Work Text:
Title: If We Live Through This - story here on AO3 or here on LiveJournal
Author: Amypond45
Artist: MidnightSilver
Pairings:Sam/Dean
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: non graphic hell trauma, post cage season 6 au,
Word Count: 13.6k
Summary: Dean feels like a failure when he can’t get Sam out of the Cage. When Sam just shows up one day, with no memory of how he got out, Dean is beyond grateful but wracked with guilt too. Sam doesn’t want to hunt anymore, so he and Dean settle down in a cabin in the woods, maybe near a lake. But Sam has nightmares of the Cage, and Dean’s guilt makes him desperate to atone for his failure to get Sam out by giving Sam everything and anything he needs, even if it means crossing that line Dean swore he’d never cross.
A/N:
⚠️ This is the art post for the above story and it contains spoilers. If you want to read the story first you can read it here on AO3 or here on LiveJournal
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Below you can find the pictures I drew for this story and a little peek behind the scenes showing my art process. I hope you enjoy😄
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The Artwork:
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Preliminary / Concept Sketches
As I read the story for the first time I like to make quick little scribble sketches of scenes that I might like to draw. Among the many beautiful scenes that caught the attention of my muse, were these that I have scribbled below:
However I knew that I would only have time to draw a small selection, so Amy and I picked 3 to expand on.
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Picture 1:
The diner hug:
I loved the emotion in this scene and wanted to capture as much of that as possible. I also loved the backdrop of classic Spn Americana and the rising sun offering hope for the future. So I started with some reference pictures of diners from the show to get the right vibes for the background.
Next I built a 3D model in Magic Poser to give me an anatomy guide and to help with perspective for the tables and benches. Then I sketched my ideas in Procreate and started blocking out colours.
At this point I realised that I had forgotten Gladys!! She is a key point of the Americana and I love the idea that someone gets to witness this heartfelt reunion and hope for the best for these bedraggled boys. So I had to expand my canvas and draw in some more of the diner and one friendly waitress.
Sam’s anatomy was also giving me problems, I really wanted him to look huge but pretzeled up small to fit into Dean’s arms, and twisted out of shape so that he could cling to Dean like an octopus 😁🤗 so I spent a bit more time working on the boys after I had firmed up my lines for the diner.
I also pulled up some screenshot references of the boys to guide me for the details of their faces:
then the final tweaks were painting in the details and shadows and adding in the glow of light from the sunrise.
Im really happy with how the hug turned out 🤗.
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Picture 2:
For pic 2 I was very torn trying to choose between them having cuddles in bed and laying by the lake. And after talking to Amy, while we firmly believe that those boys can never have enough hugs, the autumn lake scene and some rest and relaxation, won out! 😁
I started by gathering many reference pics for inspiration. I was specifically looking for: mountain lake scenes where the view was reflected in the water, colourful autumn trees, old wooden docks and worn weathered boats, and the golden glow of late sunlight through the foliage 🥰💛
I used ideas from all of these to come up with a sketch for the scene and painted it in procreate. Rather than take process pics of this one I thought I’d make you all a timelapse video so you can just see for yourselves how I painted it all. 😄 The whole painting took over 18hrs. I spent far too long repainting the boys several times because I couldn’t get them just how I wanted and trying to concentrate when you have a migraine is hell! But I also spent a very long time drawing trees and individual autumn leaves and loved every second! 😁
The timelapse video is compressed into 4min46s for your viewing ease. (That’s over an hrs work of painting every 20s!) The music is Sleep Song by Secret Garden. (Side note: Mary would totally have sung this lullaby to baby Sammy if she had known it. Dean would have changed the words to ‘May you always have a brother to watch over you’ when he sang it to Sam!)
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Picture 3:
I knew as soon as I read the end of the story that I wanted to draw this last picture and I wanted to make it a gif. In my minds eye I could see the scene of Sam sleep-picking the lock and Dean standing behind him in support, and the image was overlaid with the exact same scene wreathed in the fires of hell. The best way I could think to show this was by a gif that transitioned between the two scenes.
I started by building a 3D model in magic poser for Sam kneeling infront of the door and Dean stood behind him, then I drew a draft of the scene in Procreate.
I kept the boys the same but then turned off the background layer with the room at night and drew instead a hell background. Before I went too far I wanted to test my gif idea so I put both drafts in Werble and transitioned between the 2 to get a feel for the final result and it worked pretty well 😁
It took me several more days to neaten up my drafts (because migraines are massively inconsiderate like that 😒) but I added details and lighting to both paintings. I’m especially pleased with the shadow of the boys in the first pic and the moonlight on the window pains. As well as the creepy fire veins in the second version of the pic 😁
I placed both my drawings into Werble and added a few special effects overlays: some flames and sparks for hell and some glowing moonlight for the room scene:
I added a fade transition to the hell version of the picture so that we can see the two scenes flick back and forth and I think it works quite well 😄:
💛
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Cover:
The very final thing I did was to make a cover for the story.
I removed the trees from my lake picture so that I could use my sky as a cover background. (Yay for putting different parts of the picture on separate layers so you can edit and change more easily!! 😁). And I kinda liked the big-sky version of the lake pic, so here ya go:
For the cover though, I put a blur filter over this to soften it and I cut down the hug from Picture 1 and placed it in the bottom corner before adding some text.
I thought about making paragraph breaks but unfortunately I didn’t have time. Since the theme for the fic was healing and love, and the title was ‘if we live through this’; I had been playing with the idea of doing a heart rate monitor squiggle, and might have added a flaming heart to the centre for love and hell trauma. But like I said there wasn’t time and the only part of that idea that made it to the cover was the heart rate squiggle and I think it makes a neat ‘underline’ effect for the text 😄.
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And that's all for this art set folks 😄
I hope you enjoyed my art and the peek behind the scenes.
I loved this story by Amypond and if you haven't read it and you like stories about the boys having a chance to heal, and you enjoy first time feels and happy endings then I definitely recommend you give it a try. You can find it here on AO3 or here on LiveJournal.
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Kudos and comments always bring a smile to my face and brighten my day. I love hearing which pictures sparked a reaction and why, or anything else about the story or art that you wanna chat about.😄
And don't forget that you can find other Dean Winchester stories in the ao3 bang collection or by checking out the bang on tumblr.
Stay awesome my friends and stay well! 💛
-Midnight