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The very first icons I made for Storvik, whipped up in a hurry, were two
separate icons from two separate pictures of me dressed as a Vulcan. I retired
them once I started creating the icons you see below; but much later, I brought
them back – putting the two Storvik icons
together in a flipping
animation, and using another photo for Evil Storvik. These two journals, and
several others created/written
by a variety of other people, represent an exercise in role-playing and creative
writing in a slanted version of the Star Trek universe. The photographs
came from this page, and some of
the other players have also used real photos of them in costume as icons.
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After the photos, the first icon I made for Storvik was
created in the South Park Studio. It was one of
the only custon character
generation sites of which I was aware at the time, and very easy to although I
had to add the pointed ears and Starfleet insignia manually, as they were not
standard options (I usually had to do some modification to the generic output of
the character generators). The background is the bridge of the Defiant
from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, since the USS Murgatroid is supposed to be
Defiant-class (I found the
picture with a Google image
search). Later, when I created the Mirror-Universe Evil Storvik, I made an icon for him from a
mirror of the original
image, with goatee, facial expression, and Imperial insignia (some of the
creators had Starfleet insignia, but none had the symbol of the Earth Empire
from the Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror").
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The next icon made for Storvik; and much later, for Evil Storvik. The Lego Mini-Mizer actually had everything I needed for the
original, but didn't have the Imperial logo for the second one. I used the same
Defiant bridge image for the background, but a different portion of it. I
also made South Park and/or Lego-based icons for most of the other USS Murgatroid (and, later, ISS Murgatroid) characters. (Note that
the two images are not true
reflections – both Storviks are holding their phaser in
their right hand.)
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By the time I made these icons, both Storvik journals had been
created – so I made them both at the same time. The
background is a nebula (I didn't see any point in having super-powered flying
Vulcans shown inside a starship), and the characters (with much post-processing
by me) were made from a generic base I created in the Powerpuff Girls Portrait Studio. (I
forget where I got the
Powerpuff font – but I'm pretty sure I found it fairly
quickly with a simple search.) I only made these icons for the Storviks; and
for a long time, these were the only icons I had for them (since unpaid LiveJournal accounts only
get three icons). For a while after that, Storvik was a
paid account but Evil Storvik wasn't – still, I
always made two
versions of every icon. Eventually thetaet bought Evil Storvik his first paid membership. (I
made a Powerpuff icon for
Counsellor Lothar, but he never used it.)
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I first found the Hello Kitty Dress-Up site when creating icons for one of my other journals, Allah
Sulu. But with extensive manual
modification (including the ears and green-tinted skin), I was able to make cute
Hello Kitty Vulcans. The background is a fuzzy picture of the bridge of
the original Enterprise, NCC-1701 (from the animated Star Trek series).
Note that evil_ Storvik's icon differs in more than just the
goatee and insignia;
I added the Imperial officer's sash around his waist as well. Some of the
subsequent icons also went into greater detail in the differences between the
two uniforms. (A number of people thought that the evil Hello Kitty
Vulcan was "just wrong.")
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The image at left is one I found with a Google image search; I
originally used it to replace the
standard LiveJournal
userinfo GIF before I created the one to the right (a modified version of the
standard userinfo GIF) months later. The image is so small that I did not feel
the need to make a separate, goateed version for Evil Storvik. (For information about the
program I wrote/use to
generate customized LJ user tags, see Allah Sulu's Massive Tool.)
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These icons were created from Micro-Hero Templates.
The background is a starship corridor
from the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation (I got this and
several subquent backgrounds from the Ex Astris Scientia galleries). Note
Evil Storvik's dagger, as well as a few
other uniform differences. (I
also made at least one Micro-Hero icon for another
character, Doctor Mib Khan.) I cropped off the legs of the
characters, rather than
reducing them in size, to keep from losing detail – look
at the one I created for Allah Sulu
to see what one looks like when
shrunken down.)
