SPN Dystopia Bang - art masterpost

[amberdreams]

I've got a little flurry of art posts coming up, this is the first - SPN Dystopia Bang.
I was lucky to snag anyrei & mugglerock's story 4545 (Link!). The story features Dean, Sam, Cas, Gadreel and Gabriel amongst others, in a future where most of humanity lives underground and population numbers are kept to the magic maximum figure of 4545...
Click on the banner to read the story!


The story art is not really spoilery. Obviously because they don't give any major plot points away, the scenes will make more sense when you read the fic!

This was the first scene that jumped out at me that I wanted to illustrate. Cas and Dean treading grapes (yup).

And no! It wasn't only because I got to draw them in their undies. LOL
I was reasonably happy with how Cas turned out but Dean's face was a bit of a mare.

I chose this second piece is a nice way to contrast Castiel's home and the Winchesters'. Here's Sam in the underground city.


For anyone interested in the process - yep, I did have one!

The banner:
I whipped that up really early on to make sure I had something for the in-progress reporting. It's made up of a bunch of free-to-use images from a variety of image searches, with Photoshop effects/textures added. The background is this concrete room from a wallpapers site.

The airlock door is a bank safe photo

I overlaid the safe door with this biohazard symbol

and added the rack of biohazard suits from a clipart advert for firefighters station furniture

I added grunge textures and shadows until it all looked suitably dark and dingy, and played with the fonts until I found ones that looked roughly how I wanted.

For the grape treading I used this photo as a reference for the pose, and the following two head shots for their faces. Misha's is a photo from AHBL (and I'm really sorry, I forgot to make a note of the photographer) and Jensen's is (I think!) an edit of one of mine from JIB.



I used a cardboard texture and gradients plus plain old digital painting for the rest of the art. This was my original concept sketch.

What else? Oh yes - Sam's picture.
The underground city is described like the Brazilian favelas; so being a) rubbish at architecture and b) very short of time due to only starting this picture yesterday, I used a cheat sheet for the buildings. I found an image from an adult colouring book and adapted and coloured it, overlaying another concrete room background as a texture and to provide added (dull) colour.

This was the Season 9 screencap ref I used for Sam's face - one of Gallicka's.

If you weren't bored to tears by all that, well done for making it to the end of my ramblings. Why not pop off now to read the story? Link!

Comments

[siennavie.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I like the grittiness of the banner and how you combined all those different elements! Boys in undies? Nice job with the shading, especially around their packa...ahem! More, please! :D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I think they both have good sized lunch-boxes.... LOL!

[amypond45.livejournal.com]

These are wonderful! I love seeing your "process" :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thanks me dear!

[madebyme-x.livejournal.com]

Ohhh, this is very cool and gritty, and I love all those textures that you worked in too. I love underground city look, and Sam's pretty face too. Thank you for sharing :)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Dystopias should be gritty, right? Thanks me dear!

[hugemind.livejournal.com]

Serious thinky Sam looks so supremely pretty! And Dean's arm and leg hair! \o/ Reading about your process was really interesting - I would've had no idea where all the different bits come from. :D

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I don't usually give Dean much body hair but I went a bit mad on this one, LOL! Glad you liked it, and thinky serious Sam!

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Oooh, very ominous looking banner, with that decaying building feel; that concrete wall as a filter is a perfect choice.
Heeheey, love Cas and Dean in their white undies:-D Look at those tummies <3
Cool grumpy Sam too!

Thanks for adding the making off, I always love a peek in the artkitchen:)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Hee hee, I'm happy you noticed/liked their tummies!
I'm glad so many people now post bits about how they work, it's so fascinating! :D

[herminekurotowa.livejournal.com]

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

Oh, that' an awesome set. The down right gritty grungy feel of the banner is wonderful, really makes you feel like you're about to step into an unknown and scary as hell world.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Yay! That's perfect. :D

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Cas and Dean in their tighty whities. I ... have to grin! (I love the clever uses of refs and resources, AMB!)

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thankee kindly. I'm beginning to think I must have been a magpie in a previous life.

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

Hey, there is NOTHING wrong with using refs and photobashing, especially in non-professional funtimes events. As long as you don't meander into plagiarism category, an take advantage of other artists' work. Which you don't do!

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

I was thinking more about the compulsion to collect shiny things LOL - but thank you! :D

[sillie]

Ooh, I really love the Sam piece, and Dean in his tighty whities is great too. :D Thanks for showing your process.

[amberdreams.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[mific]

Interesting! I always love finding out about peoples’ processes.

[amberdreams]

Me too!

[mekare]

Hey I am very glad you talked about your process for eahc of these, it was very enlightening!

Also, I am drooling and staring at Cas and Dean, especially the lovely golden hairs on Dean's legs and arms. YUM!

That trick with teh colouring book is really cool (I also hate drawing architecture, I try to avoid it as much as possible).

[amberdreams]

I'll often use photos or similar short cuts for backgrounds - I'm such a lazy painter! One day I might learn enough about photoshop or affinity to design buildings etc myself but somehow I never seem to have time when it comes to deadlines!

[mekare]

Well I call that clever use of resources instead of lazy :-)