dean cas big bang: convictions
Title: Convictions
Author: gedry
Artist: sunlesslands
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Illegal behavior, gun shot wounds, descriptions of mental health concerns related to anxiety and agoraphobia, mentions of attempted rape and abuse during imprisonment (non-graphic).
Summary: Dean makes a living in high class home invasion. Dean's careful, he never wanted anyone to get hurt. But when he discovers Castiel still at home while he and his team are robbing the house everything changes. Dean pays the price for his misdeeds but somehow, along the way, he manages to make a friend out of Castiel. A man still struggling with his own kind of incarceration. Their relationship offers Dean some comfort, but once he's done serving his time questions still remain. Are they friends, or something more? Can they make a life together out of the ashes of their old ones, or are they both still serving their sentences?
Story Link: Masterpost
Please click on the thumbnails to see the larger images. I hope you enjoy.
Manips
FIRST LETTER
SECOND LETTER
Icons
Fanmix: ... Coming Soon! (Seriously, I just need to sleep before I go round two with WinZIP)
Final Thoughts & Artist's Notes: Before anything else, I want to say thank you to my wonderful and wondrous best friend Ariel, who not only offered advice and sympathy every time I linked her to my work’s in progress but actually asked after them; she’s been the most amazing art beta I could have ever asked for, despite only having just finished season one. Thank you so much for your support, sweetie, I don’t know how I could have done this without you.
And then there is the absolutely brilliant and talented Gedry, who wrote a beautiful story for this challenge and I can’t even begin to explain how truly lucky I was to work with her. I’ve admired her work as a writer almost since I started in the fandom, so I was incredibly excited when she messaged me and during this whole process she’s been such a pleasure to work with.
I fell in love with the idea of working on Convictions because the premise grabbed hold of me and, I have to admit, I have this huge soft spot for epistolary love stories. Right off the bat, I knew that I wanted to write out some of the letters and integrate them into the larger graphics. For that reason, I’m particularly proud of the first piece I did, which incorporates multiple excerpts from both Dean and Cas’ letters. Originally, I was going to use a different paper stock for Dean, since in the story he write on whatever is handy, but mid-way through working on multiple graphics, I decided that I wanted the pieces to have more cohesion and related back to each other better, so lots of things got streamlined. This is the only place where Cas is in black and white because I always thought of this as being Dean’s perspective, so Cas got to take on the black and white; more importantly, he’s lifted out, above Dean, who is sunken into the background. Cas is Dean’s guardian angel, even here. All of the excerpts from Cas’ letters are angled up and Dean’s are all angled down (or should be) and I still find it kind of cute that his confession: “I’m not brave,” is hiding behind one of Cas’ letters.
The second large manip was supposed to be a more literal take on a moment in the story, when Cas sends Dean a photo. Ariel, however, campaigned for Dean to be included - I sent her an early draft where he was, and then told her that I thought it was too crowded and I was going to leave him out - so I had to reimagine things a bit. He goes back to being in black and white, I thought about using a mug shot, but I wasn’t sure if Blue Steele really worked in context. I ended up loving the picture I used; Dean looks a bit pensive and wistful, which is what I wanted. Also, I know Polaroids don’t actually come in that shape, but it was late and I ended up liking it in the morning, so the odd Polaroid stayed. It’s Dean. Once again, I repeated the picture of Cas from the previous graphic, only this time in colour to keep the continuity going.
I should probably say something quickly about the promotional banner. It took an insanely long time to do. There are about a hundred drafts of it saved to my haddrive and none of them look a thing like the finished the product. Basically, after twenty four hours away from the computer, I always came back and hated what I was working on. This one was a last ditch attempt - because I really wanted to give Gedry a cool banner to post with - and, hey, it worked! I count that as a win for Hail-Mary’s everywhere.
Lastly, this is the challenge where I lost my fear of making icons. Before this, I haven’t attempted icon making in years and then I gave it a shot for this and, hey, would you look at that? Personally, I think it’s the magic of an awesome story, which you should totally go read now.