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These icons were created using the Hero Machine. Again, I
cropped them rather than use
full-body shots with less detail – look at the one I created for Allah Sulu
to see what one looks like when
shrunken down. Note the hair coloring – my wife had
dyed my hair blond; and then, as my naturally-dark hair grew back out, I had
two-toned hair. These icons reflect the hair coloring which I had at the time
the icons were created. The background is the transporter room from the original
Enterprise.
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I blew up the image above and made the face less red-tinged, then created a
second version with eyebrow raised. I did this as a joke, to create a Vulcan mood
theme for Storvik (the joke being that Vulcans only had
two "moods"; normal, and eyebrow raised). I later put both images together to
make an animated icon, and then made a goateed version of the icon for Evil Storvik (who never got his own mood
theme, however).
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These icons were created in Face Maker, with the
ears pointed and the insignia manually by me. When I started playing with NationStates, I used
these images as the basis for the flags of The Federation
of Storvik and The Empire
of Evil Storvik. I'm rather proud of their
respective slogans, "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" and
"The needs of me outweigh the needs of you". (I stopped keeping up with the
nations around the time my son was born, and apparently my inactivity caused
those nations to be deleted. I have not yet re-established them, nor decided if
I want to do so.)
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GWIII (a.k.a. Counsellor Lothar) made
a couple of pictures of what the
USS Murgatroid's antics would look like as
a Warner Brothers cartoon.
(I shrank them down to icon size.) At left is an image with both Storviks, and
at right is an image with Lothar (based on the DC Comics character Lobo).
( GWIII has his own icon
gallery page.)
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These two images were created not to be used as LiveJournal icons, but to
be inserted into journal entries. The one on the left is "Red Alert", based on
the red alert warning seen in the first Star Trek
movies – used in posts to indicate when a state of red
alert was occurring in the storyline. The image to the right is a hand forming
the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign, inspired by the icons (in both MS
Windows and LJ) of a hand with a thumb up or down. The sleeve (blue with two
gold bands) is Spock's from the original Star Trek television series.
(Only my Micro-Hero Storvik icon above also has
those gold bands on the sleeves, indicating a rank of Commander.)
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These icons were made from the character Spook (a parody of Mister Spock) from
the webcomic Sev Trek.
All I did was add the insignia, the goatee, and the URL.
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This icon on the left is an icon-sized version of a larger image which I
made by photoshopping the Defiant's dedication plaque. The icon on the
right is an animated USS Murgatroid icon which I made later, of
the ship colliding with a
moon and beer cans flying (from this larger
image). The motto Veni Vino Vamoose can be
loosely translated as "I Came, I Drank, I Left" (and Seth Cohen a.k.a. Mib Khan
gets the credit for that one...) No plaque or logo has yet
been made for the ISS Murgatroid, though Seth has suggested
a slogan of "Veni Vidi Vici
Veni", with an English translation of "Lather, Rinse, Repeat."
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These icons were created with the Portrait Illustration Maker, and also
reflect the still
remaining at the time blond highlights in my hair. The goatee and eyes are the
only differences between the two images (apart from one being a flipped image of
the other) – since the icons only show the head and
shoulders, there was no need to worry about insigniae, sashes, daggers, sleeve
stripes, etc. The background is the engineering room of the Enterprise in
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
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The image at the left is cropped out of a frame of the Genesis video for the
song "Land of Confusion", using puppets from the British TV show "Spitting
Image". It did not need to be modified to become an icon; but the image on the
left needed an altered (and moved) insignia and a moustache and goatee. (I was
watching this video on my computer, saw Mister Spock in it, and immediately
captured a frame to make an icon out of it.)
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These two images were also created by GWIII. I never used them as icons (my
excuse explanation being that I had no room for them), but I thought they
were funny enough to include here. (They do not reflect anything that has
actually happened in the USS Murgatroid storyline; both Storviks
have had problems with pon
farr, but not that sort of problems. ( GWIII has his
own icon
gallery page.)
