Art: Back of the Bus (Masterpost)
Jun. 28th, 2019 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_adriftTitle: Artwork for Back of the Bus
Author: jessie_cristo
Artist: dancing_adrift (yup, that's me!)
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: G (for art; fic is R/Mature)
Medium: Corel Painter Essentials 5
Artist's Notes: Created as part of the 2019 SPN_J2_BigBang challenge. (My 4th year!)
Summary: This is a classic high school love story - the golden boy quarterback falling for the nerdy, yet beautiful new kid… only there’s aliens!
Jensen Ackles and his parents are the newest permanent residents in the small desert community of Rachel, Nevada - the closest inhabited area to Nellis Air Force Base and the infamous Area 51. They moved to Rachel to settle down and place roots; to build a normal life. If only they’d known that life for them and everyone else in the world was about to get as far from normal as possible.
READ IT NOW ON AO3: BACK OF THE BUS
(Potential spoilers behind the cut, so feel free to view the art as you read the story if you don't want any of it to be spoiled!)
Art notes below! I hope you don't mind the wall-o-text, but I really wanted to have all the main art pieces grouped together for the gallery effect.
General Notes:
As soon as I opened the doc from Jessie and saw that she'd labeled each chapter, I knew that I wanted to make title banners for each one. So I knew right away I'd be making at least twelve pieces of art between those and the (obligatory, at least for my own standards) cover art. Does this mean I'm growing? My first Big Bang I did something similar, but for that one I'd started out to make fifty different pieces, lol! Twelve is *much* more attainable. X'D
For each piece I tried to choose a visual element that both represented some significant moment from that chapter as well as suited the chapter title. I had a lovely time searching 1001fonts.com for a fun font to use - the one I ended up using throughout all the art is actually called "Aliens & cows" X'D
I also knew going into this year's Big Bang that I didn't really want to do any, for lack of a better word, epic art pieces. So most all of what I created is fairly simple in composition and subject matter; I liked how this seems to have resulted in a certain air of mystery surrounding the pieces, which I feel goes very well with the suspense Jessie created with the extraterrestrial aspect of her fic.
Chapter 1: New Kid in Town
This is the Ackles' Airstream trailer out in the desert area of Rachel, Nevada. I did not realize it right away, but then Jessie pointed out that all the places she references in her fic (Rachel, Alamo, the Little A'Le'Inn, Pahranagat Valley High School) actually exist, so I got a lot of art inspiration from those real places as well.
Chapter 2: Old Scars
This is a visual from the scene where Jared and Jensen first meet, when Jared spills Traci's coffee. I delighted in choosing the color of the lockers - what says 90's high school/aliens/desert-near-military-base better than peridot green? X'D (Though, this was before I knew PVHS's colors were blue and black... ah well. Still love that color green.) The coffee cup displays my made-up logo for the Little A'Le'Inn. I really like how the spilled coffee doubles as an adjacent metaphor for the chapter title "Old Scars" and how it sort of reflects some of the darker themes of this chapter that we see when we read about Jensen's past experiences.
Chapter 3: Lights in the Sky
This one is a bit on the nose, lol. But I always love painting skies, especially at sunset, and this is the first time I added the mysterious blue lights that Osric & Co. spotted from the bus which would become a reoccurring element both in the fic and the art.
Chapter 4: Breaking Free
Traci gets Jensen a cat, and then Jensen's room devolves into a makeover changing room. I just had this image of the new kitten getting lost in all the discarded clothes...but I guess this image is from just before the chaos descends, lol. I don't remember if the cat's name gets mentioned in the fic, but Jessie sent me a picture of what she imagined "Ripley" looked like and, really - how could I resist the chance to draw a cat?
Chapter 5: Goner
This is definitely one of my favorite pieces. How is it that even Jared's chin is gorgeous? *happy sigh* This is also when I discovered that PVHS is real, which helped me design Jared's jacket. Go Panthers! (I guess! lol) This is from the moment when Jared first sees Jensen after his 'makeover' and realizes he's gone over this new boy.
