Artpost! [Snowflake Challenge Day 4C - 15]

[beelikej]

So I've been experimenting with watercolours and painting. Can't show you all my projects, but here's a piece I made for the Snowflake Challenge. Remember that? It was supposed to be 15 days in January, but thanks to other projects and life I stopped. Here are links to the first few days:
Day 1 - Talk about why you're participating in Snowflake.
Day 2 - Create a fannish wish list.
Day 3 - Self-recs.

Day 4 - Create a fanwork.
For this I checked other people's Day 2 wishlists and played in multiple fandoms:
I created BtVS Icons and Jeff/Jensen story headers in Photoshop
and made a papercut HP Snape story banner!.
Below you can see my final artwork outside of the Supernatural zone:)

I had fun discovering other characters in different kind of stories than I usually read and I heartily recommend the short fic below to everyone on my flist! No knowledge of the fandom is needed to understand and enjoy the bittersweet story about Helga Pataki and her family.

Title: La Famille de Saltimbanques
Author: dramatic owl (snarky_panda) [lightbird@Dreamwidth]
Characters: Helga Pataki, Phoebe Heyerdahl
Summary: Circus AU. Helga prepares to join the family act.
Description: Hey Arnold AU | 1050 words | G-rated

Artist: beelikej
Medium: Watercolour paint, soft pencil
Font: Floydian & Harting, both from Dafont.com

A short Making of
Before I started sketching, I collected references.

The title of the story about a circusfamily is from a painting of Pablo Picasso; I wanted to implement the melancholic mood of that and I used the colours and style as an inspiration. Since I'm not familiar with Hey Arnold, I also needed to do some research into Helga Pataki & Phoebe Heyerdahl:)


Quick idea sketch in pen of the scene I wanted to capture and the final pencil version;
I aimed to slightly alter the cartoony look, but also wanted to keep Helga and Phoebe recognizable.


I didn't take a lot of photos; after mixing the perfect pink I was on a roll to colour the whole drawing;)


I let it dry for a day before adding lines with a soft 6B pencil. I added the title in Photoshop and played with different fonts for all the author's identities;)



Now, about those other Snowflake challenges...
Day 5 - Leave feedback.
Caught up on my flist in January and in the past weeks I also checked out ALL of the art that was made for the spn_reversebang and I left comments on LiveJournal and kudos on AO3. I did also look at all the artwork that was shared on Tumblr, but that's not a platform I interact on.

Day 6 - Create your own challenge.
Because I would like to create art a little faster than the WIP time on both the BB and RB, I've been thinking about setting up a community for short fandom-collaborations. For example request-challenges to make art for already written short stories or keyword prompts with a word and time limit. I have a name and place for this already, but am still working out details: quicky_bang Input is welcomed!

Day 7 - Share a bit of canon.
Well, I play in the RPF-side of the Supernatural fandom, so this is all gossip based, but I'm incredibly fond of the tidbits of life we could never make up yet that actually sound like fanfic. Like how Jensen and Danneel set up a blind date to get Jeff and Hilarie together. That JDM keeps actual Alpacas on their farm(!) and owns a fricking candy shop. I'm also always amused by the fact that Jensen and Jared live not even a block apart from each other and after working together all week, also hang out in weekends.<3<3<3

Day 8 - Interact with someone.
Did that plenty for Day 4 didn't I? I'm not one for making friends easily, but recently I've been reaching out to a lot of fanpeople on Twitter;) I love the real time interaction there.

Day 9 - Set some goals.
I aim to get the quicky_bang community going, but with job searching priorities in real life, I'm not setting a specific date for that. Other goals include participating in this year's BB;) (duh) and making an effort to keep up with artwork on my flist.

Day 10 - Rec resources.
These days I mostly pick references from my massive picture archive. Links to the images, fansites or screencap collections I have used for my artwork can be found in my Sources TAG. I often do a reverse Google Image Search to find the largest versions of photos.

Day 11 - List three things you like about yourself.
Ahahahahaha. No. I'm only just crawling out of the Pit of Despair, not going there again, which is what happens if I have to evaluate myself, no matter if the focus is on nice things.

Day 12 - Talk about what makes you fannish.
Hmmm, what makes me cross the line from like to LOVE? I think it's a particular interaction between characters and possibly me identifying with one of them. ***** And here is where I started on a whole essay, but I decided it was too personal and soul searching, so I'll just leave it at that :-p
A list of the fandoms and OTPs I'm heavily into may show a pattern:
Buffy/Angel/Spike [BtVS] - Nick/Greg [CSI] - Remus/Sirius [Harry Potter]
JDM/Jensen/Jared [Supernatural RPS] - Damianos/Laurent [Captive Prince]
(There are more, but these are the biggies. Threesomes can be in any combination of pairings as well;)

Day 13 - Rec at least three fanworks.
FIC: Lines On Palms by Fahye
A Captive Prince verse in which Auguste lives and Damianos gets to woo Laurent at a wedding (or is it the other way around? Laurent POV!!)
Damen/Laurent | 35,108 words | NC17

FIC: Early Morning Yesterday by rockstarpeach
Jeff's long, boring bus ride gets a little less boring when an attractive stranger gets on in the middle of the night.
Jeff/Jensen | 2,500 words | NC17 | on LJ

ART: The Darkness Came And I Let It In by kalliel
Two amazing drawings of Rowena: her encounters with various darknesses.
Rowena | digital drawings | R (for nudity)

Day 14 - Share your fannish love.
A list of things that make me smile, grin, giddy, etc:
Dimples, hands (including rings, leather bracelets), nape of the neck.
Age-difference, miscommunication, dirty talk, snuggling.
Established relationship curtain fic, but also first date/first time.

Day 15 - Talk about how the challenge has effected you.
Clearly I learned once again that multiple day challenges are not my thing, they feel like homework. I'm glad I now have closure over starting this *grins* It was fun diving into other fandoms; that definitely inspired me to think outside of the box when thinking of a next art-project.


J.

Comments

[sillie]

That's a really awesome banner. :D How do you like working with paint?

Your idea for that com. sounds really great. Def. keeping an eye on that.

Go you for finishing the challenge. :D :D

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you:) I love that set you gave me a lot; it looks so pretty and has really fun colours to play with!

Cool!

Not continuing with the Snowflake updates was bugging me a lot, I'm proud of myself for finally getting it done;)

[kalliel]

Ooh, a circus AU! I love the harlequin diamonds in the background and the jaunty angle of the jester's cap hanging from the mirror. The way you incorporated the photos on the side and all of Phoebe's makeup out gives it such a sense of activity and animation. <33

And thank you for the rec! :)

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

I was amazed how much circusworldbuilding Dramatic Owl managed to put in that short fic, I just had to try and incorporate Helga's background in the drawing as well. Thanks so much for your detailed comment <3<3

That rec is well deserved, I absolutely LOVE that artwork and it's inspirational:)

[bflyw.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I love that water colour piece! Such a fun painting! Truly well done!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you:) I really loved playing with paint to get the colours I had in mind. (Such a change from working with my coloured paper collection;)