Author: gedry
Artist: sunlesslands
Rating: NC17
Warnings: Illegal behavior, gun shot wounds, descriptions of mental health concerns related to anxiety and agoraphobia, mentions of attempted rape and abuse during imprisonment (non-graphic).
Summary: Dean makes a living in high class home invasion. Dean's careful, he never wanted anyone to get hurt. But when he discovers Castiel still at home while he and his team are robbing the house everything changes. Dean pays the price for his misdeeds but somehow, along the way, he manages to make a friend out of Castiel. A man still struggling with his own kind of incarceration. Their relationship offers Dean some comfort, but once he's done serving his time questions still remain. Are they friends, or something more? Can they make a life together out of the ashes of their old ones, or are they both still serving their sentences?
Story Link: Masterpost
Please click on the thumbnails to see the larger images. I hope you enjoy.
Manips
FIRST LETTER
SECOND LETTER
Icons
Fanmix: ... Coming Soon! (Seriously, I just need to sleep before I go round two with WinZIP)
Final Thoughts & Artist's Notes: Before anything else, I want to say thank you to my wonderful and wondrous best friend Ariel, who not only offered advice and sympathy every time I linked her to my work’s in progress but actually asked after them; she’s been the most amazing art beta I could have ever asked for, despite only having just finished season one. Thank you so much for your support, sweetie, I don’t know how I could have done this without you.
And then there is the absolutely brilliant and talented Gedry, who wrote a beautiful story for this challenge and I can’t even begin to explain how truly lucky I was to work with her. I’ve admired her work as a writer almost since I started in the fandom, so I was incredibly excited when she messaged me and during this whole process she’s been such a pleasure to work with.
I fell in love with the idea of working on Convictions because the premise grabbed hold of me and, I have to admit, I have this huge soft spot for epistolary love stories. Right off the bat, I knew that I wanted to write out some of the letters and integrate them into the larger graphics. For that reason, I’m particularly proud of the first piece I did, which incorporates multiple excerpts from both Dean and Cas’ letters. Originally, I was going to use a different paper stock for Dean, since in the story he write on whatever is handy, but mid-way through working on multiple graphics, I decided that I wanted the pieces to have more cohesion and related back to each other better, so lots of things got streamlined. This is the only place where Cas is in black and white because I always thought of this as being Dean’s perspective, so Cas got to take on the black and white; more importantly, he’s lifted out, above Dean, who is sunken into the background. Cas is Dean’s guardian angel, even here. All of the excerpts from Cas’ letters are angled up and Dean’s are all angled down (or should be) and I still find it kind of cute that his confession: “I’m not brave,” is hiding behind one of Cas’ letters.
The second large manip was supposed to be a more literal take on a moment in the story, when Cas sends Dean a photo. Ariel, however, campaigned for Dean to be included - I sent her an early draft where he was, and then told her that I thought it was too crowded and I was going to leave him out - so I had to reimagine things a bit. He goes back to being in black and white, I thought about using a mug shot, but I wasn’t sure if Blue Steele really worked in context. I ended up loving the picture I used; Dean looks a bit pensive and wistful, which is what I wanted. Also, I know Polaroids don’t actually come in that shape, but it was late and I ended up liking it in the morning, so the odd Polaroid stayed. It’s Dean. Once again, I repeated the picture of Cas from the previous graphic, only this time in colour to keep the continuity going.
I should probably say something quickly about the promotional banner. It took an insanely long time to do. There are about a hundred drafts of it saved to my haddrive and none of them look a thing like the finished the product. Basically, after twenty four hours away from the computer, I always came back and hated what I was working on. This one was a last ditch attempt - because I really wanted to give Gedry a cool banner to post with - and, hey, it worked! I count that as a win for Hail-Mary’s everywhere.
Lastly, this is the challenge where I lost my fear of making icons. Before this, I haven’t attempted icon making in years and then I gave it a shot for this and, hey, would you look at that? Personally, I think it’s the magic of an awesome story, which you should totally go read now.