Another common artistic element that I'd never really played with much before but did a lot for these pieces was applying surface textures and/or lighting in Corel. You can really see it in Jared's jacket here.
Chapter 6: Tin Hats
This is a shot of Extraterrestrial Highway after the town starts to become overrun by all the ET enthusiasts, or "Tin Hats". I used a (highly distorted) image of trucks and cars and buses and tents all out in the desert to represent the hoards of people who had traveled to Rachel/Alamo at the news of the mysterious light sightings.
Chapter 7: Circus in Town
Another of my favorite pieces. I'm particularly pleased with how that god-awful laminate countertop turned out, and the bubble tv. I just imagine Rachel as this dusty old town that hasn't had a good remodel in, well, ever, so everything is solidly stuck in, like, the 50's. And I got to design another logo (this time for the tv channel "Discovered Worlds") and draw Felicia! Who had some stunningly gorgeous hair in the reference picture I found! Like fire. So pretty.
Chapter 8: Vanished
I really enjoyed playing with the lighting in this one. Who knew police lights could be pretty? Plus we again see the mysterious blue lights, in increasing numbers. This moment would have been from right after the Bus Crew's close encounter with the lights when the police show up to form a barricade to keep the onlookers away from town.
Chapter 9: Grounded
Though there were a few nice visuals in this chapter (the Padalecki ranch sounds so cool?), I focused on Jared's room for a few reasons. One, that's where Jensen's interests were focused; two, the most detail was given for it (all the colors! also, I have a hard time resisting any sort of star-related visuals); and three, this room facilitated a pretty big turning point in Jared and Jensen's relationship. I'm really happy with how this piece turned out.
Chapter 10: The Draft
Okay, so the scene where Jensen and the others get abducted is seriously cool. I did my best to illustrate a moment from that, but this was also the last piece I finished...at the last minute...so it maybe didn't get as much attention as it deserved. But I still think it turned out alright! And again we see the blue lights, because... THEY'RE HEEERE!
Chapter 11: They're Heeere
Definitely a favorite piece. Rob being possessed by the alien being and his glowing blue eyes...yeah, could not pass up that visual. And then when I was looking at pictures of buses for reference and I remembered that large mirror school buses have? Yeah. Couldn't not take advantage of that. Really love how this turned out. And, of course, now the whole area is just flooded with the blue lights, because the aliens have officially begun their "saving of the world". Which leads me to my next piece of art...
To Be Continued...
Alas, a cliffhanger! What has happened to Jensen and the others? What are the aliens planning to actually do? Well I certainly don't know, but I figured I'd make a quick graphic for Jessie to end the first part of this story with.
Divider
The art piece that most closely illustrates the title of the fic, lol. I kind of picture that blue glow as the moment that Jensen was taken by the aliens. It also literally highlights the back of the bus, so... Seemed like a good visual to have scattered throughout the fic as a whole.
Cover/Title Art (see above)
This is pretty much just a drawing of a picture Jessie sent me of the Little A'Le'Inn (an actual place IRL!) that I was kind of bummed I hadn't been able to include in any of the other art I'd already made. It seemed to fit well for an introductory visual for the fic though - especially with all the 'Welcome!' signs - so that is what it became.
THANK YOU
Well! That is about all from me for this year. If you stuck with me this far, thank you so much for reading my jabbering, and for enjoying my creative endeavors. I hope you enjoy Jessie's fic as well! I had a lot of fun working on the art for it (and getting the chance to bond with a fellow Stargate SG-1 fan ;)). Congratulations to her on her first Big Bang entry! Please be sure to leave her some love over on AO3.
Thank you, as ever, to my lovely friends Sammie, Jen, Anna, Ash, and Nick (to name a few, but surely not all!) for your continual love/support/feedback/encouragement, and thank you to Wendy for continuing to put on this fantastic challenge year after year.
