2010 - SPN REVERSEBANG - Prompt II : MOONSTRUCK
2010 - SPN REVERSEBANG - Prompt II : MOONSTRUCK
Disclaimer : I am not a native English speaker so sorry about the bad!English in the post.
Welcome to the art post for MOONSTRUCK by ancastar (but her pen name is Ancasta (without the "R"), hence the "Ancasta" on some of the arts
)
Don't forget this is the spn_reversebang : the story has been partly inspired by the illustrations below that is to say that all the drawings are completely SPOILERY. You then have the possibility to leave now to avoid spoilers and to read the fic first or to check out the six illustrations of this post. To read the great fic by ancastar , just click below :
Don't forget to leave a little comment at ancastar 's journal, I am sure she will be more than happy to have some feedback from you guys.
And because we all have a beta, let me introduce you mine who has been incredibly patient and supportive since July. Thank you for everything miss!!
****
PART I : THE ARTS AND ONLY THE ARTS
Click on the links below to FULL VIEW :
1) Cover Art
2) Bad Moon Rising
3) Moonstruck
4) Do you believe me now, Sammy ?
5) Fire, walk with Me
6) Everything is gonna be ok now...
7) Title, Divider, End Title
Title
Divider
End Title
8) Icons
PARTS II : TECHNICAL RAMBLING FOR THE PHOTOSHOP GEEKS (+ SOME SKETCHES & CHIBIES)
What was your main inspiration ?
Two things that have nothing to do with one another to be honest.
I am not going to sound very original but it was first Creedence Clearwater Revival's song Bad Moon Rising that inpired me for this prompt. I wanted a story where the moon had an important place without being a werewolf story (I am not a fan). Why ? Because for a fan artist drawing night scenes is just A LOT of fun. The possibilities in terms of shadows, highlights, atmosphere in general are absolutely endless. And if you add an element like the moon to the picture, I let you imagine. Not to mention that it just fits so well to the mythology of Supernatural.
The second inspiration was one of my favorite TV shows : Heroes. Yes, I know, only the first season was good (and maybe some episodes of S3) but still, as a geek, seeing Sylar and Peter using their ESP powers gave me shivers from Episode 1. I wanted to adapt the concept to Supernatural and also see for once what would happen if Dean had psychic abilities. We already saw Sam moving objects with his mind or having visions of the future but Dean, never. I thought that the spn_reversebang was just the right occasion.
Sylar (Zach Quinto) using his ESP powers in Heroes
What about the illustration style ?
You maybe won't see it because all the arts above are 100% digital and went through a LOT of changes (I drove my beta crazy...
) but the starting point was illustrations by French comic artist Enki Bilal.
Enki Bilal (from Le Sommeil du Monstre - The Monster's Sleep)
I wanted to obtain the same "rough" type of illustrations and mix traditional art (pastels and chalk) and CG painting. However, I understood very soon it wasn't going to be possible : when I started to draw for this prompt, I was in vacation in Paris in my "real apartment" with all my drawing supplies around me and not in Tokyo where I only have 2 pencils and a pen available in my small 9m² room. I had to leave France on August 25th and it was out of question to bring with me almost 5kg of gouaches, poster paints and pastels to finish the remaining arts (4 in total) so I had to drop my project to go half traditional / half digital and choose the 100% CG path instead. Never mind! I will have all the time to test this technique from March because I will leave Japan for good at that period.
Tools of the trade ?
Softwares : Photoshop CS - Painter Essential 3
Tablet : Wacom Graphire 4
Sketches : Pencils (various pencil from 2H to 4B), charcoal, crayons - poster paint - pastels & chalks - ink pencils for calligraphy
1) Cover Art
When I started to work for this Supernatural prompt, I was sure about at least 3 things : the moon was going to play an important role in the plot, Sam was going to have his bangs like at the beginning S2 and Dean was going to be a smoker. Smoking!Dean is one of my BIG kinks (Hello, roque_clasique !
