fanart process: my yuletart piece, "Fealty"

[ratcreature]

Considering the many, many hours my recently revealed yuletart picture took, I thought I ought to get more than one post out of it... ;)


The idea was quite basic: I wanted to show how Merlin swears fealty to Arthur as his king. I started looking at pictures of other art showing such ceremonies, a bunch of screen caps from Merlin, also pictures of the Merlin location to see the hall better (though in the end I kept the background simple rather than rendering the throne room properly).

As usual I did a bunch of scribbles first. They don't look like anything much, and were done in a cheap A6 notebook:



Then I started on the pencils. I got about this far, and they were rather messy:



so rather than use my eraser for ages, I transfered them via lightbox to a new paper, and then continued working on it. I'll skip posting a bunch of ridiculous photographs where I tried to photograph myself in various positions, fashioned capes out of blankets and so on. No dignity in art, I guess.

At one point I moved the position of the guards in a scanned version, you can see a rough c&p and resizing here:




Eventually I arrived at this pencil version:


which I sent off for an artbeta to goss and vito_excalibur. I got some helpful comments about some of the figures and some other stuff, fixed things in the pencils (for which I also used a scanned version and moving things a bit, as well my lightbox). I didn't heed all comments though, for example vito_excalibur remarked that I did the oath posture very earnest, and more humble than maybe canon!Merlin would be. I did not change that, because admittedly the posture is due to my personal kinks, in which my buttons are strongly pushed by feudal loyalty, service, slavery, and similar tropes, and I really enjoy fiction in which in serious moments Merlin feels as servant to Arthur, and especially in public might display that, so that influences which body language I like in my art. It's not that I don't enjoy their buddy moments and irreverence with each other too, but not in formal scenes. Since my recipient didn't specify any detailed preferences at all aside from liking Merlin and Arthur but not slash, in absence of being sure what they like, I went with what I enjoy, and hoped it's not too kink-dependent or OOC. (In my last Yuletart assignment the recipient asked for SGA team fluff with slight McShep and I provided that with a team marshmallow roasting scene during which John and Rodney cuddle but the posture I ended up with was one that in my mind was a D/s one without really planning to draw a D/s piece in that John sat on the ground while Rodney was on a log behind him and John was fed a smore from Rodney's hand while being held and exposing his neck -- it was perfectly G rated and not in any way openly D/s, but well--)

Anyway, I then transfered the corrected pencil version to the expensive paper (the scan of this looks a bit odd, because the paper I painted on was larger than A3, and though I didn't use all of it, I still had to scan in more than two parts:



Then I started to paint. First some diluted washes:


then I started with the background in opaque, first the scarlet


then the black and the gold dragons and the throne


Then I did the stone, walls and floor with some more washes


Then I did the figures clothes and the capes, still leaving out the chain mail and skin:







With Gwen's gown coming last



Then I did the metal parts, first basic gray:



Then lots of tedious, tiny rows of loops for the chainmail, in both dark and light, for shadows and metal highlights (you can see in the high res details)



Finally heads and hands came last (you may notice that I actually changed the size of Merlin's hands a bit while painting also remembered to make Arthur's thumb visible which had gotten lost at some points during all the pencil transferences -- actually I did some extra reference photos of hand positions at this point):


BTW, for a random detail that I'm happy with, I quite like how the color of Arthur's crown turned out. Making metal look metallic is always really hard for me.



Unfortunately I only noticed while painting that Gaius head was too large, but couldn't easily change it at this point (and was pressed for time), so I decided to fix that in the scan. So the image above is like the original acrylic painting looks, but in the posted version Gaius' head has been made smaller. If you look closely at the high resolution detail of that area of the final version, you may be able to spot how I fixed and merged the resized head with GIMP.

Anyway the final picture with the smaller head is here:



And here are some details I also showed in the art post, including the GIMP manipulated area:

Comments

[reginagiraffe]

I'll skip posting a bunch of ridiculous photographs where I tried to photograph myself in various positions

Somewhere in the world (unless he threw it out) there's a Polaroid picture of Michael Whelan looking like a murder victim. He needed to know what looking at someone lying down from a particular angle looked like, so he took a picture of himself. It turned out... grim. *g*

[ratcreature]

Heh. These are the moments I regret not having roommates to rope into this. And I suppose the rare rich and famous artists can always hire a model, but if you can't do that you have to make do. At least it's easier now with digital cameras.

[yue_ix]

This is all so incredibly cool to know. I love WIPs and behind-the-scenes (and bloopers, as may be the case) so much. =D

The final piece is gorgeous, and it's great to be able to know how it came to be as it now is. If you don't mind me asking questions, I'm particularly intrigued by the colour washes you did (are they in diluted acrylics? Do they serve as base so as not to paint over white, to help blocking out things, or something else?) and how/when you decided on which colours.

The part where you talk about your choice of keeping Merlin's deferent position made me wonder if that is why you put him in servant's clothes, too? I've noticed that they are actual regular servant garbs, too, and not the different version Arthur made him wear as a lark, and was wondering about that choice with a friend.

Btw, it may come off as odd, but it's a relief to hear that you wonder about kinks/likes showing through even in gen works, because I have the same preoccupation. On the other hand, I would like to toast you on your spreading of g-rated kinks and how they related to everyday life.

No dignity in art, I guess.

*raises hand as also someone who has very ambiguous pictures of herself posing in various ways for drawings*

this is a fascinating guide through your process for this piece. Thank you for sharing it!

