Artworks: Diamonds in the Rough (RPF BigBang 2010)
Story title: Diamonds in the Rough
Author: lire_casander
Artist: yours truly, clover71
Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership on the original copies of the images used to create these artworks except for the page headers. The final products though were my own creation and all these are for non-financial purpose.
LINK TO THE STORY
Artist's Notes:
When lire_casander contacted me and asked if I could do the artworks for her rpf_big_bang story, I gladly acceded. I had the pleasure of working on the artworks for her au_bigbang story, so I was excited about this one. But I have to be honest that when I heard it was for a het story, I went 'uh' and then 'um' and thought, 'what the heck'. I thought it'll be a good challenge. If you're wondering why, it's because I'm not too fond of het stories. I couldn't make myself read one after I've discovered the wonderful world of slash fictions.
Now I'm glad I did take this request because I had fun doing all these artworks. I stil haven't been able to read lire's fic though, not because I don't want to but because it's quite long. And I haven't had the luxury to sit back, relax and read for quite some time now. My life's been crazy. Plus, I still had to work on artworks for 4 other stories, including mine. If I had time, I would've. I did ask lire_casander to give me a detailed summary so I can get my creative soul (I made that up, I don't have one, honest) to work.
Before I ramble further, I recommend you read Diamonds In The Rough. lire_casander is an amazing writer and she puts her wonderful visions remarkably into words, stirred together magically with a dash of creativeness and sprinkled with lots of love.
I hope you like this, Maria. I hope everyone like this.
POSTER:
When lire told me that she had original characters for the story, the first thought that came to mind was 'shit, I have to draw.' I haven't drawn nor sketched in like 10 years (I started when I was 5 - kidding of course, just trying to hide my age). And I didn't have the luxury called 'free time' to do it. So I hopped on to my next resort: graphic manipulation. When I had the OC's descriptions, I went through Google images to find the perfect match. And when I saw the photo of the red-haired woman, which I used for this poster, I thought she'd be the perfect image for 'Addie'. I just used a color sketch effect to make it look like it was drawn. Why? I have no idea. It seems appropriate to mask the fact I'm using a random person to represent a character in the story.
Credits:
Photo of the red-haired woman (Addie)
Cook's photo is taken from 'This Is It' Premiere.
BANNERS:
This one, I thought, will be a little tricky. Since I had the poster down, I had no idea where and how will I get an image of 'Addie' in a different pose. I have already established the character's looks in the poster, and there are no other photos of the same girl. So I had to improvise. And by 'improvise' I mean 'manip'. I found another photo of a redhead and thought I'd play with it.
Credits:
Original Photo for the character 'Addie'
Photo for the character 'Tina', which was in fact a model named Vivienne Westwood
Photo for the character 'Patrick'. I was hoping to find a random, royalty-free picture or a red-haired man and I found this at a hairstyle site. But someone said this was an English actor (whom, apparently, I haven't heard of).
Photo of Cook, credited to American Idol
PAGE/ PART HEADERS:
This, I drew myself. I just used different textures as background.
BOOK COVER:
When lire sent me the rough draft of her fic and I saw that it was 143 pages long, I nearly fainted. Remember, there were 4 other stories I needed to do art for. The first thought that came to mind was, 'this is enough to make up a book.' Later then, I was inspired to create a book cover for her, in case she decides to have the story converted to pdf like an ebook, maybe she would like to use this.
Credits:
Back cover:
The image of the woman with her arms spread out is from Bernadette Peter's album cover.
ICONS:
These icons are created for lire_casander. Please do not take it without her permission.
Programs used:
Serif Photo Plus (my Adobe Photoshop take ages to edit)
FotoSketcher (to get the sketch/painting effect)
Livebrush (used to draw the image for the page/ part headers)
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Comments will be greatly appreciated.