Art: 2010 Smallville Big Bang Covers

[seagull2eagle.livejournal.com]

And now that all the stories are up at smallvillebbang... :)

This year was slightly panicky but ended up mostly okay. I should have started with my beta a lot sooner than I did, and I was taking my time for the two covers I was assigned when I was assigned a surprise third one, and then when I'd turned those three in, I asked if there were any more they needed... and got two more stories, both the first posts! Ack! While I was still getting new pages for the beta. o.o Not a whole lot of writing took place in late July, early August, lol.

And I'm throwing in a cw_land cover here too just because it wouldn't get posted anywhere else. ;p




The cw_land challenge was to make a poster for the next season of Smallville. I realized after seeing everybody else's that I needed to plaster more "CW" and promotional stuff all over it to make it more like a real ad, but oh well. Still got our team points. ^^

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Smallville Big Bang:

My beta was for tyffi's Silent White, which is an AU world with original characters interacting with the Smallville world. OFC/Lex pairing with a strong Clark presence. It's a sequel to last year's "Blood Moon". (The other fics earlier in the series were written in German and haven't been translated.) The story also ended up being much longer than originally planned, lol. Happens to us all. ^^ It's an AU world, most definitely, so not everybody's cup of tea, but if you do like that sort of thing and are willing to jump in on an ongoing storyline, Silent White has good strong writing and a solid sense of plot and pacing.

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Story Cover for Rushlight by lexalicious70
Summary: When Clark and Lex decide to live together and officially begin their relationship as they work to protect Metropolis together, Clark finds himself in conflict with Lex when his good friend Bart Allen falls inexplicably ill; trust issues arise between them, but when Lex risks everything to both save Bart and repair the growing rift between himself and Clark, the results prove to be potentially deadly for himself, his partner, and for the young speedster as well.

This was one of the rush ones. I didn't get to read the story initially, just worked from the summary and the IMs that lexalicious70 and I traded. In spite of that, I'm really happy with how it turned out. I had to hunt down Bart images and was worried about that as I didn't really have a lot already in my files, but by chance came across one that was a good resolution and just perfect for the story. ^^ When it was posted and I got to read the story, I was pleased with how well it matched. I'm glad I could help with this one!

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Story Cover for Falling For You by me_ya_ri
Summary: Protecting Lex Luthor from his enemies and himself was a job that required total concentration. When Guardian Angel Clark loses concentration for a moment, he misses a deadly danger and then makes a snap decision that has enormous consequences for himself, Lex and Bruce, the companion that Clark left behind.

My other rush banner. Not quite as happy with it, but there just wasn't enough time to do more. I have fantasies about going back and working on it later so it's better. Again, going off the summary, and initially I only had Lex and Clark in there, and I hadn't realized that 'angel' was literal, lol. But MeYaRi helped me out there and let me know what Bruce she liked, and I was incredibly lucky to find set of caps from the movie off dj_capslock. (I heart dj_capslock so very very much. It's saved my butt more than once, and came in extremely useful in more than one story banner here!) I picked a Bruce to balance the Lex, and worked some fiddling around to get everybody in perspective. Then I tried to clean up the Clark cap and found that wasn't as easy as I'd assumed it would be. o.o Oops. Should have gone with a different one, darn it. But MeYaRi assures me that she likes it a lot and it fits with her story, so... ^^;

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Story Cover for Darkness and Light by twilighthdfan
Summary: Every day the darkness within Prince Lex grows, slowly stripping away the light and goodness in the young man. When he and his Knights conquer the little village of Smallville, Lex meets a young boy who he instantly feels a connection to. Could Clark be the key in destroying the darkness that grows in the young Prince every day? Will it be in time to stop Lionel from getting Clark and Edge from destroying Lex?

This is the one I first signed up to do and was eager to work on... and ended up giving me the most trouble. o.o Sorry, twilighthdfan! I loved and adored the idea of Lex as a knight and wanted to work with that in the images, with the tug of the light and dark on either side of him, with Clark bringing him towards the light... but the first difficulty I had was a decided lack of knight images for bases. Or rather, too many. I was going through google page after google page and flickr page after flickr page... I ended up with a folder full of knights, but they just weren't all that good for manniping with Lex. I thought I would be using SCA pics, but in the end the ones that worked best were actually movie stills. And then even once I had my knight... the light and the dark wouldn't cooperate! And then Clark's peasant clothes wouldn't work! Arrgh! I ended up making three different versions before I got one I was happy with and if I'd had more time, I probably would have made a fourth. o.o But I did like the last one I did, even if twilighthdfan liked the first the best. ^^;

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Story Cover for First Cut is the Deepest by chinae
Summary: The heart knows when it's been given a second chance. (Diana/Lex)