) . I don't know why, maybe because I am from a generation where a guy having a cigarette at the corner of his mouth was still seen as sexy. I don't care if it's not canon : after all, the two brothers shaging in a hotel room isn't canon either and it doesn't stop the fan artists! (not to mention, it's the spn_reversebang : I do whatever I want, là, là, là!
)
The poster art for Moonstruck (Art#1) is not the first version at all. In fact it's the third one. At the beginning, as I explained you above, I wanted to try something new, inspired by the works of Enki Bilal and to mix traditional art and CG painting. I then reached the result below that is maybe 60% traditional and 40% digital :
After this first version (mixed medias) then, I decided to go for 100% CG art with 68789 layers and textures. However, I wanted to keep the rough style of Enki Bilal and worked only with grunge textures and rough edge brushes.
You maybe don't see the difference with the final version but there was a lot of changes (more details, more textures, different highlights, etc...)
The result wasn't bad for this art in particular but I was disappointed as far as, for instance, Arts #3 and #6 concerned. As I couldn't have a different "production design" (it sounds pretencious but I can't see a better word) from one drawing to the other, I decided to start everything from scratch and to adopt smoother textures, not to mention that I added a lot of details like the hair, the engravings on the gun, etc...
2) Bad Moon Rising
One of the recurring elements in Supernatural are the boys searching clues for their cases on the Internet or in local newspapers. It seemed important to me to include a newpaper article that would show all the strange events that have happened in NYC since the raise of the full moon. At the beginning, I wanted to write the article myself (nothing set, just to give my author an example) but rhythmsextion had a far better idea. This is where having an author as a beta is great. She told me to leave the newspaper blank and to sent it like this to my author in order not to influence her. That's what I did. ancastar received the illustration below and wrote the article herself.
3) MOONSTRUCK
One of my biggest regrets concerning Psychic!Sammy in the show is that we've never really seen him use his ESP powers at their maximum capacities, I mean like Peter or Sylar in Heroes for instance (yes, I know, I am a little bit obsessed by Heroes, as you may have noticed
). We witnessed several demon exorcisms and visions of course but after he moved a cupboard with his mind a few years ago, just...nothing ! (if I am not wrong, don't sue me if I am). Once again, the spn_reversebang was a good occasion to show what didn't appear in Supernatural because the CW doesn't have money for special effects. The illustration wasn't finished for the art claim so I submitted this one instead and hid the lack of details under 5 or 6 Photoshop textures.
I traced a part of the set because it was driving me nuts (and I will go to the fan artists' hell for the second time of this RBB
)
I started with a pencil sketch. The scene should have taken place in a dinner or a restaurant but at the end I wanted the moon to be visible so I forgot about the flying chairs and chose a NYC street for the setting instead.
Reference pictures : Sam - NYC Street
4) Do you believe me now, Sammy ?
We saw on the preceding picture that the full moon had some effects on Sam but the unexpected side effects of the "moon curse" is that Dean acquires some psychic abilities too. I wanted Dean to show his brother he wasn't the only one to have some "problems" with the moon but I refused to go once again for the all "bad ass demonstration of psychic powers" with Dean making all the objects around him levitate in every direction. I then came up with the "cassette tape message" or how the older Winchesters makes his brother shut up just by using a Guns n' Roses tape (in addition, the tittle of the album Use your illusion I seemed to be just perfect for such a fan art
)
I started with this sketch done at McDonalds (my headquarters this summer...) and colored it with Photoshop. It doesn't really look like Dean (it doesn't matter it's just a sketch to set the final composition of the picture) but at least thanks to it I realized three important things :
- The blue palette doesn't fit, it's just horrible.
- The letter "T" doesn't work at all when it comes to write a message with the tape of the cassette tape. I then had to find a message without a "T". I was disappointed because I just l loved the "Shut up Sam" one but I didn't have the choice. In the end "Do you believe me now" is not bad either.
