what is iconic for White Collar?

[ratcreature]

I'd have liked a White Collar icon for a while now, but I'm not sure what I could do to make an icon recognizable. My icons more or less depend on having my avatar successfully cosplay a character, but wearing a suit and a hat is hardly unique, and aside from the tracking anklet (which I'm not sure would be recognizable at icon size) there aren't many distinct props either. So I'm somewhat at a loss. Any ideas?

Comments

[bethbethbeth]

Neal and Peter handcuffed together!

[ratcreature]

It might work. I did something similar when someone asked for a White Collar drawble with them as anthropomorphic rats, which at least as far as likeness goes is a similar problem. I'm not sure about how well the size reduction would work. I have a few icons with more than one creature (like my Numb3rs icon or the Sam&Dean one), but it's hard to fit two full bodies with my avatar if costume is still needed to be recognizable, mostly then it's just the torsos.

[petra]

Neal's hat is pretty iconic to my brain, but I gave up after s1 so I may not be the best resource.

[ratcreature]

Yeah, the hat seems an essential thing, and maybe combined with handcuffs it would be distinct enough, even though my hat drawing won't allow you to deduce the exact model of hat my avatar is wearing.

[saraht]

I think a jauntily tilted hat would say Neal more.

[ratcreature]

On LJ I got a suggestion to base it on a promo pic that combines the tilted hat with a dangling handcuff. That combo would probably be distinct enough.

[lilacsigil]

Could you do one in the style of the promo posters with the black/white/blue colour scheme?

[ratcreature]

No, the no color rule is absolute in my icons. I only use black, white, one dark gray and one light gray, no matter how inconvenient. And I never just put the name of the fandom down either. So unless what the promos do (I'm not sure which you have in mind) is still iconic without the text logo and in gray instead of blue, it won't work.

[miss-porcupine.livejournal.com]

Neal's hat?

Also, the print advertisements with Matt Bomer looking all sexy and sleek... while a handcuff dangles from his wrist. That might work, although I'm not sure how it would play out at 100x100.

[ratcreature]

I'm not sure my drawing style is suited to making a special style of hat clear. I could do maybe a promo pic pose, like what I did when someone asked for a drawble with them as anthropomorphic rats, which is not that different, though it would have to work size-reduced.

[miss-porcupine.livejournal.com]

I think you could maybe handle this (http://f.imagehost.org/0371/white_collar_promo_39.jpg)?

[ratcreature]

Nice! I don't think I have seen that before (I rarely seek out promo pictures), but yeah, something like that might work.

[miss-porcupine.livejournal.com]

I rarely seek out promo pictures, but I ride the buses and subways, where one does not need to seek anything out as it's already there. ;)

(On the flip side, the promo photos kept me from discovering the amazingness of Burn Notice for years because they were so misleading and so omnipresent.)

[ratcreature]

TV advertisements are not that common on public transport here. I mean, I run into some, but it's not the typical kind of ad in that venue. Incidentally the most common subway ads I recall are temp agencies, various education institutions offering degrees and courses, funeral homes, energy efficiency programs, and ads looking for test subjects for medical studies, oddly enough. I think this odd distribution might be because people sitting across from some stupid ad on a train may actually read the text rather than just look.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Maybe if you could work two characters in...alternating gif? A 'Peter' ratcreature showing a fbi badge and a 'Neal' ratcreature in the hat?

[ratcreature]

I'm not that fond of animated icons. I have a few, but mostly when it is some kind of pun-type of thing, like my talent/enthusiasm icon or my zen?/or not icon.

[madripoor-rose.livejournal.com]

Ah. I was thinking it would be hard to squeeze the two characters into a single icon 'panel'.

[ratcreature]

I have done that for a couple of my icons, like the Numb3rs one or the Sam&Dean one *points left*, but then mostly just the torsos fit, if costume is still supposed to be somewhat clear.

[sholio]

Yeah, that's actually something that I've run into in trying to pick out a limited subset of icons for WC, because I usually like to have a sort of generic "representative" icon in a fandom if possible (like the Atlantis icon I'm using here) and WC doesn't really lend itself to that.

Maybe two rat creatures back-to-back, a Neal with a hat and a Peter with a gun and badge? Or Neal, i.e. a ratcreature in a hat, breaking into a safe or making a painting?

[ratcreature]

I'm not sure the painting thing would be specific enough, unless I could make clear that there is a forgery/copying going on. A safe might work as a prop. If you look for objects to represent WC maybe the music box would work?