It seemed to take forever sometimes, for us to get the perfect poster, the one that was JUST right for the episode.  Some posters were done before the ep aired and some were made long after.  

When they were done before, they often influenced us in writing the episode, or helped us in naming the episode.  

The episodes As We Were and  What Lies Within were closely connected and written, in part, simultaneously.  The posters were also done together and went through a number of changes.  

We started with a great fakie by WF, the "photo" of Ripper and Ethan in their glory days.  The photo was made months before and we weren't sure how we were going to use it at the time, just that we would want it for something special. 

Wicked used the photo for inspiration while writing her episode and even created a rough wallpaper for herself, trying to think of what Ethan's Initiative file might look like.

And the original poster for As We Were was going to be a simple trio graphic.  

But we realized that the photo made a more dramatic poster, so WF started to fiddle with several backgrounds and fonts before picking the final version, which unlike the two drafts below, was actually used in the end for What Lies Within!  

The trio picture was then edited and actually used for As We Were's final poster.

Confused?  We're not surprised! We kept switching the posters (and titles!) for the two episodes until we found the best way to use all the art. Here are the final posters.

(The picture was also used later for a wallpaper too.)

Destiny's poster was reworked a dozen times, not just for the font, but the placement of the characters.  In the first draft, Cordy and Snyder appeared.  Later drafts pulled in Kendra and Percy.  Different head shots were tried (see Spike) and we moved people around (see Maggie, Robin and Wes for example).  There were about 20 different tweaks to Destiny's poster, including the question about using a question mark! 

Heart & Soul's poster had multiple variations.  We tried different colors and backgrounds and fonts before hitting the one we liked. 

Mind Games offered us some of the most difficult choices.  Gabi worked up a variety of images and color variations, all of which appealed in different ways.  Note the two bottom versions. The one we finally choose as our favorite has Ethan and Buffy blued out, and BG in red tones. It was a tough call. 

In some cases, we just had some very different choices to make.  These weren't variations, they were completely different options. 

Sometimes, we knew what we wanted, and we simply experimented with positioning:

And sometimes we just had fun:

Particularly when putting up potential spoilers for the finale!

     

And the final finale poster?  Well, that job deserves a page unto itself!

Hope you enjoyed seeing some of what you missed before.  The posters here were created by WickedFox and Gabi, with creative input from all the Lunatics.  Remember, this is only a small selection of the rejects.  Some posters went through twenty or thirty small tweaks before they satisfied the artist or the Lunatics as a whole.

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