- The place of the cassette tape was strange. It ended at the bottom of the final drawing with the tape going up instead of going down.
Reference picture : Dean
5) Fire, walk with me
Dean experiencing some of his newly acquired psychic abilities in a crappy NYC motel room.
This drawing is not important at all when it comes to the plot itself, I mean, we already saw on the preceding illustration that Dean had some sort of ESP powers so basically this art is just here to...please the fan artist!
I included all the elements I loved about Spn fan arts : Dean, cigarettes, a blue palette, the rain and lots of pale highlights. I wish I could have added a monster somewhere (on Dean's laps?) but let not push the concept too far.
This one was amongst the first drawings I worked on for this Reverse Bang. I was in Paris when I conceived it so I had the time to test the mix of CG painting/traditional art stuff I was telling you about. I really liked the result even if a lot of details should have been added later. I had to drop and to go for a 100% digital version later because I didn't even have ONE color pencil to finish it in Tokyo.
The title comes from the David Lynch's Twin Peaks movie, Fire, walk with me.
Reference picture : Dean
6) Everything is gonna be ok now
The amount of drawings I have at home in Paris is absolutely ridiculous (not only Supernatural fan arts, there's plenty of other stuff I don't post on the Internet, it's insane). I decided to get rid of a good part of them and to sort my big archives out when I found this one drawn at the back of a hand out :
They are not kissing but I find it very erotic, I can't explain why, maybe Dean's eyes and lips.
OooOoOk ! When did I draw this one again ? I don't remember! All I know is that the drawing has been immediately scanned, colored and included in my "Full Moon" prompt! I just had to find the right setting and things didn't go smoothly not to mention I came up in the middle of the process with a completely crazy idea : let's burn the Metallicar (which doesn't make sense at all because I absolutely worship this car) !! I know, it's horrible but in terms of highlights, it can be very interesting to have a night scene only lit by the car burning at the back. I really liked the idea but the first try was far from being convincing :
I even re-used the car from a preceding drawing, I should be ashamed...
The lonesome road is a recurring setting in the Spn mythology but as I had the idea to set the action of the story in New York why changing it suddenly ? That was STUPID. I then started everything from scratch and just kept the boys in the foreground and the car burning in the background. I reworked Dean's face, some of the highlights and changed the perspective of the image for something vertical in order to create a long diagonal between the boys on the bottom left corner and the moon on the upper right corner of the picture. As far as the shadows and highlights were concerned, the new version was more complicated because I had to deal with multiple light sources like the Metallicar burning and the city lights. I don't regret the first version at all, I prefer the new one by far and it even became my favorite drawing amongst all the ones I created for Moonstruck.
The version with the Metallicar burning, however, is just for this Art Post (lucky you
). Only one week ago, I received an email from a very panicked ancastar who asked me to crop the picture because she didn't know how to include the burning car in the story. That's why if you go the fic master post and read the story you will only find a cropped version of the drawing and no reference whatsoever to this precise scene in the fic. To cut a long story short : you can thank my author because she's the one who saved the Impala.
This fan art is a little bit different from my usual Supernatural fan arts because, (I am sure you noticed
), it's a little bit wincesty. But I know that the boys are ok with it! No, boys ? Any problem with a wincesty art ? You look so cute together on that one!
Just before leaving, one more little sketch I posted about one month ago. transfixeddream had a great idea and asked his F-list to post the very first paragraph of their RBB. As I am artist, of course, I couldn't post a text so I posted this very quick sketch I did with Manga Studio as a quick preview for Moonstruck :
Tadaaaam! It's over!!
I hope you enjoyed this post and of course, that you loved the fic if you already read it!
A big THANK YOU once again to ancastar for the efforts and time she put in this project even if she was incredibly busy IRL!
***
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK (THURSDAY THE 25TH) WITH PROMPT #3 (aka THE "A-HA, TAKE ON ME" PROMPT) WITH AN AMAZINGLY CRAZY FIC BY dragonspell AND TWO ART POSTS (there are so many drawings that I had to cut the art post in TWO parts)
Disclaimer : I am not a native English speaker so sorry about the bad!English in the post.
