January 4, 2009

Happy New Year everyone!!! Thanks to everyone for the wonderful gifts, I really love them all. It's so nice to know I have all these online friends. You guys rock!

I've been in a crazy Twilight mood lately. I would like to give a great big thank you to the site, Twilight-Quotes.com because all I have to do is go on that site, find a quote, and it inspires me. It's a fantastic site, I just love it!

School has started for me. Yeah, I'm a student again. Wish me luck, people, I need it! If it works out, I'm going to try to get my MBA. Oh, I hope it works...

NEW ARTWORK:

- Bella Manipulation: This is a manipulation made from a base of Michelle Trachtenberg. I personally really like Michelle and I have never been able to use her in much artwork. After looking at images of her, I thought she would be a perfect base for Bella. I used an image of Kristen and darkened her eyes to match Bella's brown ones. I am particularly fond of this one.

- Second Bella Manipulation: This is based off an image of Alexis Biedel and has more of a vampire look to it. I really like the darkness to this one.

- Buffy/Faith Manipulation: Having always been a big fan of the Buffy/Faith femslash, I found myself making another manipulation of them. This is for the Manipulative Bitches challenge at BuffyForums.

- The Darkness: Oh, Bella and Jacob, I love them. I really wanted to do an angsty piece of them and I found this part of New Moon to be a great one to do a wall of. I had them facing away from one another to show the division of their relationship at that point. I wanted to use a sun stock in this to match the quote, but it didn't work out, so I used a circular stock with the orange and purple colors I associate with a sunset.

- Such Fools: The Twilight soundtrack hasn't come out of my car since my husband got the promo for me and it probably won't for a long time. Last week, I was listening to "Decode" over and over again and the lyrics on this wall kept going over in my mind as fitting so well with Bella and Edward. I wanted to use the purple and pink tones because it seemed to fit the innocence and beauty of the scene.

- Not the Normal Way: The book version. I love this still. There is something incredibly beautiful about the shot in my opinion. It has such a longing to it. I used the more natural colors in this version because it was the 'real' one, as far as I am concerned since it involves the actual text from the book.

December 22,2008

Oh, it's crazy around here, as usual these days...

School is driving me out of my fucking mind and I'm not even started there yet. Sorry, but it is. I hate dealing with financial aid. They tell you one thing and thing mean another. It's such crap. Why can't it be easy? And why does the US government care more about bailing out corporations than the fact that a huge percentage of students, which are the future of the country, can't afford to go back to school this semester due to lack of loans? It's so sad. I hate the country right now.

In better news, I got asked to do some artwork for a band for their website. How cool is that? That kind of made my day. And I am working a lot more with photography now because I am doing touch ups to a friend's modeling photos, so I had to brush up on my touch up skills. It's a lot of fun and I'm learning a lot.

Onto the new art!
- Another Faith and Dean Manipulation: I really like this one because they are all dressy. This was one of the few photos I have of Jensen dressed up, so I had to go with it. I LOVE THE DRESS ELIZA IS WEARING!!! She looks so pretty in it. I added Eliza to the photo, added in a hand from another photo I have to make it look like he has his arm around her, and then added in the shadows to make it look more real. The shadows REALLY help a lot!

- Inside My Bones: Ah, Jo...I love her. This was a Christmas present to the lovely Kayla over at SVS. She wanted a Jo wall with pink and yellow themes, so I went with it. It's just a simple character piece, but I wanted to add the knife lyrics from the Deftones because I always liked that she carried that knife of her dad's around. I want Jo back!

- Inspired: A Bella and Edward piece from one of my favorite parts of the book. I was SO pissed that they didn't say the inspiration line in the movie, so I added it here. You all know I'm a Team Jacob girl, but I love the vampires too.

December 14,2008

New update - finally. I don't intend to have updates with such huge breaks in between, so this isn't normal. The gallery went through some MAJOR problems and I wanted to fix everything before a new update. Also, in real life, I am going back to school in January, so I have been filling out and sending paperwork for like, a month. It's crazy. Onto the site!

Lots of new art.
- Faith and Dean Manipulation: Okay, I was in a little manipulation mood and love the Faith/Dean crossover ship, so I figured I would do one. Dana at Chosen Art does a LOAD of awesome Buffy/Dean crossovers and just looking at them over the past who knows how long has gotten me to want some Faith/Dean manips. And she's recently gotten me really hooked on the ones that are more of the actors rather than the characters, so I wanted to give it a shot.

- Step on a Little Bug: This was a first for Pandora Box's challenge on Buffy Forums were I picked a show and he picked an episode, colors, and a music artist to use. Yeah, this wasn't hard at all! First off, this is the only Supernatural episode I will probably never watch again, so it was tough to art anyway, but to limit the lyrics? Wow. I knew though that I really wanted to use a big cockroach for the whole bug thing in the episode and then I found the lyrics in the song "Cry Baby", so things worked out okay. Not my favorite piece of work, by far, but hey.

