Artwork: Blood on Iceflowers

[beelikej]

Oh yes, another quicky_bang, I couldn't resist picking another marvelous short story to illustrate. This short fic has such strong visuals I just had to grab it. Once again I spent more time on it than a quicky should require and besides the papercutting I played with watercolours and more... Check the behind the scenes if you're curious how I made:



Title: The Ice Age [LJ | AO3]
Author: balder12
Artwork by: beelikej
Characters: Sam, Castiel
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 3800
Enticements/Warnings: Gen. Post ep Supernatural S9Ep09
Summary: Sam doesn't know what the man in the trench coat wants. All he knows is the man is very insistent, and the ice is getting closer.


Artwork: Blood on Iceflowers

The original artwork #nofilter

Additional Art
I also made dividers and icons:)




How it was made

Pencil sketches of my ideas right after reading. I ended up combining the first two.


May 9th: saw this glorious sunset from my backwindow; the colours reminded me of what I had read and I used these photos as a reference for the background:)


Initially I wanted to show Sam only from the back, but this intense face made me change my mind. Gadreel!Sam from S09Ep03 and Castiel from S06Ep10.


For the iceflowers/snowflakes I tried a folding tutorial, was not thrilled about the result, plus I realized it was impossible to fold the small size I wanted to create.


Outline set up of the portraits; I made two because I didn't know yet what colouring technique would work best. I started with watercolours.


I added layer upon layer of yellows, reds, oranges and a bit of blue.


Checking the result of the watercolours on the back of the mirrored pencil sketches and moving on to colouringtechnique number two: melted crayons.


After heating the paper with an iron I have a couple of seconds to colour (hot!hot!hot!) - the wax of the crayon melts and adding more heat changes the colours. It's messy making layers


The result of the crayon experiment looks quite bloody. Before I decide on a background I spent an evening cutting iceflowers/snowflakes out of sparkling white paper.


Of course I can't resist playing with light and shadows when I'm done;) Then it's time to start cutting the portraits...


As you can see I chose the watercolour background. Cutting requires precision, but the real test of patience is carefully taking out the cut piece without tearing tiny edges, pffff.


The eyes are the most nervewracking part, eeep. Slowly but surely their faces appear.


Putting all the elements together: I make a complete composition with black paper for the back, waves of ice and snowflowers:-)


I did a drip test before I add a drop of blood as a finishing touch. READ THE STORY!!


The original photo of the artwork; I adjusted the colours and added text to make the storybanner. Tadaah:)

Credits
Thank you, balder12 for offering that awesome story and giving me my first chance to visualize Castiel.
For some really cool photos of actual snowflakes (that look like iceflowers;) check out Terminal Frost. I used it as inspiration, as well as this DIY arts & crafts blog: How to make elaborate paper snowflakes.


Now... there are still more stories on offer in the quicky_bang so I'm still tempted to do another one, but I have a collaboration for MTB to finish first, so we'll see...

;-)

J.

My Masterlist of Artsy Fiddling

Comments

[emmatheslayer.livejournal.com]

I love this and it has my boys in it epic you work so hard on art and it is always blowing me away excellent work

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you:) I never had an opportunity to make art with Castiel in it, he has an interesting face to cut! Very happy to hear someone who loves both of these guys likes the result <3

[emmatheslayer.livejournal.com]

you did awesome

[balder12.livejournal.com]

I'm so thrilled with how this art turned out! I love how the rich, reddish color captures the layered sunset in the story (as well as the beautiful sunset you photographed). The paper cutting is so lovely, and yet has a starkness and sharp edge to it that fits wonderfully with the coldness of the environment the characters find themselves in.

Thank you! It makes me so happy to have something this beautiful to go with my story. :D

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Yay, I'm so happy you like it! Thanks for noticing the coldness I tried to capture; the sparkling white paper looks very icey and frozen, but that is hard to photograph:)
So cool to see you included the dividers with the story too! It was a pleasure to make something for it, your writing sure was inspirational; that first line describing the sunset drew me right in and I just had to grab it to play with <3

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Ah I ;d thought that the faces were black papercuts, not cut outs - cunning stuff! I think the watercolour background was the right choice - though the encaustic version might have been closer to that actual sunset!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Ahw, yeah, it's hard to tell from just the artwork (another reason why I add behind the scenes and WIP photos;) but seeing as I prefer to keep the main cutting in one piece, you can tell from whichever colour has the little parts what the cut out is! I meant to save the cut outs for a reverse look, but just breathing out made them fly from my lighttable (especially the nosebits) and I couldn't find them all when I was done.
I can still do the other background, since I already sketched the outline of their faces on the back, all I have to do is cut them. I might one day;)
Thank you!

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love seeing your works in progress and figuring out how you do it all. As always a stunning finished product :D I can't wait to see what you come up with for the Arts&Crafts exchange :D

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*Beams* Thank you!

(I have no idea yet, but the option to go non-fandom with Arts & Crafts is making me think outside the box:)

[whiskygalore.livejournal.com]

I love your paper works so much!!! And this one looks like it was a lot of fun to do! And of course incredible tricky!! I don't know how you find the patience for all that precise cutting! But such a pretty result! Gorgeous boys too!! That sunset is glorious btw, and I can see why the colours were inspirational. Stunning artwork as always <3 <3 xx

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you:) It was fun to do, especially the messy watercolours and wax play *grins*

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! I love the detail you've captured in the cut outs, and that lovely background. Beautiful artwork!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much :-)

[sillie]

Oooh, this is awesome! Love the colors you used, and the snowflakes look amazing. <3

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

:-) Thank you! I used that awesome paintset you gave me for my birthday, I love that flat brush a LOT. <3

[sinfulslasher]

*is speechless and in awe*

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Gosh, THANK YOU! <3

[tmn1966.livejournal.com]

I love it so much that you show us your process, even the parts where you have to decide you don't like and take another direction.

Your paper cutting is always so amazing. I can't get over how wonderful it is. I love their faces, you get all the little details in there! And the ice flowers... gorgeous!!

♥

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thank you:) The process is the best part of playing in fandom; I love sharing it. (It's also a good way for me to keep track of how I ended up with the final version of the artwork:)

The paper I used for the iceflowers is just perfect, sparkling like ice that's hit by the wintersun, but it's hard to photograph. Luckily the shapes alone are cool enough to work *g*