PB Meme!

[kissytheface.livejournal.com]

Can you believe it's been just about a year since we've done this meme?

Neither do I. There's a meme out there untagged. Lost for eternity. Never to be found again. WOE.

... Whatever. It's PB Meme time!

Stolen from bitten_notshy who stole it from trickster_twin:

So for those of you who have never had to choose a PB, I envy you because it can be very very hard. For those who have, who do you use? Why did you choose them? Or do you have any future journals you want to talk about how you searched high and low to find that one perfect face for your character, or complain how you haven't?

Comments

[anarchist-queen.livejournal.com]

Well I'll start with Leda. It wasn't hard to find hers as every time I read her canon I thought about who I would cast if this was a movie. I actually went through a few before I decided that Keira Knightly was perfect, both physically and acting wise. She's played every kind of person that Leda has been, and she's got the body of an elf.

[cowboy-sailor.livejournal.com]

Tully didn't take long. I simply needed a not quite middle aged guy who was good looking and somewhat rugged. Hugh Jackman came to mind almost at once.

[trigons_child]

Bel, Wyatt, Drake, Leia, and Vida all came from TV/movies, so no need to find PBs there. Raven, on the other hand, needed one, and it didn't take me long to find her. I started browsing Hollow Art looking for females with long black hair and came across Amy Lee almost immediately. Absolutely prefect. I had to go in to photoshop her chakra and the inexplicable glowy earrings that they never bother to explain in the comic, of course. Fortunately soon after her arrival in Fandom she got invited to a slumber party with makeovers and developed an addiction to black eyeliner, so I don't have to pretend that's not there. ;)

[grand-fallguy.livejournal.com]

Tim was hard. And the lack of pics for this guy made it harder still. I needed someone average looking who seemed like they could pull off Tim's heroic, snarky, nature, but not look like someone who'd be heroic.

Also who looked Irish.

[l1ttle-billy.livejournal.com]

Billy took a while. I went through a few ideas, Ashton Kutcher for one, but I decided I'd never be able to take him seriously as Billy. Recently it occured to me that Josh Hartnett might have worked.

But when Christian Slater occurred to me it seemed like the perfect fit. Handsome guy, had done action and drama, and had a bit of an edge of danger to him.

As for future journals, well Polgara, Barak (both of The Belgariad), Blink (Marvel Comics), and Micah of Greenfarm (The King And Raven) are all possibles, as is Superboy. Blink I figured Anna Paquin would work. This is partly because someone used her as a PB for a virtual Whedonverse series that had her as a purple teleporting Demon. Barak I always pictured Brendan Gleason from Braveheart when reading the books. After some discussion I finally settled on Catherine Zeta Jones for Polgara, though getting that white streak in her hair's gonna be tough.

I'm thinking possibly Josh Hartnett for Superboy now that I'm writing this, but I'm still not sure for Micah.

[therewaslife]

Bod was my most recent 'hafta pick a PB' character and he was a tough one. Going from the illustrations provided for the book, he needed to have pale hair, pale skin, the whole nine yards. At first, I was gonna go with Ryan Gosling but something about him struck me wrong. He had the right build but he sometimes looked too greasy or too old.

Ben McKenzie sort of came out of nowhere. He had the hair and the skin and the build that I wanted. He had the floppy blonde hair, the icons where he doesn't smile, the icons where he does smile and the boy's pretty pale when he gets all shirtless. He fit and I've been pleased with him as PB since I chose him.

[living_endless]

Didi took FOREVER because I needed to match the comics art. (I kept finding suuuper-gawth scenesters, who had the right styling but none of the warmth Didi needed. Also, Death is called "pretty" by someone with no particular agenda, so I was looking for someone who was more pretty than striking or beautiful. I'm very particular about this.)

Anyhow, dojima_hime spent about an hour going through people on burlesque_show with me; when I saw Sysca Suicide, I knew I had my girl. She simply looks like the comics come to life.

I still periodically consider switching to Ellen Page for the sake of having a greater variety of expressions and fewer clothing-free icons, but then I look at Sysca again and decide to keep her.

[trigons_child]

I think she's perfect. *uses random icon with an ankh to comment* :)

[kissytheface.livejournal.com]

When I finally decided to no longer use Dandelion as a backup application, I originally was going to stick to icons from the sugar shock comic. Mainly because Dandelion was supposed to be at least part Asian and any icons I found of Asian women with pink hair made me want to yak.