I blinked a bit when I first saw the summary for this one, because a main character of Wonder Woman? How were we going to do *that*!? It ended up being a *heck* of a lot of fun! I really enjoyed working on this one a lot, and think it came out the best as well. Erika and I emailed back and forth a bit getting the characters down, and then I went hunting for caps. Got some good ones which really helped a lot (finding the right caps is half the battle in banner-work!). (Though I did muck with them, which is easier to do in cartoons than the tv caps! - Lex and Wonder Women weren't originally smiling or looking at each other, lol, and they kindof needed to for the cover ^^) And then the rest really just came together. I had left the background blank when I was putting together the characters, and then put in something at the end to show the draft, and we actually both liked it so much, we decided to stay with it. ^^ I am tempted to go back and do a bit more with it -- make Batman a bit larger so that his glower shows up better on smaller images for instance -- but otherwise, I like it. ;D

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And then after the first *four* stories were all my covers, it was a wait for the last one. LOL, I was kindof laughing at the posting order. What were the odds for them to be posted like that?

Story Cover for Law and Order: Metropolis by sanadafaye
Summary: In the criminal justice system, The People are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the police, who investigate crime, and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

This was actually my surprise assignment, and when I saw the cast of characters, I wailed and pulled my hair a bit because I don't really *have* any stock sets of images for the later-season characters, and this was all later-season based fic. o.O I did have the story, or at least the first half of it, and after I read it, I traded emails with Sandafaye about ideas. I thought just Clark and Oliver in the alley at first, since they were the first two characters introduced and the story follows them for awhile before moving on to the other characters. She liked that idea and I went with it, finding later season caps, alley pics, and Oooo! FIND! A real Metropolis Badge. ;D It was the one used in the early season episode where Clark ran off to Metropolis on Red K, and it's now in Smallville prop stores. So, yay, no need to alter other city ones and this was nicely authentic. The alley was a great find too. It all came together very nicely and I just made a few adjustments from draft to final. :)

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And that was the 2010 Big Bang! It was fun to do, and I'm glad I could help out with it. Hope the authors like their art. :)

Comments

[ctbn60.livejournal.com]

I Love the CW cover!! It's great and was one of my favorites!

As for the BB artwork it was all WONDERFUL. You did so much fantastic work that I'm in total awe!!

I'm trying to pick a favorite. I think the First Cut one is the one that stands out for me the most. I love the Cartoon characters, lex with the flowers in Lex's hands. The looks on Bats and Supes faces! Wonderful. Next I like the Law and Order one. Oliver and Clark look so cop like in that one. The badge and the alley it all just fits together so well. I love dark and light. I sympathize with how hard it was to find a good knight image. I had the same problem when I was looking for a story.

You did a totally amazing job with all of them. I feel bad you had to do so many last minute. I finished my covers pretty quickly and I did offer to help, but I guess they already had asked you to fill in.

[seagull2eagle.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :) I really appreciate the feedback, especially since art isn't my main medium.

On the CW cover, after I saw the others, I was really wishing I'd guzzied it up with all the CW logos and "thursday 8-9" and all the other stuff. It just never even crossed my mind to! Next time. ;D But the ones that did win were great -- that Veronica Mars one was sheer genius. ^^ Yours was also great! LOL, we all want Lex to return. ;D

Those are the two I liked the best too. Which I find particularly funny for Law and Order because I almost sent that one back to get a new artist because I was afraid I wouldn't do it justice (um, pun not intended ^^;;) with the later season characters. In the First Cut, the flowers were from somewhere else - originally Lex was holding a world-destroying device {snicker}. ;D

I think it was timing - I didn't email in until the weekend, and I think I offered right at the exact time they'd found out that the original artist(s) had dropped out and were panicking. You were offering early enough they thought they were still good. ^^ Wish I could have passed one off to you, though! I don't think they thought about it. Next time, I'll email you and ask. ;D

[twilighthdfan.livejournal.com]

Love your CW banner. And the tag line ... just brilliant. Here's hoping we see Lex at least one time before the end of the series.

The BB art is just brilliant. I love the 'First Cut is the Deepest' and the Law and Order one (ooh Clark and Ollie look very pretty and like detectives). LOL and sorry that mine turned out to be the most trouble. I loved all the banners, it was hard picking between them.

[seagull2eagle.livejournal.com]

Thanks! :) Yes, I want everything back again, including my Clex, which truly is the stuff of legend. ;D It's sounding like they'll definitely bring Lex back - there's mutterings about clones - we just don't know if it'll be MR or not. o.o We'll see. Not that I'm planning to watch it anyhow, lol. I'll live vivaciously through other people's reviews. ^^

I just wish I could have done more with yours! You had the most awesome idea on it, and I really wanted this spectacular cover for it... LOL, my imagination was better than my skills. I'm just really glad you liked them anyhow. :)

[twilighthdfan.livejournal.com]

Ooh, a clone? That has so many opportunities and would let me believe that the real Lex and Clark never really became enemies (after they sorted through the things Lex had done before he died, of course). Sort of like the 'Identical' series by Lanning (that series is so awesome). And I'm the same, I won't be watching, but I will be reading other people's reviews (which may convince me to watch ... maybe.)