, flashbacks, and plots; or continuity throughout the series. They also tossed in trivia and gripes. Sadly, the Nitpickers never got through analysing all the episodes. It's a serious business, after all, and needs time to do thoroughly. Still, the results of their endeavours can be found on their website.
And finally, there are the Pinheads. No, they don't appear in any faction list I've seen; but they had a nice little webpage honouring the object of their adoration.
Vachonettas:
Clearly, since Vachon and Janette never met in the series, I had to use screen captures from two different episodes. I tried to pick a couple that worked well together: from the look in her eye, Janette has just noticed (as so many fans have noticed) that Vachon is a remarkably good-looking guy.
For the background, I decided to use a small slice of the Raven's back room. Unless the two were to encounter each other some time in the past (always a possibility with Forever Knight), the likeliest place for them to meet would be the Raven, presumably in that slim gap between the end of Season Two and the beginning of Season Three.
For a faction symbol, I combined the modified raven that I had previously made (Janette), with a guitar (Vachon). We know that he plays guitar, since we saw him with it in scenes at the church.
Third Shift:
The Third Shift was difficult to conceptualize. However, as with the Early Birds, the time of day was suggestive: not, that is, the time of their chat room; but the time when they were at work, and hence unavailable for Forever Knight-related activities. I decided, therefore, on a night-time city scene.
However, in hunting out interesting fonts, I came across one with a skyline cut into the bottom of the letters. That's not at all clear, actually, even at the 350px size. It did give me an idea, though: I laid the letters of the logo on an elevated view of city streets at night. That is, more or less, discernible at the larger size. Sadly, with the icon, all you see are oddly variegated letters.
So, to create the desired night scene, I laid the whole thing on a Toronto skyline. To this, I added a disproportionately enormous CN Tower-the same one that I've been using throughout this series of icons-set against the moon. And yes, it's the same Forever Knight moon, too!
To balance the icon, I finished it off with the logo from the series. There are actually several factions where "FK" (whether abbreviated or written in full) can be considered part of the name of the affiliation; but this is the only one where I've actually included it.
Nitpickers:
Given the Nitpickers' attention to detail, I immediately thought of Sherlock Holmes. A deerstalker cap was found via Google, along with a magnifying glass. The latter needed a little tweaking to make it "lie flat" alongside the hat.
The real fun came, though, with the background. Since the "clues" sought by the Nitpickers lie in the episodes, I wanted them to use that magnifying glass on a script. However, I don't own a genuine Forever Knight script; nor did googling, even for generic scripts, produce anything clean enough not to distract the eye. In the end, I faked it: I used a screen capture of one of my own FK4 stories! (Well, they are, more or less in script format.)
The final touch was carefully enlarging a piece of the script, trimming out an oval to place inside the magnifying glass-and then delicately layering a pair of little reflections on top so that the glass would look properly rounded.
Pinheads:
The Pinheads were devotees of a large sword-shaped pin worn by Lacroix in many of the episodes in the second season. To be perfectly honest, I never even noticed it. Oh, I spotted that huge ring of his, and the heavy chain he wears in a lot of the flashbacks; but I never saw that, at his throat, he skewered the neck of his shirt with a slim, but remarkably long brooch.
Perhaps this is because we never got a good close-up of it.
It must have been acutely frustrating for the Pinheads not to have a really good picture of their inamoratum. I've come across the occasional mention in FORKNI-L digests from the early '00s: I gather they rather wished, at one point, that it could be possible to have replicas made.
Because I had no good picture of the pin itself, the best I could do for the icon design was use a close-up of Lacroix from one of the episodes in which he is wearing it.
The first, at least, is easy to characterize. The Vachonettas are, I think, the last of the couple factions to have their icon done. As they involve the pairing of Janette with Vachon, they must have few members. Offhand, I can't think of any stories involving those particular characters as a couple. Indeed, they never actually meet in canon!
