The Merits of Teaching, Art Post
Thank you for this amazing art, crazybutsound!
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I really could not have been any happier with this art. I was so excited when I opened it (it was late and everyone was asleep, which was horrible considering I couldn’t make noise and was rapidly trying to text my friend, “It’s perfect, it’s perfect, it’s SO perfect. I can’t wait for you to get to see it!” without squealing in excitement in the process). In my mind I was secretly hoping my artist would pick this scene and then they did! I love the sugar skull with all of my heart and the fact that they use it in the background too. And just the other details like Gerard’s nervous face and Brendon’s glasses.
Artist’s notes:
This piece wasn’t inspired by just one scene but rather by two different ones which I decided to combine to make a more general piece.
The Brendon chibi as well as the theme for the piece were inspired by the following scene:
El Día de Muertos is undoubtedly Gerard’s favorite holiday ever. He likes death and skulls and art and the story behind it all and the ideas it still carries today. Because of that, he knows it would be unfair to his students as well as himself not to do something to celebrate it when it comes around. On November second, he brings in, like, half of his art supply closet. He has each of his classes do something related to the holiday.
(...)
He does this at lunch time, so it’s no surprise that Brendon comes in. He sees all the art supplies and nearly squeaks with excitement, and looks at Gerard with wide eyes that are begging him for a sugar skull. So, he and Brendon spend the second half of their lunch cutting out and coloring in a huge one.
The Gerard chibi was inspired by the following scene:
Frank just laughs harder, for a long time, and then says with a wink, “I see the resemblance,” and continues on laughing. Finally, once he’s calmed down and made Gerard red enough, he says, grinning, “No, yeah, in all honesty, it wouldn’t even be necessary to look like her. I know Brendon. He wouldn’t, like, say no--if you asked him out, you know. He likes you, too.”
Gerard lets out a strangled, “No,” and clutches his coffee mug tighter. “No, he doesn’t like me. He likes Shakira and probably other girls and you’re wrong and I’m running late.”
Since there were no descriptions of either of them in the story, I drew them the way I kept imagining them as I read. I couldn’t imagine Gerard without his red hair, even though he is a teacher and that kind of hair might not always be acceptable in most schools, but since the emphasis was on how unconventional a teacher Gerard is, I figured that suited the character. :-) Also, I love his red hair, lol. I hope it’s ok that I drew him like that. I also gave Brendon red frames (even though he hasn’t sported red frames in a million years) because of the colors and the way I could coordinate his shirt/glasses with Gerard’s red hair. *g*
I drew both the chibis and the sugar skull with pencil and black sharpie. The chibis on one piece of paper, the sugar skull on another. Apart from the chibis’ skin (which was done in photoshop because I didn’t have that kind of color available in my pens) and the starbucks logo (I tweaked an actual picture of that logo in photoshop), I used felt tips to color in the rest. I colored over tracing paper on top of the initial drawings because I didn’t want to color in the drawings and realize the colors weren’t right. Once that was done, I scanned each drawing separately then layered them in photoshop. The background is actually made from the sugar skull scan, blown up and tweaked.
master post