amberdreams | Brotherhood - Wincest BB Art Masterpost

The first of my art posts for

wincestbigbang! This one is for beekeepercain (aka chakatai)'s angsty fic Brotherhood. You can read it here on AO3 or visit the post on tumblr.
Fic summary: When a hunting injury leaves Sam temporarily blinded, Dean has to step back into his old role as his brother's keeper, helping Sam adjust to his new life while they both wait for recovery to take place. Old roles don't come without their shadows, leaving both Sam and Dean to deal with long-repressed, now resurfacing memories and the grey fields of healthy and unhealthy dependence, limits of familial affection and, ultimately, the questions of desire and longing.

So with that in mind, here's the banner

I made use of the banner art in the main picture too, after deciding all the black space round Sam needed something to fill it

I was trying to convey something of the feelings of helplessness, fear and deprivation Sam feels, even knowing the blindness is temporary. Don't know if I succeeded!

There are a couple of text dividers on the theme

The Braille spells out DEAR BROTHER

Now for the process part!
Sorry if this is a bit long winded, I thought I'd add a bit more of the steps this time. Feel free to skip over this part!
So I started the main blind Sam picture in Photoshop, before deciding - nope, I wanted to be brave and go for pencil and paper.

Starting again, I outlined Sam's face thusly

Then gradually built up the drawing

I had been thinking about making him much more broken, but somehow that didn't feel right so this is how he ended up.

Then I put the photo into PS and cut round his edges so he'd stand out on the black background like a fallen statue.

I duplicated the drawing and multiplied it to give it more contrast, then added shadows

and highlights

and finally I used a stone texture to give the marbled effect.

And there poor Sam stayed for several weeks, because I couldn't decide what else to do - until the posting deadline approached and that kicked me into action again with an idea for the banner.
It's based on a touching scene in the story, where Dean tries to show Sam he can still do the things he loves by bringing loads of Braille books into the bunker and then the two brothers sit and learn Braille together.
So pencil on paper again - and a not very good drawing emerged. For some reason my hand was feeling shaky, and ack! my usual mediocre draughtsmanship utterly failed me. Fortunately PS covers a multitude of sins.
The same technique applies, photograph the drawing, duplicate the layer and multiply.

I then added a layer of black, set it to soft light, duplicated it and then erased areas on each layer to get the highlights and shadows. It ended up like this:

The banner was simply adding the words and reducing the size. I loved that the title font is called Sam's Town - doubly appropriate because it's formed of dots and named after our boy!
So after that, it was just a matter of deciding that the black empty space in the main pic behind blind Sam could have the hands in it, and Bob's your uncle. Done.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

blackrabbit42.livejournal.com

Oh, wow. your process progression... at every single step, I'm thinking, this is the one I like best, and then the next one is even deeper and richer and more amazing. The finished piece is just amazing.

LOVES ALL OVER IT!!

:)

From:

when flesh and steel are one

Brotherhood - Wincest BB Art Masterpost

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