Welcome to the art post for MOONSTRUCK by ancastar (but her pen name is Ancasta (without the "R"), hence the "Ancasta" on some of the arts
)
Don't forget this is the spn_reversebang : the story has been partly inspired by the illustrations below that is to say that all the drawings are completely SPOILERY. You then have the possibility to leave now to avoid spoilers and to read the fic first or to check out the six illustrations of this post. To read the great fic by ancastar , just click below :
Don't forget to leave a little comment at ancastar 's journal, I am sure she will be more than happy to have some feedback from you guys.
And because we all have a beta, let me introduce you mine who has been incredibly patient and supportive since July. Thank you for everything miss!!
****
PART I : THE ARTS AND ONLY THE ARTS
Click on the links below to FULL VIEW :
1) Cover Art
2) Bad Moon Rising
3) Moonstruck
4) Do you believe me now, Sammy ?
5) Fire, walk with Me
6) Everything is gonna be ok now...
7) Title, Divider, End Title
Title
Divider
End Title
8) Icons
PARTS II : TECHNICAL RAMBLING FOR THE PHOTOSHOP GEEKS (+ SOME SKETCHES & CHIBIES)
What was your main inspiration ?
Two things that have nothing to do with one another to be honest.
I am not going to sound very original but it was first Creedence Clearwater Revival's song Bad Moon Rising that inpired me for this prompt. I wanted a story where the moon had an important place without being a werewolf story (I am not a fan). Why ? Because for a fan artist drawing night scenes is just A LOT of fun. The possibilities in terms of shadows, highlights, atmosphere in general are absolutely endless. And if you add an element like the moon to the picture, I let you imagine. Not to mention that it just fits so well to the mythology of Supernatural.
The second inspiration was one of my favorite TV shows : Heroes. Yes, I know, only the first season was good (and maybe some episodes of S3) but still, as a geek, seeing Sylar and Peter using their ESP powers gave me shivers from Episode 1. I wanted to adapt the concept to Supernatural and also see for once what would happen if Dean had psychic abilities. We already saw Sam moving objects with his mind or having visions of the future but Dean, never. I thought that the spn_reversebang was just the right occasion.
Sylar (Zach Quinto) using his ESP powers in Heroes
What about the illustration style ?
You maybe won't see it because all the arts above are 100% digital and went through a LOT of changes (I drove my beta crazy...
) but the starting point was illustrations by French comic artist Enki Bilal.
Enki Bilal (from Le Sommeil du Monstre - The Monster's Sleep)
I wanted to obtain the same "rough" type of illustrations and mix traditional art (pastels and chalk) and CG painting. However, I understood very soon it wasn't going to be possible : when I started to draw for this prompt, I was in vacation in Paris in my "real apartment" with all my drawing supplies around me and not in Tokyo where I only have 2 pencils and a pen available in my small 9m² room. I had to leave France on August 25th and it was out of question to bring with me almost 5kg of gouaches, poster paints and pastels to finish the remaining arts (4 in total) so I had to drop my project to go half traditional / half digital and choose the 100% CG path instead. Never mind! I will have all the time to test this technique from March because I will leave Japan for good at that period.
Tools of the trade ?
Softwares : Photoshop CS - Painter Essential 3
Tablet : Wacom Graphire 4
Sketches : Pencils (various pencil from 2H to 4B), charcoal, crayons - poster paint - pastels & chalks - ink pencils for calligraphy
1) Cover Art
When I started to work for this Supernatural prompt, I was sure about at least 3 things : the moon was going to play an important role in the plot, Sam was going to have his bangs like at the beginning S2 and Dean was going to be a smoker. Smoking!Dean is one of my BIG kinks (Hello, roque_clasique !