- Break It: My second piece for that challenge. Initially, I did NOT want to use Piece of My Heart. I really like Janis and the song is such an obvious choice since so many people know it, but it really fit this scene for me. I know a lot of people don't like Cassie, but I enjoyed her character and felt bad for both of them in the end of this episode. I really felt like, "Oh, there goes Dean's chance at a real life. As real as it could get, anyway.

- Bad Moon: This is for Antoinette's Blank Canvas challenge over at Efflugent. I really wanted to do a Jacob/Bella wall because I love that pairing. I have tried really hard in the future to use the whole moon and wolf stocks thing in a wall, but it never work. This time, it all came together for me. The images of both actors are from places outside of Twilight (from photoshoots), but I think they worked out well. The song 'Bad Moon Rising' really fits them, in my opinion.

- She Will Be Loved: This wall is one I wanted to do since I saw the film because I just loved how Jacob looked in this scene. My husband helped me out with the whole negative space thing, which I really love but have a hard time achieving. I think it worked out well here though. I used Maroon Five's lyrics because I really think they fit their relationship well.

- Team Jacob: This was actually my husband's idea when I was creating 'She Will Be Loved'. He wanted to see what it would look like with even more negtive space and I am happy with how it ended up.

The following screencaps have been added to the site.

- True Blood: 1x02 - First Taste
- True Blood: 1x03 - Mine
- True Blood: 1x04 - Escape from Dragon House
- True Blood: 1x05 - Sparks Fly Out
- True Blood: 1x06 - Cold Ground
- True Blood: 1x07 - Burning House of Love
- True Blood: 1x08 - Fourth Man in the Fire
- True Blood: 1x09 - Plaisir D'Amour
- True Blood: 1x10 - I Don't Wanna Know
- True Blood: 1x11 - To Love is to Bury
- True Blood: 1x12 - You'll be the Death of Me
- X-Files: 1x01 - Pilot
- X-Files: 1x02 - Deep Throat
- X-Files: 1x03 - Squeeze
- X-Files: 1x04 - Conduit
- X-Files: 1x05 - The Jersey Devil
- X-Files: 1x06 - Shadows
- X-Files: 1x07 - Ghost in the Machine
- X-Files: 1x08 - Ice
- X-Files: 1x09 - Eve
- X-Files: 1x10 - Fallen Angel
- X-Files: 1x11 - Eve
- X-Files: 1x12 - Fire
- X-Files: 1x13 - Beyond the Sea
- X-Files: 1x14 - Gender Bender
- X-Files: 1x15 - Lazarus
- X-Files: 1x16 - Young at Heart
- X-Files: 1x17 - E.B.E
- X-Files: 1x18 - Miracle Man
- X-Files: 1x19 - Shapes
- X-Files: 1x20 - Darkness Falls
- X-Files: 1x21 - Tooms

November 29,2008

Hi all! This is my new site. I have had Lady Manson Video Database posted since 2004, mainly because I wanted to do a site with fan videos. Since then, I have branched out to lots of artwork - walls, icons, banners, etc., fiction, and more. I thought it was time for a site that included more overall. So I created Shadow of Reflection, a name taken from the song Haunted by Type of Negative. I liked it because the I always think of how things on my site end up so differently from how I pictured them in my mind. I find my initial thought to be a reflection of my creativity, and the altered reflection is more of a shadow. Whatever, I like it.

FIRST OF ALL!!!! The winners for Round 30 have FINALLY been posted! You incredibly patient people can find your awards under the new site. I'm sorry they took so long but with the holidays, the new site, and all of real life going on, you don't want to even hear it. Round 31 is open though...

New artwork - I did three pieces for Amber's "Golden Age of Grotesque" challenge with Manson lyrics. It was a lot of fun because I really like Marilyn Manson and was able to get all creative with the artwork again. The new Ruby piece was just a character piece, as I love those a lot.

- Angel With the Scabbed Wings: I thought immediately of Castiel when I listened to this song. Reason being that although he's an angel, it's hard to tell his true motive in the show. I'm basing that off the conversation he had with Dean in the last episode where he confessed to being a bit less perfect than an angel is thought to be. I did this piece in black and white because it didn't feel to me like a very colorful issue. The whole concept of religion in the show, especially with the angels, is so black and white in the show, that it seemed fitting. I did want to put a touch of color into it though, so I brought the color of his eyes out. The stocks are ones I associate with faith and angels - a cross and a church with the graveyard attached. The text is angled along his face because I think the negative space is more effective than if I would have put horizontal text across the black area.