I briefly flirted with the idea of Gwen Stefani since she had a thing for pink hair for a while until I came across pictures of this girl and this icon in particular. And while I think she's still a bit too risque for Dandelion, she still has some Dandelion like qualities so I'm keeping her and using the comic icons to boot.

Plus the hair shade is almost an exact match. Good enough for me.

[one-who-goes.livejournal.com]

I had Eric Bana on this account until the movie came out and I heard it wasn't very good, but I was never quite comfortable with him. He's almost too handsome to be Henry. (Though the movie did a decent job of downplaying that.)

In canon, Henry says he looks like the artist Egon Schiele (http://members.cox.net/germanexpressionist/Egon-Schiele-Anton-Josef-Trcka-1914.jpg). That was not the easiest match ever. Adrian Brody came closest, but he's young and I so cannot deal with his nose. I found James Purefoy on a random troll through Hollow Art, and he just looked like Henry to me -- he's dashing but a little rough, which is perfect.

[iknowstuff.livejournal.com]

Layla was a giant pain in my ass.

Yeah, I could have stuck with the comics but for some reason Marvel wanted to use "Edgy" artists for the first half of X-Factor's run (Which translated into sucky icons) and I hated the art from House of M.

So I picked a PB and spent about... oh, a month collecting images and making icons for the time I'd finally bring Layla in. About a month later someone in game went with her as a PB.

So then I started down the path of looking for another PB and found one that was just perfect. I got the really bad movie she was from, screencapped it and made icons for another month. And then when it came time for her to come in... another person had chosen the exact PB from the exact movie I had iconned from.

So I was determined to find another PB. I was dead set against NOT having a twin in Fandom. I don't know why. I just was.

So I flirted briefly with using Evannah Lynch (who plays Luna Lovegood in the HP movies) but all the good images I could find was her in her Hogwarts uniform or wearing some strange outfits from a fashion shoot that just looked nuts (http://www.evannafan.com/photos/albums/photo-shoots/set-003/0309.jpg).

So then I came across a blonde Kristen Stewart wearing a sleeveless t-shirt (Layla's typical outfit) and looking a bit rough around the edges. Perfect! I started iconning and iconning and then showed them to someone who then reminded me that Blythe was Kristen Stewart.

So I gave up and e-mailed the mun who graciously allowed me to share her face with the Firekeeper.

[intraspective]

Oooooh, heh. Ino technically doesn’t really need a PB now that she’s caught up with the second half of her canon in appearance, but originally I started looking for a PB when Ino had been here for a year and all her icons showed her still at twelve. But she was still too young for me to feel comfortable switching over to the second half of her canon—canon has a time skip, yep—and I wanted someone who was young, looked it, and yet looked like Ino.

I poked around a whole lot. Saw AnnaSophia and considered her a few times, went with someone else for, oh, two days. Then someone shoved AnnaSophia at me again and I decided to go with her. I seriously can’t imagine using anyone else for her now.

[therewaslife]

BECAUSE SHE IS ADORABLE.

[colourfulscents.livejournal.com]

I can't remember for the life of me how I decided that Diane Kruger would be Angua's PB. In a way, it just sort of seemed to be fate. I mean, even this icon, which is a perfect image to have for Angua, I didn't even come across until after I started playing her. There are just so many great images where Diane seems to be invoking an undeniable Angua-ness that even though there really wasn't much thought put into the choice, it's always just felt so right.

Of course, it wasn't until after I'd apped and been married to the idea of Diane that I discovered casing for a Going Postal movie in which Angua makes an appearance. They've casted Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, who I've never heard of, but she fits (http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Ingrid%20Bols%C3%B8%20Berdal&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi). I like how she's wilder than Diane, seems a bit less smoothly pretty, and has got the right wolfishness, but there's still far more Diane than Ingrid out there, anyway.

[bitten_notshy]

I've told the Jack story before, but what the hell, I can repeat myself after a year.

So I needed a slightly built, blond, blue-eyed curly-haired someone who could pass for a youngish-looking 17 without skeeving me out if he had sex. Oh, and he had to look intelligent and a little old-fashioned.

I think I looked at every teenage-ish blond on Hollow Art, twice. I almost said screw it and went with DiCaprio again, since he did a couple period films when he was about the right age, but didn't want to be quite that redundant. I had settled on Lucas Grabeel, but he was too strongly identified with his High School Musical character and I didn't want that kind of baggage. Ryan Phillippe is very very close, but for whatever reason there was a shortage of icons of him at the right age. (Though it's since been pointed out to me that I could have used Gosford Park for material. Wish I'd thought of that, but I didn't.)