) . I don't know why, maybe because I am from a generation where a guy having a cigarette at the corner of his mouth was still seen as sexy. I don't care if it's not canon : after all, the two brothers shaging in a hotel room isn't canon either and it doesn't stop the fan artists! (not to mention, it's the spn_reversebang : I do whatever I want, là, là, là!
)
The poster art for Moonstruck (Art#1) is not the first version at all. In fact it's the third one. At the beginning, as I explained you above, I wanted to try something new, inspired by the works of Enki Bilal and to mix traditional art and CG painting. I then reached the result below that is maybe 60% traditional and 40% digital :
After this first version (mixed medias) then, I decided to go for 100% CG art with 68789 layers and textures. However, I wanted to keep the rough style of Enki Bilal and worked only with grunge textures and rough edge brushes.
You maybe don't see the difference with the final version but there was a lot of changes (more details, more textures, different highlights, etc...)
The result wasn't bad for this art in particular but I was disappointed as far as, for instance, Arts #3 and #6 concerned. As I couldn't have a different "production design" (it sounds pretencious but I can't see a better word) from one drawing to the other, I decided to start everything from scratch and to adopt smoother textures, not to mention that I added a lot of details like the hair, the engravings on the gun, etc...
2) Bad Moon Rising
One of the recurring elements in Supernatural are the boys searching clues for their cases on the Internet or in local newspapers. It seemed important to me to include a newpaper article that would show all the strange events that have happened in NYC since the raise of the full moon. At the beginning, I wanted to write the article myself (nothing set, just to give my author an example) but rhythmsextion had a far better idea. This is where having an author as a beta is great. She told me to leave the newspaper blank and to sent it like this to my author in order not to influence her. That's what I did. ancastar received the illustration below and wrote the article herself.
3) MOONSTRUCK
One of my biggest regrets concerning Psychic!Sammy in the show is that we've never really seen him use his ESP powers at their maximum capacities, I mean like Peter or Sylar in Heroes for instance (yes, I know, I am a little bit obsessed by Heroes, as you may have noticed
). We witnessed several demon exorcisms and visions of course but after he moved a cupboard with his mind a few years ago, just...nothing ! (if I am not wrong, don't sue me if I am). Once again, the spn_reversebang was a good occasion to show what didn't appear in Supernatural because the CW doesn't have money for special effects. The illustration wasn't finished for the art claim so I submitted this one instead and hid the lack of details under 5 or 6 Photoshop textures.
I traced a part of the set because it was driving me nuts (and I will go to the fan artists' hell for the second time of this RBB
)
I started with a pencil sketch. The scene should have taken place in a dinner or a restaurant but at the end I wanted the moon to be visible so I forgot about the flying chairs and chose a NYC street for the setting instead.
Reference pictures : Sam - NYC Street
4) Do you believe me now, Sammy ?
We saw on the preceding picture that the full moon had some effects on Sam but the unexpected side effects of the "moon curse" is that Dean acquires some psychic abilities too. I wanted Dean to show his brother he wasn't the only one to have some "problems" with the moon but I refused to go once again for the all "bad ass demonstration of psychic powers" with Dean making all the objects around him levitate in every direction. I then came up with the "cassette tape message" or how the older Winchesters makes his brother shut up just by using a Guns n' Roses tape (in addition, the tittle of the album Use your illusion I seemed to be just perfect for such a fan art
)
I started with this sketch done at McDonalds (my headquarters this summer...) and colored it with Photoshop. It doesn't really look like Dean (it doesn't matter it's just a sketch to set the final composition of the picture) but at least thanks to it I realized three important things :
- The blue palette doesn't fit, it's just horrible.
- The letter "T" doesn't work at all when it comes to write a message with the tape of the cassette tape. I then had to find a message without a "T". I was disappointed because I just l loved the "Shut up Sam" one but I didn't have the choice. In the end "Do you believe me now" is not bad either.
- The place of the cassette tape was strange. It ended at the bottom of the final drawing with the tape going up instead of going down.
