Whedon Genderbending

We challenged you to switch the genders of Joss Whedon characters in art. Here are the results!

Those of you with long memories may remember that back before Christmas we issued a second SFX Art Challenge , which was to “gender-bend” characters from Joss Whedon shows (casting female actors from Whedon shows in male roles, and vice versa). And, um, slightly belatedly, we can now present the results (better late than never, eh?).

Let’s kick things off with our top five, counting down from five to our overall winner! We’ll follow that with five worthy runners-up.

IN FIFTH PLACE is this piece of photoshoppery by Ben Spathis , which recasts Adam Baldwin as Zoe. This made us chuckle a lot, especially since Ben picked a photo of Adam which makes it look like he's aware of what's been done to him, and is not at all happy about the situation...

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IN FOURTH PLACE is this piece of art by Elizabeth Pacey , which casts Eliza Dushku as Mal Reynolds - or, as Elizabeth puts it, "Captain Tighterpants". Nice.

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IN THIRD PLACE comes this gorgeous piece of art by Julia Griffin , which once again recasts a Nathan Fillion role (don't get a complex now, Nathan...). This time, Summer Glau is Captain Hammer (and that's Sarah Michelle Gellar as Dr Horrible.)

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IN SECOND PLACE is another piece of art recasting Eliza Dushku in the role of Malcolm Reynolds. This one's by Kev Rooney , and we reckon it's good enough to grace a comic book cover.

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AND IN FIRST PLACE , largely because it made everyone in the SFX office hoot with laughter, is this piece recasting Sarah Michelle Gellar as Mal and David Boreanaz as Serenity's resident "companion" Inara. Sexy. Your applause, please, for Ryan Rydalch .

But that's not all! Keep clicking on "Next" to see five runners-up...

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Amy Glithero created this portrait of Sarah Michelle Gellar as Spike. What particularly impressed us was how many elements she used. We'll let Amy explain: "As well as the obvious pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar, the body base is Eliza Dushku's from a Dollhouse promo picture, and the vampire forehead is Drusilla's from Buffy ."

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Alex Scott created this toon. In case you're scratching your head, that's Sarah Michelle Gellar as Giles, Alyson Hannigan as The Hulk (the forthcoming Avengers movie is a Whedon project too), and Anthony Head as Buffy!

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Kevin Tranchina is the creator of this piece, which gives new roles to various of the "dolls" from Dollhouse . If you can't make out the details, click here to see a larger version.

Jennifer Walsh' s photoshoppery of Nicholas Brendon as space-mechanic Kaylee shows that recasting a bloke doesn't have to involve drag. Though obviously, we're a bit disappointed that it doesn't. He'd probably look well hot in a skirt.

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AND FINALLY... thanks to Teresa Lenore for an image of James Marsters as Buffy that we strongly suspect we will never be able to scrub from our brains.

A huge thank you to everyone who took time to submit some art – and apologies that it took us so abominably long to get round to publishing the results. What with one thing and another, it's been a bit mental round here lately...

We'll be laying down the gauntlet for another SFX Art Challenge soon-ish. Er, probably. In the meantime, if you haven’t already seen them, check out the results of our previous Art Challenge ( zombified Doctor Who characters ).