[ratcreature]

The color washes are regular acrylic color from a tube diluted a lot. I think I mostly paint in washes first, and even the opaque one in layers later on, because I'm not good at color mixing, or at envisioning the final colors or how the colors will appear together, so I build the color up in layers to fiddle with it, and so that I can see slowly how the large areas in particular react to each other. I only do it less with skin because they need a lot of white, and so are fairly opaque to begin with. In other paintings I've built up the colors even more evenly.

I mean, the color you see in the sense that you recognize it as red or green or dark or light or whatever, is never the color something has when you see the area on its own, but always what your brain constructs, which is why these optical illusions work where you see a "white" newspaper, then mask the other areas and suddenly it's a dark gray. And that effect makes it really hard to recognize and pick the color that gives the right impression, especially if like me you don't paint a lot, and don't have much experience. So I need to go by trial and error, and aside from glazes it works a lot better to paint more opaque over less opaque, so I start with the diluted colors and paint in layers.

Another aspect is color cohesion, like with the first washes, like the ocre I did over everything, that puts a little bit of ocre in all colors. I mean, as you can see, I like my colors fairly bright, especially in this one, rather than a limited palette, but the underpainting helps a bit. Also with not seeing colors against white on the paper which distorts it.

As for Merlin's clothes, I haven't actually thought much about the choice. I wanted him to look formal in a way, but not formal as a powerful court sorcerer he may become later, but still as Arthur's servant, so the servant livery we see in the series seemed the obvious choice.

My kinks show through a lot, even though I never do really explicit art. Probably because visual porn, like sex with genitalia showing, doesn't do much from me (just like most written sex scenes don't but art has the additional problem that sex to my eye often looks ridiculous), but the power differentials are what works for me, whether the characters have sex or not, i.e. also in gen stories.

[goss]

Ooooooh cool! I really enjoyed seeing this all come together. I am especially entranced by the shadowing on the steps and the lushness of the thrones.

[ratcreature]

Thank you! I'm glad you like how it turned out. And thanks again for helping to make it better with your beta comments.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! I'm really impressed how you work, it's so different from what I mostly do and that's intriguing. It's also so great to see how this awesome piece came to life!!
Thank you for sharing it with us!

(and I'm chen-san from LJ ^^ )

[ratcreature]

I'm glad you enjoyed looking at the in-progress stages. I suppose painting process is very different for everyone, depending on what works for them. I haven't been using acrylics for long (not for that many paintings anyway), so I'm still trying to find what works for me and what doesn't.

[gnatkip]

So cool! You have so much patience and attention to detail.

[ratcreature]

Thanks. Once I'm at the detail rendering stage painting or drawing (when I work with ink) is actually relaxing, so as tedious as a painting a bunch of tiny loops for chain mail, or filling out lots of small dragons is, that's actually kind of nice. It's getting to there through all the horribly frustrating sketches that's hard. And difficult to find the motivation for.

[leyna]

Thanks for showing your process. I love seeing how people work and I admire the huge amount of work you put into getting everything just right.

[ratcreature]

I'm glad you enjoyed the process post.

[fanarts-series.livejournal.com]

Wow it's a lot of work, congrats and thanks to explain how you write.

[ratcreature]

Glad you enjoyed to see the process. And yeah, I'm very slow with art, and with elaborate paintings in particular. I didn't keep track of the time spent, but I'm fairly sure it was something like 100+ hours for this.

[fanarts-series.livejournal.com]

It's a very good use of your time. Bravo again.

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

AWESOME

I'm very much liking guiles btw

And on a complete tangent. I read the following sentence in a fic. "Lex reached between them to take Clark’s weeping cock in hand"

And now I would kill to see a drawing of a chibi clark looking on in concern as a chibi lex tries to comfort a rooster weeping his eyeballs out.

[ratcreature]

Guiles? But I'm glad you like it.

And I see what you cunningly did here, planting images... But I'm game. However, I don't see Lex comforting some chicken, Clark's or not. So, my take on your prompt:

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

there he is choking clarks weeping cock

*IS DED FROM THE LAUGHING*

I only had hopes that you would draw it, thanks for coming through. (seriously is there not a funnier phrase in most fan fics than "weeping cock?")

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

p.s. oops Gaius is who i meant

[ratcreature]

I'm partial to "liquid eyes", which invokes images of liquefying eyeballs, much like the weeping cocks, especially combined with weird discolorations, can make you think of awful STD pictures with sores...

[droolfangrrl.livejournal.com]

ew.

And there's the moment of... Do I like this person's stuff well enough/ do I think they would have a cow if I told them that that phrase just made me crack up?

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

droolfangrrl led me here, because she knew I'd fall out laughing--not only is it too funny, but it inspires me to make sure I *never* use that phrase! :)

[ratcreature]

Thanks. And I hope while you're here you are taking a look at the art, and not just the scribble that only took two minutes.

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

*HEADSLAP*

YES! Omg, I can't believe I didn't comment on it, when it was what I looked at first on visiting your journal!

I was fascinated by the process in this, it's something that has always interested me and I love posts where folks talk about how they do what they do. It was interesting to see that you did specific parts at once--the scarlets, the black and golds, the stone.

It's really an amazing piece and I have to say, I'm in awe of your chain mail!

[ratcreature]

I already followed the "faking chain mail the lazy way" tutorials, but it still were a lot of tiny half loops with a size-0 brush...

Sometimes I build up colors more evenly. I haven't been using acrylics for long (not for that many paintings anyway, though I did my first one early 2008), so I'm still trying to find what works for me and what doesn't.