Finally, when I'd almost given up, I found the lovely Ed Speleers, who is a shade beefy (and his hair is wavy, not curly) but otherwise everything I could want. This icon is the shot that sold me on him.

[dontvotemeout]

Jason's the first character I've really had to find a PB for. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to find a 1) dark-haired boy who 2) is actually a teenager and 3) has more than 20 icons made of him but wow, it took me a while. I went through PB Updates (my favorite comm ever on IJ) hoping to find someone who looked right, and I honestly scrolled past Logan Lerman a few times before deciding on him, mainly because all the icons I found at first were from Jack and Bobby (where he's all clean cut and wearing a school uniform and, uh, no) but then different icons started cropping up and I learned that he played Christian Bale's son in 3:10 to Yuma and that was enough of a sign for me, so I went with him.

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

Phoebe and Gwynn were the easiest because they came from TV and a movie with PBs built right in.

Savannah wasn't so hard because someone pointed me at Mila Kunis and I had to agree that she just really fit the image of Savannah that I had in my head.

Annja was a little more difficult to PB. I tried Alison Sudol for a little while, but she just didn't have the edginess that was Annja in the books. Then I saw Jessica Biel from Blade Trinity and after getting the opinions from a few other people we decided that she was the perfect younger Annja. (My older PB choice had been Rhona Mitra.)

[isntabitpretty.livejournal.com]

Trufax, I very nearly went with Sarah Hagan, and then decided it would hurt my brain.

This is the physical description given of Sara in The Story Girl:

She was tall for her fourteen years, slim and straight; around her long, white face--rather too long and too white--fell sleek, dark-brown curls, tied above either ear with rosettes of scarlet ribbon. Her large, curving mouth was as red as a poppy, and she had brilliant, almond-shaped, hazel eyes; but we did not think her pretty.

I? Fail at PBs, and didn't have the slightest clue where to start looking for a PB who fit that description, and after two days of poking through Hollow Art and a few other places I was sort of flailing at a few people in despair. boho_to_be suggested Emily Perkins, and I decided it worked; she's got the expressive face for it.

I just need to stop being lazy about icon-hunting. ;)

[give-areason.livejournal.com]

Rosalind has very few canon pictures—her major presence in canon, after all, from a cell phone game—so I knew from the moment I started considering aping her that I was going to need an PB.

Which had me scrolling through Hollow Art and despairing of ever finding someone and asking for suggestions over on IJ for they are amaaazing over there re PBs. Someone suggested a blonde Claire Danes and linked me to her Hollow Art page and she was just freakishly perfect. Her hair it too long in a lot of icons, but her attitude and her expressions are amaaazingly accurate for how I imagined Rosalind.

[awakestheghosts]

Chloe. *headdesk* Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Chloe was hard because it was very much described in the books that she had blond hair with red streaks in it. It was hard as hell to find a PB that wasn't overtly sexy or bouncy to use for her. Then I saw a trailer from "Push" with wantstocheer and she said "That's Chloe!". I did searches of Dakota Fanning image sites for images from the movie and then downloaded screencaps and got people to make me icons (as well as investigating icon journals on LJ and IJ). Did the app and she got accepted. Then saw someone else -- Hi Layla! -- was planning on using that very same PB from the very same movie as their PB. I was disheartened and went back to looking for someone that would be able to epitomize everything that Chloe was still had the hair color and I was really starting to get discouraged about playing her because I couldn't find the perfect PB for her. The someone pointed out that I should just go ahead and use her as there had been twins at FH before. I finally decided to go ahead and do that as I just couldn't find anyone else.

So I went with Dakota from "Push" for her and now wish that she smiled more in that movie because Chloe has started smiling more in game as she finds friends and her niche.

[icecoldfrost]

I'd stumbled across Jessica Stam while hunting down a PB for dojima_hime, and while I thought she was gorgeous, she just didn't have the bounce I needed for Dojima.

So I bookmarked her entry on foxglove_icons in my 'potential PBs' file, and promptly forgot about her until I had apped Emma and was in desperate need of a teenage PB. There's plenty of comics icons out there of Emma, but they were all of her as an adult: too revealing, too hard, and too old.