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These icons were created with the Portrait Avatar Maker , and also reflect the
still remaining
at the time blond highlights in my hair. The only differences are the goatee
and insignia, and the background is the shuttle hangar bay on the original
Enterprise. Unlike the Portrait Illustration Maker icons above
(which come from the
same site), these icons show a full (if distorted) body rather than just a head
and shoulders.
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These icons were created using the ACME Heart Maker. If one
wished, there are a variety of
other Star Trek quotes that could be used to make up an entire set of
Federation candy hearts for Valentine's Day (though some photoshopping might be
required to overcome the eight character limit in the ACME Heart Maker).
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These Storviks were done in the style of the Kenya cartoon.
I reversed the order of frames in the animation; so that, when viewed side by
side, Storvik should be tilting in one direction
when Evil Storvik is leaning in the other. The
background is the bridge of
the Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next
Generation – I made it brighter, and fiddled with
the palette a bit, to make it look more "cartoony". These icons took some time,
and a couple of tries, before I was satisfied with them.
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These icons were created with the Portrait Icon Maker. I gave them both
flaming backgrounds
(in colors to match their insigniae) because I liked the way that looked in the
other Portrait Icon Maker avatars I made
for __tigerlilly and Allah Sulu
( here). A week later I remade them, increasing the size of
the flames in the background and adding a black border (the images shown here
are the final version).
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I was inspired by the "evil monkey" from Family Guy to create an icon of
Evil Storvik as a monkey (right). I added
the shirt and pointed ears (the goatee came later). It took me a while longer
before I made the Storvik-as-monkey icon (left), and I didn't
want to add them to this page until both were complete. The Storvik
monkey icon is based on Curious George; again, the major changes were the addition of the shirt and
pointed ears. (Since George was holding something in the original image I started with,
I put an old-style tricorder in his hand for the icon.) I wasn't sure how I
felt about only one of them being animated; but then I remembered that only one
of the photo icons above is animated, so now they're even. (The two monkeys
were already facing in opposite directions; if they hadn't been, I would have
flipped one over.)
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These icons are pictures of both Storvik and Evil Storvik holding their baby T'Sorvik. In
the Murgatroid storyline, the baby was the child of both Storviks (a long
story involving the involuntary application of TGMR –
Trans-Gender Mutational Retrovirus – and a pon
farr-inducing agent). The image at left was made with the Picture Diary
Maker, an icon generator that lets you place multiple small people into a
single icon. I had to manually reverse one of the faces, as well as add
insigniae and edit the ears. The icon on the right was photoshopped from this
source picture). In
reality, the baby is my own son, and the picture was taken when he was twelve
days old. My wife made the Starfleet uniform for him, and I added the insignia
with fabric paint.
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At left is a comm badge designed especially for the USS Murgatroid by GWIII (note
also the miniature version I made in this paragraph). At right is a variation I made, parodying the
teaser poster for Star Trek XI (the prequel).
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Someone at fark.com had used
a picture of the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons dressed as Mr. Spock in
a photoshop contest. Since the monkey Storviks had been fun to make and well
received, I figured I'd do Simpson Storviks next. Given his facial hair, girth,
and "worst. [whatever]. ever." tagline, I thought the Comic Book Guy would be
more appropriate as Evil Storvik; so I gave him a new insignia
and placed him on the starship belonging to Kang and Kodos (two aliens from the
Simpsons Halloween specials who were themselves named after Star
Trek characters). For Storvik, I started with a picture from Leonard
Nimoy's appearance on the Simpsons. I replaced his black shirt and brown
jacket with a blue shirt, and pasted on the Starfleet insignia that I'd cut off
of Comic Book Guy's uniform. I also had to add a point to his visible ear, and
flip it over so he'd be facing in the opposite direction of Evil Simpsons
Storvik. The quote is Nimoy's from the Simpsons Monorail episode, if I
recall correctly.