Here's hoping I'll see y'all back here again for next year's Big Bang!
Til then,
Love,
Amanda aka Dancing_Adrift
Author: jessie_cristo
Artist: dancing_adrift (yup, that's me!)
Pairing: Jared/Jensen
Rating: G (for art; fic is R/Mature)
Medium: Corel Painter Essentials 5
Artist's Notes: Created as part of the 2019 SPN_J2_BigBang challenge. (My 4th year!)
Summary: This is a classic high school love story - the golden boy quarterback falling for the nerdy, yet beautiful new kid… only there’s aliens!
Jensen Ackles and his parents are the newest permanent residents in the small desert community of Rachel, Nevada - the closest inhabited area to Nellis Air Force Base and the infamous Area 51. They moved to Rachel to settle down and place roots; to build a normal life. If only they’d known that life for them and everyone else in the world was about to get as far from normal as possible.
READ IT NOW ON AO3: BACK OF THE BUS
(Potential spoilers behind the cut, so feel free to view the art as you read the story if you don't want any of it to be spoiled!)
Art notes below! I hope you don't mind the wall-o-text, but I really wanted to have all the main art pieces grouped together for the gallery effect.
General Notes:
As soon as I opened the doc from Jessie and saw that she'd labeled each chapter, I knew that I wanted to make title banners for each one. So I knew right away I'd be making at least twelve pieces of art between those and the (obligatory, at least for my own standards) cover art. Does this mean I'm growing? My first Big Bang I did something similar, but for that one I'd started out to make fifty different pieces, lol! Twelve is *much* more attainable. X'D
For each piece I tried to choose a visual element that both represented some significant moment from that chapter as well as suited the chapter title. I had a lovely time searching 1001fonts.com for a fun font to use - the one I ended up using throughout all the art is actually called "Aliens & cows" X'D
I also knew going into this year's Big Bang that I didn't really want to do any, for lack of a better word, epic art pieces. So most all of what I created is fairly simple in composition and subject matter; I liked how this seems to have resulted in a certain air of mystery surrounding the pieces, which I feel goes very well with the suspense Jessie created with the extraterrestrial aspect of her fic.
Chapter 1: New Kid in Town
This is the Ackles' Airstream trailer out in the desert area of Rachel, Nevada. I did not realize it right away, but then Jessie pointed out that all the places she references in her fic (Rachel, Alamo, the Little A'Le'Inn, Pahranagat Valley High School) actually exist, so I got a lot of art inspiration from those real places as well.
Chapter 2: Old Scars
This is a visual from the scene where Jared and Jensen first meet, when Jared spills Traci's coffee. I delighted in choosing the color of the lockers - what says 90's high school/aliens/desert-near-military-base better than peridot green? X'D (Though, this was before I knew PVHS's colors were blue and black... ah well. Still love that color green.) The coffee cup displays my made-up logo for the Little A'Le'Inn. I really like how the spilled coffee doubles as an adjacent metaphor for the chapter title "Old Scars" and how it sort of reflects some of the darker themes of this chapter that we see when we read about Jensen's past experiences.
Chapter 3: Lights in the Sky
This one is a bit on the nose, lol. But I always love painting skies, especially at sunset, and this is the first time I added the mysterious blue lights that Osric & Co. spotted from the bus which would become a reoccurring element both in the fic and the art.
Chapter 4: Breaking Free
Traci gets Jensen a cat, and then Jensen's room devolves into a makeover changing room. I just had this image of the new kitten getting lost in all the discarded clothes...but I guess this image is from just before the chaos descends, lol. I don't remember if the cat's name gets mentioned in the fic, but Jessie sent me a picture of what she imagined "Ripley" looked like and, really - how could I resist the chance to draw a cat?