Then I found this icon while browsing burlesque_show, recalled that I had other Stam icons bookmarked somewhere, and I was hooked. She even came with perfect telepath icons! *points at userpic*

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

Jonas was a bit difficult because there's not a lot of detailed description of him from the book. He needed to be dark haired with light eyes and that's about it. Originally, I was going to go with Hugh Dancy because he fit those parameters but I stumbled across a picture of Matthew Goode and his sad eyes and I bookmarked it. I didn't switch immediately but I kept going back to him and his eyes and kept thinking he was the better fit. He had the better, sadder look that someone like Jonas would have.

In the end, I pulled the trigger and switched and I'm glad I did. Matthew Goode really fits the overall look I wanted (looking older or not) because he's got the description from the book but he's also got that weary, puppy dog look that someone with Jonas' past would have.

[rocksthescarf.livejournal.com]

I feel left out because college made me hate reading. But Chuck, Dan and Damon are all from books, SO YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME RAMBLE BECAUSE I AM BORED.

Okay, I never read Vampire Diaries, but Gossip Girl did a terrible job of casting for the most part (and they cut out the fact that every single character save for Jenny is a chain smoker). But what I want to discuss here, is that Chuck is described in the books as "aftershave-commercial handsome".

I have no idea what that means.

But trufax, in the books Chuck did do commercials in Europe while in high school. He's like Regina George. But I still don't know what "aftershave-commercial handsome" means.

Dan, on the other hand, is described as "pale, with shaggy hair and rock star thin". XD

Still, not as bad as book!Vanessa having a shaved head and book!Jenny being a curly haired brunette with a huge rack.

[trigons_child]

Apparently if you google "aftershave-commercial handsome," the hits are mostly Chuck Bass or gay porn. Go figure.

[mania-endless.livejournal.com]

This girl.

Delirium looks different every time she appears in The Sandman; even if you consider that different people draws her, she is supposed to be change a lot.

...And I'm ashamed to admit I don't really know if I will be ever satisfied with a PB for her, but for now I'm sticking to this so you don't have to deal with me changing it every week. I'm the kind of person that needs to find the right match in order to get some good sleep...and I'm still trying with this girl.

And I don't really feel like using the comic for icons.

[longislandiceme]

So, I totally could've taken the easy way out and used Shawn Ashmore for Bobby. However, as anyone who's let me talk about the subject for, oh... five minutes knows, comics!Bobby is not blond and blue-eyed, despite the fact that he seems to have been drawn a lot that way during the 90s especially.

I needed someone with brown hair, and a sort of wholesome/dorky look about him. I spent a while poking at HA, and I kept finding posts where like, one or two specific icons were perfect but the rest weren't really what I was looking for. And then I was like "Hey! Whassisface from Sky High! He'd do!" and someone (possibly screwyoumarvel) reminded me of his name and off I went to find icons and, yeah, perfect.

Of course, the particular Bobby-Drake-esque hairstyle is really only found in the SH icons, but I'm using non SH ones too because the boy is freaking adorable and I can't not. I justify it by the fact that sometimes he is drawn with spiky hair. Yes, I will ignore some inconsistencies and embrace others. That's what being a comics fan is about :D

[death-of-hope.livejournal.com]

I was lucky, that I could use icons from the anime and manga for so long with Anemone. I'd been looking for a useable PB with pink hair since I first apped her, but too many of them were too goth/punk/alt for who she was.

But when she entered her senior year, I started to get frustrated, because the icons of her at sixteen didn't fit anymore. She was now nineteen and mostly-sane, which many of her icons didn't reflect.

Luckily, I had stumbled across Emilie Autumn when icon-hunting for a PW journal, and while 99% of her icons are too punked-out for my needs, I found a few that really hit the right note for what I needed: Once broken, but twice as strong for it.

[theotherpeter.livejournal.com]

*continues the experiment of being logged in from work*

However, I will be talking about two other accounts, so I don't have to log out, heh.

For onlysmokesnics, it was all about finding a slight blonde woman with short, boyish hair. This was amazingly tricky, and Agyness Deyn ended up winning out over the actress that played Tasha Yar because she seemed more on the unstable side. And I actually really like that choice, because she works well.

For stayingfrosty, I'm still actually not too happy with Jim Beaver. The man isn't as trim as Price, and prompts incorrect assumptions about his manner of dress because of how he appears in his PB icons.

The problem being that I cannot, for the life of me, find someone real who looks like Captain Price. If anyone has any suggestions, I beg of you to help.

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

I've only seen pictures at the COD wiki but he reminds me of a grizzly Richard Burgi with facial hair.