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These icons were created with the Star Trek Miniature
Maker. This site simultaneously creates
both a front and back view of the character (so you can print it out, fold it
over, and use it for tabletop gaming). I swapped the fronts and backs, so that
Storvik and Evil Storvik would be facing each other,
each
armed with a phaser. The background is Vulcan, from Amok Time.
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LiveJournal has a
bunch of small "smiley" emoticons; I made a couple of Vulcan (Federation and
"evil" Imperial) versions. Note that the yellow has a slight green tint.
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When they came up with a new, updated South Park
Studio version 2, I figured I'd re-do the South Park Storviks. I
still had to add all of the Star Trek embellishments myself; this time, I
did more of them (the stripes on Storvik's sleeves, the sash around Evil Storvik's waist) and I think I did a
much
better job on the ears. After some debate, I decided to keep the same
background that I'd used for the other South Park-style Storviks.
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These icons were made using the Gaea Dream Creator, with a
scene from the Star Trek Bridge Commander
video game as the background. Very little customizing was done, apart from the
insigniae; I just had to remove the buttons from the front of Storvik's
shirt.
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At least is the icon I made for the alphaquadrant community. I also offered
them a static version, but they preferred the animated one. At one point in the Murgatroid
storyline, Surak's Razor ( Evil Storvik's [stolen] ship) had been
infected by a virus and the computer had become extremely unstable and erratic. At right is an image I
created to demonstrate how badly the ship's operating system had been corrupted – it was now
running a parody of Microsoft Windows 3.1 (and convinced that it was an elevator).
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These icons were created with the Otaku Avatar Icon Maker,
with embellishments to the uniforms. The starship in the background is the
Nadesico from Martian Successor Nadesico, whose nacelled starship design
was meant to be reminiscent of of those from Star Trek.
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These icons were created from Yahoo!
Avatars. Yahoo! doesn't give many options (they didn't even have blue
shirts; these were originally green) so these are pretty generic figures with
Trek features added manually. The background is a corridor in the
Defiant – You can see the Defiant's schematics on the
monitor on the side wall, but the rear wall had a Federation logo (which I
cropped out).
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These icons are based on G4TV's Star Trek 2.0 logo,
with a silhouette of Spock. The one for Storvik was
barely modified at all; the one for Evil Storvik has the goatee and a completely
different hand gesture.
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These icons were created by modifying sprites from an old videogame called SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash for the
NeoGeo. First, I had to find a card with a character on it who looked vaguely Vulcan in clothing and
demeanor. I changed the colors of the hair and the robe (though I decided not to add insigniae), added a
point to the ear (and a goatee on Evil Storvik), changed the background (I
thought something outdoors/natural/primitive would be the logical setting for the usage of Vulcan martial
arts), and animated the hand. I also changed the text and numbers at the bottom of the card; the
significance of the numbers ought to be obvious to a Star Trek fan.
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The bases for these icons were avatars created in Hoyle Puzzle & Board Games
2007. My wife had made avatars for both of us; I kept most of the facial features she'd chosen
(except the hair and eyebrows, and added the goatee for Evil Storvik) to make these. After
exporting the avatars, I lifted one eyebrow by a pixel, extended the ears a few pixels, and added the
insigniae. I was going to change the background, but my wife suggested that I leave the Hoyle controls
in … since the arrowhead in the center top looks almost like a Starfleet symbol.
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These icons were made using the Stor Troopers site, with the ears slightly pointed and the insigniae added manually. Storvik was placed over a United Federation of Planets logo, and Evil Storvik was given a Terran Empire logo for his background. (Note that I now have individual tiny usericons for each of the Vulcans; you can see usericons for other USS Murgatroid personnel here.)
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These icons were made on the MiniEgo site, with the usual manual adjustments done afterwards. I'm afraid I've forgotten exactly where the background comes from…
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These teddy-bear Storviks were created using the Wuddleted page
(ears modified and insigniae added manually), with a Constitution-class transporter room for the background and this animated GIF used as a filter to create the transporter effect.
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