Auction ARTwork: Young Sam Winchester

[beelikej]

Wow, has it really been three months since I last posted fanart? Huh. Guess time flew by while I was busy trying to find a new job. Not that I haven't been fiddling with paper in between: I made some personal things, did arts & crafts for Sinterklaas celebrations and worked on the ReverseBang project. That won't be presented until next year though, so this will be the last time in 2015 to share some actual fanart, yay!
I was commissioned by tipsy_kitty who bid on me for a fandom auction and donated to support the refugees from Syria. She asked for a portrait of young Sam/Jared and now that it finally has been delivered to her, I can show y'all what I made...

As a reference I chose one of my favorite Sam scenes from S02Ep17 - Heart: the one with that sweet smile. (Let's remember the happy moment from this episode and not dwell on what happens next, okay? *sniffles*)
If you want to see the final artwork right away, click here; I'm going to first picspam the process chronologically;)

Materials
For the base card I used 300 g/m² sparkling Ice Cold (white) paper from the Curious Metallics collection (by Arjo Wiggins) - I painted part of this with a mix of aquamarine, phthalo cyan and white paint, that I faded with a tissue. From the same sparkling paper series I added sheets of Ionised (dark gray) for the background and Lustre (light gray) for the background and passe-partout
The coloured papersheets are 160 g/m² Black, Fastprint Orange, Coral Red and Aqua Blue. I also printed a green/blue/purple stripey pattern on 160 g/m² Hello Gloss paper.

Step by step making of

From my first sketches I made a small folded model before starting on the full size card.
(445,5x 210 mm folded to A5 size: 148,5 x 210 mm)


I first made the corner cuts for the background card and then drew a pencil sketch of the possession tattoo.


After cutting the tattoo shape, I couldn't help myself and played with the light *grins*


Sketching Sam's face and cutting an outline of his silhouette in black


All set for papercutting! I start with the easy straight lines;)


Cutting the actual face is the scary part. I have to be so careful.




The trickiest part: removing the background; the hair is especially fragile...
See what a difference turning off the lighttable makes: it's really starting to look like Sam, pfew \o/


Finishing the tiny details (padateeth!) before glueing the silhouette behind the face.


The black paper supports the face and makes the card easier to play with.

Extra layer experiment

To create more depth to Sam's face I cut a gray shadow shape...


If you squint you can see how it's supposed to look, but I decided to discard this layer as I felt it didn't really add anything to the portrait.

Painting the tattoo background

To make the tattoo a little more dynamic, I added a splash of paint that I smushed with a tissue.


It looks a little messy, but trust me, it will work out fine when the card is folded. I think...


Done!
Here's how the card can be folded and framed

When both sides are folded halfway, the card can stand up.


For framing there are two folding options: in the photos above the orange side is on top, hiding the tattoo...


The background can be changed with different coloured sheets!


Stripey! Or if you fold it the other way, the tattoo will show up in the colour of the background sheet! Gray for instance. I chose to framed it in orange to create a flame effect.
(I know, I know *smirks* if that's too painful you can pretend the fire is a halo;)


Tadaah;)

Thanks again,tipsy_kitty for bidding on my offer of fanart and for giving me another excuse opportunity to work with Jared Padalecki's face:)

I'd love to hear what y'all think of this!

J.

Want to see more? Check out my masterpost of artsy fiddling

Comments

[fireheart13.livejournal.com]

Beautiful!! You have such a gift!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much:)

[sillie]

Sammy! :D :D It looks awesome! But damn, so much work! And such fiddly small pieces to cut out. I take my hat off to you lady.

[trishabooms.livejournal.com]

That's brilliant! How very clever.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Holy crow, the amount of work is pretty stunning! I love your medium, and this turned out GREAT! Well done, lady!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-D He's such a cutie. It was a fun portrait to work on, but yeah, the small bits were intimidating, especially when I had an attack of the clumpsy and almost cut a vital part! Thank you:)

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*beams* Thank you! It's simultaneously fun and frightening to make something based on someone else's wishes. You know my focus is usually on other faces, so I'm very happy to get praise from a Samgirl :-)

[tipsy-kitty.livejournal.com]

It's sooo gorgeous! I can't stop looking at it :D

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

<3 I'm so very glad you like it! Working on this portrait made me rediscover my love for Sam (and Jared's face;)

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

I am so impressed with you! This looks hard, and I know it's even harder than it looks. I don't know how you come up with the inspiration for this kind of art - it is so beyond what I would think of to make. Which is why opening you art posts are always so fun.

[tipsy-kitty.livejournal.com]

BECAUSE JARED's FACE IS THE BEST!!!

*ahem*

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-) Thank you. For inspiration I usually build on what I've done before and try to think of ways to improve those constructions. And sometimes the fiddling itself leads me to other ideas (or solutions for problems I created myself *grins*)
Very happy you enjoy my art posts, I love babbling about the process;)

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-p

[alycat.livejournal.com]

This is amazing, your talent is fantastic, the things you can create with your style is just...wow. And this, double wow...the layers, the details, it's gorgeous!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*beams* Ahw, thank you so much, you made my night late afternoon:) - Djeez, this early darkness in winter is messing with my brain o_O

[ashtraythief.livejournal.com]

Finally I get the time to comment!

This is so beautiful! And I know what you can do with a pair of scissors and yet, every time I'm newly amazed how you can express so much emotion and athmosphere with such "simple" material. Just stunning. Thanks for sharing these!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

\o/

Thank you, I'm so happy I can still impress you *grins*

[whiskygalore.livejournal.com]

You are so goddman clever!! This is amazing. You must have endless patience, but I have to say the finished result is worth it - absolutely beautiful!!! <3 xxx

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you very much:) My patience comes with lots of cursing, hehehe. <3

[pensnest]

I came over from the Fandom Snowflake challenge, and I'm definitely impressed with your care and attention to detail on this! It's beautifully done. Of course, what impresses me most is that you *drew* Sam's face! I've used outlines to paint on mugs, but I take a pic and Photoshop it.

Awesome work.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for coming over to take a look!

Oh, I do start off fiddling with the face in Photoshop, but because I aim to cut it out as one piece, I have to add connections between separately shaded parts and adjust the shape accordingly. I always keep a reference of my digital set up nearby when I start outlining and sketching the mirrored version for cutting:)

[emmatheslayer.livejournal.com]

your such a hard worker on your art this is so amazing great job

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-) Thank you very much, bb! <3

[mizface.livejournal.com]

Here from Fandom Snowflake and sooooooooo glad I checked this out. As a fellow artist, I loveloveLOVE getting to see the process that makes the finished work. This whole post is made of win, and your finished product is just terrific - thanks for sharing!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you for you lovely comment:) Great to hear you like the babbling about the process too!

[tarlanx]

Really clever and looks so good!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-) Thank you very much!

[twinsarein.livejournal.com]

Here from the snowflake challenge, although I'm a late-comer. This is gorgeous, just as he is. I loved seeing the different steps in the process, and how it all came together. Just that must have been time-consuming. But the actually art...my goodness. You have a lot of talent, and I'm impressed by your attention to detail. Beautiful end product.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Hello:) Thank you for coming over and for leaving such a wonderful comment (and for then checking out my other artwork; you made my day!) I'm happy you liked the babbling about the process too;)