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BeeLikeJ ([personal profile] beelikej) wrote2021-07-02 07:56 pm

Artpost SPN_J2_BigBang 2021 - the second!

Most of my furniture is still stacked in big piles in my living room, but the first thing I did when the builders were done with the interior work, was to set up my computer and arts & crafts corners:) While the renovation to the outside of my apartmentbuilding continued, I worked on my second claim in the SPN_J2_BigBang. I chose to play with watercolours to illustrate this fic. Of course I also had to do a little papercutting and I made an animation! Here's the result of my fiddling:

StoryHeader_Mind_GIF600.gif

Title: The Mind
Author: [livejournal.com profile] junkerin
Artist: [livejournal.com profile] beelikej
Art Rating: G | Medium: Watercolours, Papercutting & Light, Photoshop animation
Fic Rating: NC17 | Pairing: Jensen/Jared [RPF AU] | Word count: 31,000
Summary: The minds were, next to humans, the other intelligent life form on earth – and if you believed them, the smarter one. Since the beginning of mankind, the minds were among the humans. Depending on who you talked to, minds were a symbiotic or parasitic life form.
Tristan Padalecki is dying; becoming a host for a mind is his only chance.


Full Storyheader & Additional artworks
StoryHeader_Mind_600h.png
The light effect of the Minds is done with papercutting and photographing on a lighttable. See the WIP section for a peek behind the scenes!

Location Banners
In order of appearance:
01_banner_SanAntTX1978.png

02_banner_HoustonTX1978.png

03_banner_Austrasia510.png

04_banner_534Austrasia.png

05_banner_1985MalibuCA.png

06_banner_Britannia548.png

07_banner_LosAngCA1985.png

08_banner_Venice812.png

09a_banner_Cologne1099GER.png

10a_banner_CologneGER1274.png

11_banner_ZwolleHOL1358.png
Guess who lives in Zwolle in 2021? (Thank you, [livejournal.com profile] junkerin for making my own Hanseatic town part of J2s trade route!)

Watercolour Scenes
Don't forget to click for full size images!
Background_Mind_600h.png
The background of the story header is based on an original drawing of Cologne in the middle ages with the Dom being build on the top right. It's also a representation of all the places J2 live and travel through from top to bottom with the different views of city landscapes, including an old castlewall and the river with trees and old huts in the foreground.

JoiningBLJ_TheMind_600.png
Jensen's Joining in 548.

ConnectionBLJ_TheMind_600.png
My artistic interpretation of the minds connecting all the humans they live with.

The Mind timeline
To keep track of all the humans that Jared & Jensen join with, I made a timeline from 510 until 1985:
TimeLineYearsOnly_TheMind.png

A version including all the places they live in or travel to:
TimeLine_TheMind_1000.png


The Work in Progress
As per usual I worked on all the things at the same time, but in this picspam I organized them per piece:)

Creating the StoryHeader
AIMG_0853_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_0854_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Sketches after reading the first draft.

AIMG_2004_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2005_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
I wanted to use printed photos with papercutting; I tried mixing outfits, but the suited up picture won:)

AIMG_2006_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2007_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg

AIMG_2010_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2013_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg

AIMG_2027_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2027B_2061_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
First light test with the watercolour background: a cut out circle behind the J2 photo.

AIMG_2034_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2035_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Lighttable test with the cut lines.

AIMG_2066_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2085_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
The builders were tearing down the scaffolding at the back of my apartmentbuilding; quite distracting!

AIMG_2089_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2093_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Trying to flatten the watercolour background before cutting lines.

AIMG_2096_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2098_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Another light test; this time with a paper circle behind J2.

AIMG_2101_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2102_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Lighttable turned on and off:)

AIMG_2105_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2116_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
The photo wasn't see through enough to show the cut lines in the background, so I experimented with sanding it on the backside.

AIMG_2117_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2119_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
I then tried to make it more transparent with water, but the effect was disastrous; also notice the tiny holes in Jensen's face from the sanding. Fortunately I had a back up print of the photo.

AIMG_2143_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2144_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
For the final light version, I decided to broaden the cut lines.

AIMG_2145_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2148_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Result!

AIMG_2151_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg AIMG_2164_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
The definite cut and the photo on the lighttable that I used for the storyheader. (I enhanced the colours a little and added the blue animated line digitally)

Making the location banners
BIMG_2018_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg BIMG_2019X_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
For the first idea I used doodled blue lines, for the definite version I chose to put the text on snippets of the storyheader background, themed 'wood', 'river', 'castle', and 'city', depending on the location.

TIMG_2029_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg TIMG_2030_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
The author sent me a spreadsheet of all the humans who joined with J2, I used that to make watercolour timelines for both of them.

TIMG_2042_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg TIMG_2053_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
In my first set up I managed to write the years all wonky.

TIMG_2069_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg TIMG_2071_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
So I started again; with back up versions:)

TIMG_2073_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg TIMG_2137_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
The text is still a bit off-angle, but that's also my style :-p
I added blue and cut lines to represent the Minds.

Painting additonal pieces
WCIMG_2033_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WCIMG_2050_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Close to my first sketch, I really wanted to explore this idea of the minds being connected/connecting all the humans they joined with over the years.

WCIMG_2051_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WCIMG_2074_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg

WCIMG_2074A_1115_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WCIMG_2074A_1116_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
My only regret is using a broader marker for the blue lines, the fine line in the other pieces works better. But I love the colours and I came close to how it looked in my mind (haha, see what I did there?)

WCIMG_2074A_1125_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WCIMG_2130_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
See what I mean about the thin markerlines? The fit better with how I imagined the Mind.

WJIMG_2032_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WJIMG_2046_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg

WJIMG_2048_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WJIMG_2055_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg

WJIMG_2057_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg WJIMG_2127_BB_Mind_BLJ.jpg
Close up shows the effect of the light through the cuts the best:)


Font: (digitally added to all pieces) Rumble Brave by Alit Design.

Thank you, [livejournal.com profile] junkerin for this intriguing universe! And a big thanks to BigBang's mod [livejournal.com profile] wendy for once again organizing this SPN fandom classic.

J.

Want more? Here is another artpost with light effects:
for the Quicky_Bang 2016 I made Jensen & alien!Jared with his glowing tentacles Strange Days Indeed
And here's my first BigBang of 2021 for which I played with clay: Green Eyes and Binding Ties

All of my other artworks: Artmasterlist 2010-2018 | Artmasterlist 2019 and beyond

X-posted from https://beelikej.livejournal.com/569526.html