kaiserkuchen | BIG BANG BIG BAAAAAAAANG! (Reply)

spn_j2_bigbang, YEAR THREE. And my 1000th LJ post, well won't you look at that :D.

I had an excellent time working with my darling

laulan again this year! Andy is just such a delight to collab with and of course is already well-accustomed to my various foibles and shoddy work habits :DD. SUCH A RELIEF THERE. I illustrated her lovely SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE ADVENTURES J2 RPS fic, Between Stars.

TITLE BANNER:

VOILAAA. It was a fun challenge to find a good way to balance all the elements I wanted the title banner to show: the awesomeness of SPAAAACE, the trio (I wanted to go for a composition that featured Danneel right up there with the boys, given what an important role she plays in the proceedings), interesting clothes (detaaaails! Man, I had a great time embellishing their outfits), their spaceship Rosie and of course the title & credits.

IN-FIC ILLUSTRATION:

laulan knows the secret to my heartttt. Once I found out that there was a bit in the fic that involves a FANCY DRESS BALL, in SPAAAACE!! and Jensen and Danneel going undercover as a dolled-up couple for it? WELP there was no doubt I had to illustrate this. Had an utter blast coming up with the clothing design, as always, and drawing Jared experiencing A Feeling.

CHIBIS:

BOYS IN SPACE, BEING AWESOME AND ON THEIR WAY TO THEIR NEXT ADVENTURE ♥!

AND REDUX VERSION with different, goofier backgrounds:

AKA alternate versions that were bases for the icons.

ROSIE DIVIDER/LINEART:

SWOOOSH! And yes I am posting the lineart because I drew her a second time for the chibi pic and felt very proud of my efforts XDD.

ICONS:

Feel free to take some, just credit me in your userinfo ♥!

THINGS I LEARNED THIS YEAR:
I was looking at my previous BB posts to see what I had written then and how it stacked up to how I felt my experience was this year and depressingly enough I apparently still have the same problems with the same things, namely SPEED (AM SO SLOW), DECENT LINEART (IT TAKES FOREVER), COLORING&SHADING (THE FORMER=FUN, THE LATTER=SO HARD). WHOOPS.

The research and planning for this BB was so much fun, I spent a lot of time sketching random things that I spammed

laulan with that never got used (lol) and staring at utterly stunning shots of deep space and galaxies and it was a treat choosing which ones to use as background images. I can highly recommend the following three sites for awesome hi-res spaaaaace porn: Hubblesite (SO GOOD), NASA's Astronomy Picture of The Day and Space Pictures.

I do feel that I have polished my skillset a bit more though, and I really liked getting the chance to stretch some creative muscles and try something new in SPACESHIP DESIGNNN. Spoiler alert: it's harder than one thinks! I found that a playlist of dubstep mixes and occasionally muttering DOOT DOOT DOOT SPAAACE to myself helped me get into the appropriate mindset though ;D.

AAAAAND MANY THANKS TO: First and foremost, my dearest co-conspirer & teammate

laulan ! LET'S TEAM UP AGAIN SOON BB <33! This time 'round I was mostly obsessed with getting things done by the deadlines, so I actually didn't spam my usual LJ support troupe besides darling

laliandra in a fit of nerves XD. But I did rope some unwitting RL people into being my impromptu art betas again and yammered on about my progress, art blocks and etc. to the people at the gym, my BKK friends and C'Mai ex-colleagues. Best quote goes to one of the latter group: "*squints at my Blackberry screen* so this is for one of your ..."mango" things right? Will it be animated??" .....uhhh yeah, sure dude.

Thanks also to our mods for running this challenge every year and thank YOU for dropping by! Hope you like what you see and go read the fic (THE MASTERPOST HERE)! IT IS ACES.