Chapter 5: Goner
This is definitely one of my favorite pieces. How is it that even Jared's chin is gorgeous? *happy sigh* This is also when I discovered that PVHS is real, which helped me design Jared's jacket. Go Panthers! (I guess! lol) This is from the moment when Jared first sees Jensen after his 'makeover' and realizes he's gone over this new boy.
Another common artistic element that I'd never really played with much before but did a lot for these pieces was applying surface textures and/or lighting in Corel. You can really see it in Jared's jacket here.
Chapter 6: Tin Hats
This is a shot of Extraterrestrial Highway after the town starts to become overrun by all the ET enthusiasts, or "Tin Hats". I used a (highly distorted) image of trucks and cars and buses and tents all out in the desert to represent the hoards of people who had traveled to Rachel/Alamo at the news of the mysterious light sightings.
Chapter 7: Circus in Town
Another of my favorite pieces. I'm particularly pleased with how that god-awful laminate countertop turned out, and the bubble tv. I just imagine Rachel as this dusty old town that hasn't had a good remodel in, well, ever, so everything is solidly stuck in, like, the 50's. And I got to design another logo (this time for the tv channel "Discovered Worlds") and draw Felicia! Who had some stunningly gorgeous hair in the reference picture I found! Like fire. So pretty.
Chapter 8: Vanished
I really enjoyed playing with the lighting in this one. Who knew police lights could be pretty? Plus we again see the mysterious blue lights, in increasing numbers. This moment would have been from right after the Bus Crew's close encounter with the lights when the police show up to form a barricade to keep the onlookers away from town.
Chapter 9: Grounded
Though there were a few nice visuals in this chapter (the Padalecki ranch sounds so cool?), I focused on Jared's room for a few reasons. One, that's where Jensen's interests were focused; two, the most detail was given for it (all the colors! also, I have a hard time resisting any sort of star-related visuals); and three, this room facilitated a pretty big turning point in Jared and Jensen's relationship. I'm really happy with how this piece turned out.
Chapter 10: The Draft
Okay, so the scene where Jensen and the others get abducted is seriously cool. I did my best to illustrate a moment from that, but this was also the last piece I finished...at the last minute...so it maybe didn't get as much attention as it deserved. But I still think it turned out alright! And again we see the blue lights, because... THEY'RE HEEERE!
Chapter 11: They're Heeere
Definitely a favorite piece. Rob being possessed by the alien being and his glowing blue eyes...yeah, could not pass up that visual. And then when I was looking at pictures of buses for reference and I remembered that large mirror school buses have? Yeah. Couldn't not take advantage of that. Really love how this turned out. And, of course, now the whole area is just flooded with the blue lights, because the aliens have officially begun their "saving of the world". Which leads me to my next piece of art...
To Be Continued...
Alas, a cliffhanger! What has happened to Jensen and the others? What are the aliens planning to actually do? Well I certainly don't know, but I figured I'd make a quick graphic for Jessie to end the first part of this story with.
Divider
The art piece that most closely illustrates the title of the fic, lol. I kind of picture that blue glow as the moment that Jensen was taken by the aliens. It also literally highlights the back of the bus, so... Seemed like a good visual to have scattered throughout the fic as a whole.
Cover/Title Art (see above)
This is pretty much just a drawing of a picture Jessie sent me of the Little A'Le'Inn (an actual place IRL!) that I was kind of bummed I hadn't been able to include in any of the other art I'd already made. It seemed to fit well for an introductory visual for the fic though - especially with all the 'Welcome!' signs - so that is what it became.
THANK YOU
Well! That is about all from me for this year. If you stuck with me this far, thank you so much for reading my jabbering, and for enjoying my creative endeavors. I hope you enjoy Jessie's fic as well! I had a lot of fun working on the art for it (and getting the chance to bond with a fellow Stargate SG-1 fan ;)). Congratulations to her on her first Big Bang entry! Please be sure to leave her some love over on AO3.