- Never Repair: I always liked Bela and her whole backstory really begs for a lot of tragic artwork. Bela always put on a strong front acting like a horrible person when in reality she was nothing but a scared little girl from a traumatic abusive childhood. I placed the young Abby behind a window in this piece, as she is trapped in Bela's past, pushed down by her desire to be strong and put it all behind her. I wanted to put her real name somewhere on the piece and put it backwards on the window, as if Abby herself had traced it on there from inside. Bela is in a stronger position, gun in hand near the front, taking the place as the sinner instead of the wronged little girl Abby was, who was nothing but a traumatized innocent child until the day she met Lilith. I used Marilyn Manson's lyrics from Coma Black to describe her life as a whole. Bela did kill people and do terrible things, but unlike a lot of other characters, she was never forgiven and went to Hell for doing nothing other than killing those that hurt her as a child. It seemed horribly unfortunate to me, as she was nothing more than a victim, pretty much pushed into such a life.

- 2.0: I wanted to do a character piece for the 'new' Ruby. I'm one of those that really likes her and thought I would make this for all the other fans of her as well. I like the simplicity of it, as 2.0 seemed such a fitting title.

- White Sun: I wanted to do a piece depicting Anna because I really enjoyed her story as a fallen angel and how angels simply obey and cannot feel. I found the scene in the end of the episode where she was turned back into an angel to be incredibly moving and had to make a piece out of it. As Dean put it, she probably wasn't happy as an angel when she went back to being one, so I wanted to use the lyrics from "Fundamentally Loathesome" because they seemed to fit so well into how she compared human and angel life. Particularly the lines, "I'll just suffer in a hope to die someday while you are numb all of the way" made me think of how she was saying that we were lucky to feel. She could at least feel the suffering and death as a human, while humans may try to shield themselves from such a reality, growing numb. That's how I liked to incorporate the lyrics anyway. A bit of over rationalizing, I know.

My gallery is also expanding. My wonderful host helped me out with how to maximize the exectution time so the stupid thing doesn't keep shutting down on me, so I have been capping some of my favorite shows that I don't see capped as much as others. Right now, I have HD caps of Friday Night Lights season one in the works, as well as True Blood:. I am planning on doing HD caps from my X-Files DVDs too because I REALLY want to start doing some nice XF art and it's hard to find decent quality caps from that show these days. The following have been albums have been added to or started.
- Ashley Greene
- Blake Lively
- Daniel Craig
- Eliza Dushku
- Elizabeth Banks
- Gemma Ward
- Genevieve Cortese
- Heidi Klum
- Karolina Kurkova
- Kristen Stewart
- Megan Fox
- Michelle Trachtenberg
- Miranda Kerr
- Nikki Reed
- Robert Pattinson
- Sarah Michelle Gellar

Screencaps
- Friday Night Lights: 1x01 - Pilot
- Friday Night Lights: 1x02 - Eyes Wide Open
- Friday Night Lights: 1x03 - Wind Sprints
- Friday Night Lights: 1x04 - Who's Your Daddy?
- Friday Night Lights: 1x05 - Git 'Er Done
- Friday Night Lights: 1x06 - El Accidente
- Friday Night Lights: 1x07 - Homecoming
- Friday Night Lights: 1x08 - Crossing the Line
- Friday Night Lights: 1x09 - Full Hearts
- Friday Night Lights: 1x10 - It's Different for Girls
- Friday Night Lights: 1x11 - Nevermind
- Friday Night Lights: 1x12 - What to Do While You're Waiting
- Friday Night Lights: 1x13 - Little Girl, I Wanna Marry You
- Friday Night Lights: 1x14 - Upping the Ante
- Friday Night Lights: 1x15 - Blinders
- Friday Night Lights: 1x16 - Black Eyes and Broken Hearts
- Friday Night Lights: 1x17 - I Think We Should Have Sex
- Friday Night Lights: 1x18 - Extended Families
- True Blood:: 1x01 - Strange Love

I am now also accepting affiliates again. Check the affiliates page and if you got knocked off there, I do apologize. I think some people did when I was in the process of changing everything. Also, I redid all the video pages, so all the links are up to date. All my Buffy vids that got yanked from YouTube are now linked to streaming sites elsewhere for your viewing pleasure, as well as others that YouTube didn't care for. The fanart section has undergone a facelift, as everything is separated by season, characters, couples, etc. The Buffy seasons are being a bit of a bitch to me right now, but give that some time. It may just be me too because they seem to work on my husband's computer. The icons load MUCH faster, for those of you used to my old icon page.

.Welcome.

Welcome to Shadow of Reflection, part of
Lady Manson.com. This site is for
entertainment purposes only and all images,
music, and media are property of their
respective owners. No infringement is
inetended. Please do not steal any of the
artwork or media and please credit if used.
Tag me if you like what you see!

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