ARTpost: ReverseBang 2022 The First!

[beelikej]

For my first spn_reversebang of 2022, I submitted my papercut puppetmaster artwork in the Either category, which means the author had the choice to either play in the SPN or the RPF corner. I had deliberately kept the facial features of my papercut art neutral, so the author could also pick the roles for the characters. I was thrilled the story ended up being a Supernatural AU, with the artwork turned into a more metaphorical puppetmaster. Go read the fic to find out who's pulling the strings...



Prompt Number: E3003
Art title: If They Knew How Misery Loved Me
Artist: beelikej

Fic title: These Are the Lives You’d Love to Lead
Author: samisadeangirl [genevra1676 on AO3]
Pairing: Sam/Dean | Fandom/Genre: SPN, Stanford era AU
Rating: G (art) & NC-17 (fic) | Word Count: 11045 | Warnings: Mind Control
Summary: Sam gets a call at Stanford from his estranged father that Dean's been hurt on their latest hunt, and John needs his help to find a cure before it's too late. What Sam finds when he rushes to his brother's aid however, isn't what he expected, and the lies and manipulations that follow leave one wondering who is the puppet master making these puppets dance to their tune...

Original Artprompt

This is the description I added to the submitted artwork: A puppeteer has one of our guys dangling like a puppet on a string. The puppeteer could be one of them too, like some sort of possession. Could also be a monster of the week or a nightmare. Consider the art a WIP, likeness can be adjusted to specific characters:). (I included: If the story turns romantic or erotic J2 or Sam/Dean should be the main relationship. Including JDM or John in the story (or in that pairing!) would be a bonus;)


Additional Artwork
S P O I L E R - A L E R T !! Note that below are chaptertitles and that there are spoilers in the extra scene and in The Making Of. If you want to avoid them, go read the story first and then come back to check out all the artworks:)

Chapterheaders










Dividers




Extra Scene S P O I L E R - A L E R T !!



The Making Of
The original prompt

After making a pencil sketch, I played in Affinity Photo to decide on the colours.


I liked the 4 colour option best, so I copied different parts of the sketch to the chosen paper.


I cut out all the parts and put them together


Then I tried different backgrounds for an even more hypnotic puppetmaster effect. I chose the lighter yellow and added pencil strings.

The story artwork
After brainstorming with samisadeangirl who had claimed my artwork, I made the final version of the characters in their chosen roles. Here's the proces in pictures.

Sketching all the characters and figuring out the position of the arms of the puppetmaster because there would now be two people dangling instead of the one in my original version!


Working out the sketches so I can use them as templates for tracing on coloured paper


Transfering all the different parts to the coloured paper...




Putting the pieces together and fiddling with the hands


Originally I had a hoodie for Sam!


I mostly use tiny scissors for papercutting these days, because the joints in my fingers can no longer handle the pressure needed for cutting with a knife, but for tiny details I still use a knife:)


While I was giving John my favorite shade of scruff, I noticed I had created a bobble head, so I played with all of their heads for a laugh :-D


Cutting the tiny white dog for Sam's shirt and creating Dean's nose.


Naked and bald John ;-)


Then it was time to work on Dark Sam. I cut out his eyes, because I wanted to make them glow. (I also gave him a double layer of hair to sufficiently capture his lush locks;)


Photography test of the lighttable effect; not sure about the empty look of the eyesockets.


The final test on yellow paper also didn't give the golden glow I was aiming for, so I experimented with red paper and cut a whole in that for the light...


I liked the look of this, also because for me it pulled the two puppetmasters together with red for both the love-eyes and the demon-eyes!
After a final folding of the fingers...


...I build the final scenes and connected the puppets to the puppetmaster with a grey pencil!
I moved the complete scenes on the yellow paper on top of the spiraling background for photography (I also had to move Dean from one scene to the other;)


I used removable glue so they guys didn't slide down during the photoshoot (the lighttable is slightly tilted;)f.


Sam's eyes are cut out all the way through the black paper and I had to cover part of the light table to avoid flare during photography and make they eyes really pop:)


Last bit of cutting was Sam's knife, that I made from red and purple paper:)




Sources:
Title font: All Over Again by Hanoded
Names font: Rabiohead by Pizzadude
References for knife and clothes of Sam, Dean and John: Supernatural Season 1 :-)
Lyrics in Art & Story & Chapter titles: Dance, Dance by Fall Out Boy.

Thank you samisadeangirl for coming up with such a cool premise for my puppetmaster and for your excellent idea of the extra scene; I had a lot of fun playing with these guys:)

J.

For more paperart, check out the papercuttingart TAG and for all my previous artworks, you can scroll through my Artmasterlists:
Artmasterlist 2010-2018 | Artmasterlist 2019 and beyond

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