only one chapter in, and i'm completely charmed - by the story, as well as the art!
if you don't mind, may i ask what materials you use for your art (like, digital using a particular device/program, or analog using particular pens, etc)? i love your style! :D
As for art - I use an old version of GIMP (a free drawing/editing program) and the cheapest Wacom Bamboo pen tablet I could find - which was $100 NZ about 6 years ago. I don't think they make them any more, all pen tablets made nowadays are like 10 times more powerful. The pen pressure only works if my laptop were to run Windows, but it's running Linux, so that hasn't worked in years. I've recently tried experimenting with putting a photo of a watercolour-washed page as a layer over my digital art, and I think that's what I used over the picture of Dean & Cas' houses for this fic.
On occasion I'll draw in pencil and take a photo, then edit and colour in GIMP, but last time I did that was my Christmas fic "The Emporium of Christmas Enchantments". And I've practised digital art a lot more since then, and have decided I prefer it, mostly.
The biggest help when making art, I find, is having a bigger canvas, so there's room to add details. At the moment my art is about 3000 by 2000 pixels because that's the largest size my laptop can handle without crashing or taking 40 minutes to flip the image (not even kidding). Ideally I'd be making art twice that size, and actually be able to see correct colour and high definition, but... well, my laptop is doing its best. u_u
I've only realised what my style is this year, actually. And really only in the last few months. Before this I spent yeaaaaars floundering and lamenting that I couldn't figure out my drawing style, I just drew and it came out different every time. But I think part of nailing it, came from trying everything, every style, every method, and then combining all of them to make the easiest, laziest way to make something look good in a shorter amount of time. Art pieces that used to take me 4 or 5 hours to make perfect now take me half the time, and I'm less concerned about perfection (and at the same time it's easier to achieve), which I'm very pleased about~
thank you for the detailed response! i haven't drawn seriously in many years, but every now and then i get intrigued/inspired by something, and i think...well, maybe...
it's actually really helpful to hear that it took you a while to find your own style - that's something i always felt self-conscious about, so knowing that it has been a process for someone whose work i admire makes me feel like i shouldn't let the self-consciousness continue to hold me back :D
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Paperwhite_Narcissus on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Oct 2018 01:37PM UTC
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almaasi on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Oct 2018 02:24PM UTC
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Paperwhite_Narcissus on Chapter 1 Sun 07 Oct 2018 03:31PM UTC
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