SPN RBang art post- stella_lost - Witness: Observing a Life
I didspn_reversebang the first year it ran and it was a lot of fun! I had some great authors and have been wanting to do it again. Two years later and rusty as hell because I haven’t done much of anything since, I decided to torture some poor author with my efforts!
This years collaboration was withstella_lost she’s been such a blast and an enthusiastic partner, she’s made this project so much easier for someone who doesn’t do a lot of fandom challenges. I'd love to collaborate again sometime!
Check out her awesome story -
Witness : Observing a Life
About the art- Skip this section if you don’t want all the boring details.
These are ink and wash/watercolour. With a bit of editing in the computer to remove the glare and I toned down the colours a bit.
Because I’m still learning I tried to stick to things I mostly know how to do but I also wanted to try some new stuff- so I tried to have less of a straight on pose, get a different expression on the faces. Which I’m not really sure I actually pulled off. I think the expressions were more obvious in the sketch but I had a hard time getting it across in the painting stage, it’s so small.
Once I had a sketch I was ok with I made a line tracing for transferring. It saves time and me trying to get it to look the same every time I repaint it. I usually ink in before I paint. I get a bit nervous doing the faces when I ink and generally screw at least two of them up. I thought the lips were a bit fishy on this and effed up the nose but was able to scratch a bit off so it wasn’t as noticeable.
The first couple that I screwed up inking, got to be my colour swatches. Haha!
I use the cheapest 90 lb paper I can find for the practice runs. Once I’m a bit more confident I switch to 120lb, which I find makes a huge difference. The colour moves better and the heavier weight holds up better because I tend to be a mucker who can’t leave well enough alone.
Courtroom scene.
It took me a couple of tries with the colours before I could get a combination that worked in this one. I had everything panelled, dark brown like you see in movies where the courtroom is rich and dark wood everywhere. It was way too much for this little piece.
After I’m happy with the colour I do a bit of line work again but this time with the watercolour.At one point the judge looked like Captain Picard! Which was pretty hilarious! It was kind of fun to try out drawing a balding person and glasses.
Overall, I'm happy that the proportions and perspective seem to be fairly close to being right.
For the tent scene.
stella_lost's lovely closing scene inspired me to give it a try. I honestly didn’t expect it to turn out at all! Especially the dog- which I think I like the best in the whole scene. Jensen’s hair turned a bit orange on me and I had some problems with his mouth. I’m not good at profiles.
I tried to make it appear that Jared was sort of curled up underneath the sleeping bag, not sure if that worked but I almost ran out of paper trying to extend the bag enough to make him look proportionate.
I used the same palette to keep it similar to the original prompt.
I’m pleased with some aspects of this one.
The mountain scene
After readingstella_lost's outline, I really liked the thought of her Jared off seeking solitude and communing with nature and her, being the sweetheart she is, wrote it into the story.
This scene was actually a bit harder to put together than I expected. Mostly because I had a hard time getting it to be the same style as the others.
I also think it would have benefited from maybe more of an over the shoulder view? I wanted to show distance and height but I wonder if maybe it’s a bit too busy in this style? And I find it a little colourless but when I used more colour, it very hard to see Jared and the dog.
I’m not sure if I have the scale between Jared and the dog right either. I don’t know how big these dogs are and couldn’t find pictures of an adult sitting next to one, just lots with people squatting next to them.
Anyway that’s it folks.
I’d like to thank the mods atspn_reversebang for running this challenge.
And an extra specialstella_lost for picking my art and making this a wonderful experience.
Now, if you haven't already, please go check out her amazing story!
As always I love concrit so please feel free to leave some.