Reference picture : Dean
5) Fire, walk with me
Dean experiencing some of his newly acquired psychic abilities in a crappy NYC motel room.
This drawing is not important at all when it comes to the plot itself, I mean, we already saw on the preceding illustration that Dean had some sort of ESP powers so basically this art is just here to...please the fan artist!
I included all the elements I loved about Spn fan arts : Dean, cigarettes, a blue palette, the rain and lots of pale highlights. I wish I could have added a monster somewhere (on Dean's laps?) but let not push the concept too far.
This one was amongst the first drawings I worked on for this Reverse Bang. I was in Paris when I conceived it so I had the time to test the mix of CG painting/traditional art stuff I was telling you about. I really liked the result even if a lot of details should have been added later. I had to drop and to go for a 100% digital version later because I didn't even have ONE color pencil to finish it in Tokyo.
The title comes from the David Lynch's Twin Peaks movie, Fire, walk with me.
Reference picture : Dean
6) Everything is gonna be ok now
The amount of drawings I have at home in Paris is absolutely ridiculous (not only Supernatural fan arts, there's plenty of other stuff I don't post on the Internet, it's insane). I decided to get rid of a good part of them and to sort my big archives out when I found this one drawn at the back of a hand out :
They are not kissing but I find it very erotic, I can't explain why, maybe Dean's eyes and lips.
OooOoOk ! When did I draw this one again ? I don't remember! All I know is that the drawing has been immediately scanned, colored and included in my "Full Moon" prompt! I just had to find the right setting and things didn't go smoothly not to mention I came up in the middle of the process with a completely crazy idea : let's burn the Metallicar (which doesn't make sense at all because I absolutely worship this car) !! I know, it's horrible but in terms of highlights, it can be very interesting to have a night scene only lit by the car burning at the back. I really liked the idea but the first try was far from being convincing :
I even re-used the car from a preceding drawing, I should be ashamed...
The lonesome road is a recurring setting in the Spn mythology but as I had the idea to set the action of the story in New York why changing it suddenly ? That was STUPID. I then started everything from scratch and just kept the boys in the foreground and the car burning in the background. I reworked Dean's face, some of the highlights and changed the perspective of the image for something vertical in order to create a long diagonal between the boys on the bottom left corner and the moon on the upper right corner of the picture. As far as the shadows and highlights were concerned, the new version was more complicated because I had to deal with multiple light sources like the Metallicar burning and the city lights. I don't regret the first version at all, I prefer the new one by far and it even became my favorite drawing amongst all the ones I created for Moonstruck.
The version with the Metallicar burning, however, is just for this Art Post (lucky you
). Only one week ago, I received an email from a very panicked ancastar who asked me to crop the picture because she didn't know how to include the burning car in the story. That's why if you go the fic master post and read the story you will only find a cropped version of the drawing and no reference whatsoever to this precise scene in the fic. To cut a long story short : you can thank my author because she's the one who saved the Impala.
This fan art is a little bit different from my usual Supernatural fan arts because, (I am sure you noticed
), it's a little bit wincesty. But I know that the boys are ok with it! No, boys ? Any problem with a wincesty art ? You look so cute together on that one!
Just before leaving, one more little sketch I posted about one month ago. transfixeddream had a great idea and asked his F-list to post the very first paragraph of their RBB. As I am artist, of course, I couldn't post a text so I posted this very quick sketch I did with Manga Studio as a quick preview for Moonstruck :
Tadaaaam! It's over!!
I hope you enjoyed this post and of course, that you loved the fic if you already read it!
A big THANK YOU once again to ancastar for the efforts and time she put in this project even if she was incredibly busy IRL!
***
SEE YOU NEXT WEEK (THURSDAY THE 25TH) WITH PROMPT #3 (aka THE "A-HA, TAKE ON ME" PROMPT) WITH AN AMAZINGLY CRAZY FIC BY dragonspell AND TWO ART POSTS (there are so many drawings that I had to cut the art post in TWO parts)