Welcome to Seeing Red
Updates
Saturday June 20th, 2009
The beautiful Stephanie at Immortal Kiss has chosen I'm Trying as her Pick of the Week, which has made me incredibly happy. Thank you so much, sweetie. See my lovely award Here.
Now, onto the actual update, and today I'm adding a total of Ten walls, and a new tutorial.
Soulmates: This was made for one of my best friends, Kean. I'm not a huge Bangel fan, but I have to admit, since being friends with Kean, I hate them a lot less than I did. She wanted something based on the early promo images of Buffy and Angel, 'when they were prettiest' as she put it, but I wanted to keep it quite dark, to reflect the angst in their relationship. I'm really pleased with how it turned out, I love the colouring and the textures. The lyrics fitted perfectly.
Evil Ways: Another friend requested a Spangel piece, and while I was happy to do it, I knew I didn't want to do a 'shipper' piece, as I've done that before and wanted something different. I chose to keepn this quite bright and work on the idea of the two of them regaining their souls and forgetting how to be evi. The lyrics are from an old Fozzy song.
Fairytales and Fantasies: I seem to be doing a lot of requests lately, and this is yet another one. Nix requested a Fangel piece, and I really struggled with the concept until I came across these images of David and Eliza, and I was struck by how normal and domesticated they looked. I decided to work on the fantasy side of things, and how they could only be together in a perfect world, where they could both be themselves and not the champions they're forced to be. The lyrics are by Anistacia, and they seemed to really fit the concept I was going for. I love how the textures fitted in this piece, and the colouring really works with both images.
Sisters, Sisters: I hate this piece. I'm not a Charmed fan, although I have seen all the episodes, but for some reason, I'd been thinking about this scene for a long time, it just wouldn't leave me alone, so I thought I'd sit down and actually do it so that I could move on a forget about it. The caps I found weren't great, and I think I tried to fix them and ended up overcompensating. I won't be trying any Charmed art again any time soon.
All's Changed: I recently rewatched Season 2 of Dark Angel and I remembered the reason I started watching Supernatural: I missed Alec, lol. He was my favorite character in the show, and I was gutted when it was cancelled, so I thought some art was in order. This is one of my favorite Alec/Max scenes, when Max tells Alec that she had to kill his twin brother, Ben, in order to keep him from being taken back to Manticore. Alec never knew Ben, never met him, and he was more of a brother to Max, but Alec can see how upset Max is by what she did, and he really feels for her. The text, supplied by Kean, refers to the fact that Alec gained and lost a brother in the space of minutes, and how, even though Ben is gone, Max has to deal with seeing his face everyday in the form of Alec. This is the moment, for me, when Alec and Max's relationship changed, and they became family, rather than just allies, or even friends.
Lies: Another Dark Angel piece, again, based on Alec. This scene is probably my favorite scene from the whole show, when Joshua's blind friend Annie asks to 'see' him, by touching his face. Joshua knows he looks different than everyone else, and silently asks Alec to step up. This is the first time that Alec is purely selfless, and does something for someone he loves and cares about. I wanted this piece to be based on that emotion and not on Joshua's feelings. The lyrics are from an old Evanescence song, and I think it fits the scene, both Alec's feelings of lying to protect his friend, and Joshua's feelings of lying to his friend to protect himself.
Remind Me Not: Another Bangel piece that is all Kean's fault. She sent me a song, which we both thought fitted the final scene of the Angel episode 'I Will Remember You' perfectly, so I decided that I just had to art it. But, when I finished the piece, it was a lot darker than I had originally wanted, and we both knew that the lyrics from the song didn't fit anymore. So it was a mad rush before Kean found this Bryon poem, and the text just fit. I don't know why this piece came out so dark when I had evisioned something a lot lighter, but I love the result. The heavy, corse texturing is not something I'm usually known for, but I think it fits the theme of this piece, how Angel doesn't want to be reminded of what he has just given up.
Dreams: When I heard this song, 'Mad World,' which I hadn't heard for a while, I was instantly taken back to the opening scene of the final epipsode of Seaosn 3, when Dean is dreaming about what's coming. He's finally realizing that his life is almost over, but at the same time, he's never felt more alive.
Symbol: This was just a simple piece I wanted to do, based on Sam's reaction to Jessica's death. Yes, the images are from a dream, but the feeling behind the dream is real, how Sam blames himself, even though they've yet to figure out that it is actually conntected to him. I wanted to keep this piece simple, and not crowd it with images and textures, and I love the result. The lyrics work well as, for a while at least, Jessica was, literally, everything Sam had.