Like the Early Birds (whose icon is posted here), the Third Shift was a faction by courtesy, being primarily a chat room for people whose schedules made it hard for them to join in the regular group. Whereas the Early Birds rose early, the Third Shift worked late. They therefore held their chat in the late morning, around brunch time.
As their name suggests, the Nitpickers revelled in closely examining the aired episodes in order to uncover mistakes. It didn't matter whether these lay in the script itself; the various stages of filming each episode; the backstory to the characters, flashbacks, and plots; or continuity throughout the series. They also tossed in trivia and gripes. Sadly, the Nitpickers never got through analysing all the episodes. It's a serious business, after all, and needs time to do thoroughly. Still, the results of their endeavours can be found on their website.
And finally, there are the Pinheads. No, they don't appear in any faction list I've seen; but they had a nice little webpage honouring the object of their adoration.
Vachonettas:
Clearly, since Vachon and Janette never met in the series, I had to use screen captures from two different episodes. I tried to pick a couple that worked well together: from the look in her eye, Janette has just noticed (as so many fans have noticed) that Vachon is a remarkably good-looking guy.
For the background, I decided to use a small slice of the Raven's back room. Unless the two were to encounter each other some time in the past (always a possibility with Forever Knight), the likeliest place for them to meet would be the Raven, presumably in that slim gap between the end of Season Two and the beginning of Season Three.
For a faction symbol, I combined the modified raven that I had previously made (Janette), with a guitar (Vachon). We know that he plays guitar, since we saw him with it in scenes at the church.
Third Shift:
The Third Shift was difficult to conceptualize. However, as with the Early Birds, the time of day was suggestive: not, that is, the time of their chat room; but the time when they were at work, and hence unavailable for Forever Knight-related activities. I decided, therefore, on a night-time city scene.
However, in hunting out interesting fonts, I came across one with a skyline cut into the bottom of the letters. That's not at all clear, actually, even at the 350px size. It did give me an idea, though: I laid the letters of the logo on an elevated view of city streets at night. That is, more or less, discernible at the larger size. Sadly, with the icon, all you see are oddly variegated letters.
So, to create the desired night scene, I laid the whole thing on a Toronto skyline. To this, I added a disproportionately enormous CN Tower-the same one that I've been using throughout this series of icons-set against the moon. And yes, it's the same Forever Knight moon, too!
To balance the icon, I finished it off with the logo from the series. There are actually several factions where "FK" (whether abbreviated or written in full) can be considered part of the name of the affiliation; but this is the only one where I've actually included it.
Nitpickers:
Given the Nitpickers' attention to detail, I immediately thought of Sherlock Holmes. A deerstalker cap was found via Google, along with a magnifying glass. The latter needed a little tweaking to make it "lie flat" alongside the hat.
The real fun came, though, with the background. Since the "clues" sought by the Nitpickers lie in the episodes, I wanted them to use that magnifying glass on a script. However, I don't own a genuine Forever Knight script; nor did googling, even for generic scripts, produce anything clean enough not to distract the eye. In the end, I faked it: I used a screen capture of one of my own FK4 stories! (Well, they are, more or less in script format.)
The final touch was carefully enlarging a piece of the script, trimming out an oval to place inside the magnifying glass-and then delicately layering a pair of little reflections on top so that the glass would look properly rounded.
Pinheads:
The Pinheads were devotees of a large sword-shaped pin worn by Lacroix in many of the episodes in the second season. To be perfectly honest, I never even noticed it. Oh, I spotted that huge ring of his, and the heavy chain he wears in a lot of the flashbacks; but I never saw that, at his throat, he skewered the neck of his shirt with a slim, but remarkably long brooch.
Perhaps this is because we never got a good close-up of it.
It must have been acutely frustrating for the Pinheads not to have a really good picture of their inamoratum. I've come across the occasional mention in FORKNI-L digests from the early '00s: I gather they rather wished, at one point, that it could be possible to have replicas made.
Because I had no good picture of the pin itself, the best I could do for the icon design was use a close-up of Lacroix from one of the episodes in which he is wearing it.