Storvik's Icon Gallery

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.
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").
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.)
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.)
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.")
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.)
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.)
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.
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).
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.)
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.)
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.)
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.
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."
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.
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.)
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.)
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.)
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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…
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.