All This Time: This piece was done for a RPS fanfic, for the Live Journal Community, spn_j2_bigbang. In the story, a young Jensen runs away from his controlling father, and meets a boy called JT, who lives rough. Things happen during the one night they spend together, and Jensen falls hard for JT, but things happen and Jensen is told that JT has been killed. He moves on with his life, but never forgets the boy he loved and lost. Years later, JT is now Jared, and a lawyer hired by Jensen. Jared remembers Jensen, but Jared's changed so much in the years they've been apart that it takes Jensen seeing Jared naked, and the moles on his body, to make the connection, which is the scene this piece is based on. I wanted to keep the piece dark and heavy, as it's such an emotional time for Jensen, to find out that the boy who changed his life is in fact alive and standing right in front of him.
Wednesday May 20th, 2009
Another new layout. While the last one was pretty, and I enjoyed staring at Jared every time I checked in, it was way too bright for me. I much prefer darker tones, so I've got this one. Wonder how long this will last, lol.
On to the new art, and today I have Twelve new walls to add. Three BtVS, two BtVS/Spn crossovers, and seven Supernatural. You can see them all Here.
Don't Care: The wall on which the layout was based. I've been making so much Buffy/Dean art, I started to feel sorry for poor old Sam, so I needed someone to pair him with, and for some reason, Faith just felt right. Unlike Buffy and Dean, I don't really see these two as having a sexual relationship, yet, lol, but I do think they have similar character traits. Both are struggling to fight back against the darkside, trying to do the right thing and be the better person. I wanted to express that with a very dark, texture-heavy piece, and I'm really proud of the result. I love the purple colouring, and the heavy textures. The text comes from the
P!nk song, 'Glitter in the Air' which just seemed to fit.
Little Girl: I got a little annoyed lately with the BtVS S8 comics, and how they were portraying Dawn. So I decided to show Dawn as the grown up I wanted to see. The base is Jessica Alba, and while I'm happy with the text, textures and colouring, I think I could have made her face a little thiner.
I'm Trying: I recently decided I wanted to work on manip'ing, try to improve on what I can do, and this was the first result. The base is Jessica Biel, and I basically just wanted to show Buffy a little more grown up. I think it worked okay, but the textures and colouring leave a lot to be desired.
Endless Night: Another manip, one which I think looks great. In fact, I'm really proud of this whole wallpaper. Everything worked well, and it came out better than I envisioned. The base is Katherine Heigl, and, again, the text comes from the P!nk song 'Glitter in the Air.'
Meet You There: There isn't nearly enough art of the Supernatural girls out there, so I tried to fix that. I love this image of Bela, and I wanted it to be really dark, but bright at the same time. The lyrics are from another P!nk song, but I can't remember which one, lol
Darkness: When I decided to do these walls of Bela and Ruby, I knew I wanted them to be as different as possible. While I knew I wanted Bela to be dark, I wanted Ruby, Original!Ruby, to be bright and shiny, to show the confliction she's feeling, working with the Boys despite being a demon. I love the brightness, and the image of Ruby is perfect for this piece.
Side Effects: Another manip, Buffy and Dean this time. I wanted to show that, while in my head Buffy and Dean have a close and loving relationship, they both have firey tempers and jobs that could get them killed, hense the lyrics, which is where I got the idea in the first place. The base is an Alias promo piece and I think the manip looks well. I really love how the textures worked on this piece, and the soft gold colouring.
Impass: Making the Bela wall made me nostalgic for her first appearance. I wanted something a little different, hense the white-ness and the lighter colouring. It's not all that great, but I don't hate it either.
Bad Dreams: I adore this episode, it's definitely one of my top five, but rather than focus on the funny bits of seeing Dean dying over and over again, I wanted to show how his final death affected Sam, and what it turned him into.
Please: Another of Dean's death scenes. I wanted to show Sam's feelings in this scene, but at the same time keep it light in colour and texture, because, while Sam didn't know Dean would return, we did, and I didn't want the darkness to over shadow that.
Risen: Okay, maybe it's slightly bad judgment to use what I think it an actual Bible quote for this piece, but as an Athiest, I just didn't think. I wanted to show Dean returning from Hell, and the pain of doing that. I kept it very dark, lots of reds and blacks, and I'm pleased with the result.
Bed: I loved this scene so much, the conflict Dean went through when confronted with his mother. He knows that changing the past can change the present, but he still can't help trying to save his mother anyway. I included the image of Mary's death to show what he's trying to save her from. I kept the piece very dark, and I love how Dean's face ended up have in shadow, making the scene even more emotional for me.
___________________