Thank you, as ever, to my lovely friends Sammie, Jen, Anna, Ash, and Nick (to name a few, but surely not all!) for your continual love/support/feedback/encouragement, and thank you to Wendy for continuing to put on this fantastic challenge year after year.
Here's hoping I'll see y'all back here again for next year's Big Bang!
Til then,
Love,
Amanda aka Dancing_Adrift
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Date: 2019-06-29 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 03:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 04:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 05:50 am (UTC)Thanks so much for also sharing your thought process behind each one, too.
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Date: 2019-06-30 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 07:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-30 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 09:38 am (UTC)I've told you this before, but anyone who gets to work with you is so damn lucky because they get SO MUCH beautiful art and you always really dig into the fic and find these little things or moments. You know how to make a writer feel special, babe :D (And I always feel a little jealous when someone else gets to collab with you... but lol, I've gotten to work with you so many times that I can't really complain.)
Each of these pieces are really pretty and unique. I love how you cover so many different things - your art alone tells a whole story and I really liked reading your explanation for each one. You have such a cool style and I love your use of colors - your art is always colorful and bold without being too colorful or bright. It's just PERFECT.
I love the art for the third chapter. Even though you said it's a bit on the nose, I think that's actually why I like it. The blue lights in the sky look really cool and I really like how they pop up in all in all of the art where there's a sky at night. And it's just so pretty.
And then there's the art of Jared. You're right, his chin is gorgeous. But then again, everything about him is gorgeous. And the way you draw him captures him perfectly. I love that you didn't do his whole face/body, but just a bit of him. IDK, it just looks great and arouses curiosity. All of these headers do, actually, which is why they're so perfect for a fic. It really makes you wonder what the story behind the art is and makes you want to read the fic.
As always, you did an amazing job and created a ton of stunning, awesome art! ♥
- Anna
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Date: 2019-06-29 03:27 pm (UTC)HAHA, I REMEMBER YOUR FIRST BB WITH THAT MASSIVE AMOUNT OF DRAWINGS! BLESS. It's been a blast following you ever since:)
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Date: 2019-06-30 03:47 am (UTC)I'll have you know I google searched "Texas Star Headboard" and that was a legit result. There's a sad lack of original thought that goes into my art... X'D
I'm intrigued by which texture you're referencing in the Ch. 10 art? Mostly because the only surface effect I used was some lighting on the silver of the window frame. If you mean the blue lines overlaying the hand? That was just one of Corel's oil/acrylic brushes! :)
Thank you as always for your wonderful comments <3
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Date: 2019-07-01 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-06-29 05:32 pm (UTC)Thank you so much for making these arts and sharing them with us!
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Date: 2019-06-30 03:50 am (UTC)Thank you so much for your lovely comments <3 <3 <3
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Date: 2019-06-29 05:53 pm (UTC)And to quote an above commenter: but anyone who gets to work with you is so damn lucky because they get SO MUCH beautiful art and you always really dig into the fic and find these little things or moments. You know how to make a writer feel special, babe :D (And I always feel a little jealous when someone else gets to collab with you".
THIS.
Amazing work! \o/
no subject
Date: 2019-06-30 03:53 am (UTC)Thank you so much for enjoying my work, and for leaving such a nice comment! <3
No, Thank YOU!
Date: 2019-06-29 10:29 pm (UTC)With the style you chose, right down to the font and colors, it totally gave the 'feel' I was going for in my fic. You totally captured it! When I showed my betas the first few pieces you gave me they were as blown away and excited as I was!
We all admitted to being jealous that we didn't have the talent that you do.
I sincerely hope I get to work with you again 'cos it has been a truly awesome experience. Keep on w/ your art, can't wait to see your future works.
xoxo A fellow GateHead. ;) Jessie Cristo
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Date: 2019-07-03 10:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-04 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-07-14 08:34 am (UTC)💗
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Date: 2019-08-03 10:13 pm (UTC)