saiyuki_wk_au | WK Fanart - Welcome to the Circus

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WK Fanart - Welcome to the Circus

      Fandom: Weiß Kreuz
      Rating: G
      Characters: Crawford. You'll have to take my word on it.
      A/N: Hopefully the first of many. We'll see, because this shit took me the whole evening. I only had a little lamp to take the pic and cardboard reflects like crazy, so the lighting is fixed with Photoshop because the lamp destroyed it, so the texture and colour have suffered from it. I'll probably take another pic tomorrow with diffused natural light.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to the Greatest Espectacle in the World

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Holy crap, I love it!

Really? I didn't even consider it a very good drawing, but I'm glad you liked it! :D

I do! I love the outlines of Brad's figure, and the shapes of the people in the stands is a neat contrast to the smooth curve of the bleachers lining the inside of the tent. In a weird way, tt makes me think of an amalgam of charcoal sketches and those old-time movie and circus posters.

Ooooh, I'm sort of overwhelmed by people's reaction! It's amazing to be told that a pic you did evoked so much in someone. Thank you!

Eee! OMFG, this is amazing and perfect. Goddamn, I love the atmosphere and texture!

I can't wait to see more from this series!

I'm sort of surprised by the enthusiastic response. I'm not sure I can get shabbier than this (well, of course I can, it's me I'm talking about!). And I didn't follow through with my initial idea (because it was computer made and this took enough time as it was, thank you very much -I'm agonizingly slow with the computer-). So, thank you!

The next pic is going to be my favourite, I love the idea just a bit too much! :3

Oh really? :D I find it so evocative! There's this cool atmospheric mix of... idk, the circus, plus vintage illustration, plus a hint of stop-motion animation (for me, the cool cardboard texture brings me back to the real world, and I almost expect to see movement out of the corner of my eye, or hear the crowd cheering). idk, I just get lots of layers out of this. :D

I'm looking forward to your next pic--sounds like a great one!

Wow. It's amazing to be told all that. Really, you, whymzycal and balljointedomi's comments have really made my night!

Wow, this is amazing! What a cool idea to draw on cardboard. I love the texture, crowd, lighting.

Of course it's Crawford :) Who else has so much dignity and grace? The figure ozzes confidence :)

It wasn't an artistic decision as much as lack of materials. I'm not in my city right now and I didn't bring non-white paper with me. I saw a cardboard box in the trash and thought "Oh my God! Free art supplies!". But I'm very glad it worked for you :D

Yay! Thank you! (I did a lot of sketches of that pose, I'm glad they paid off!)

Very cool! I love the use of the cardboard to add depth and texture, and how Brad's body contrasts with all of it. Neat!!

Thank you! I'm glad the cardboard has had such a big acceptance amongst all of you! Glad you liked it!

Cool idea, it fits Crawford :D And the texture looks really good, too - even without natural light.

Yay! Later I had some doubts about making Takatori the ringmaster and Crawford a, well, a foreseer. Takatori would make him dress with a turbant and Schuldig would laugh his ass off at him.

Glad you liked it!

You never cease to amaze me with your choice of surfaces... I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how you could do this to yourself! Weren't you ripping your hair out dealing with that heavy texture? And it reflected like crazy so it had to be, at least, heat pressed - which makes it kind of waterproof!

Still amazed at what you do with what's on hand.

Like the epic scale of it. The figures in the stands almost look like runes... The gesture in that teeny figure of Brad is spot on and I like the loose gestural quality in the shadow. Let the (rest of) the show begin!

You can predict that, everything that is free and more or less flat, is susceptible to be turned into a workable surface for me.

No, no, cardboard is a quite nice material to work with. The texture doesn't bother at all with water techniques, and the only part that required dry technique (Crawford's attire) was really small. It curves a little with the water, but mostly when you're already done. I actually like how it holds the ink, is quite more elegant than, say, photocopies for example. Photocopies are always a bad idea. And it wasn't heat pressed, but it still reflected too much for my taste.

You should try being poor. It makes wonders.

Ha, ha, I thought while I was making them that the crowd was rather shabby, but they were so many that I didn't care! I'm glad the utter freedom I draw them with worked for you!

Amazing! Love it!

Yay! I'm glad! ^^

I like this, such warm colours and sense of depth!

The colour is the cardboard's merit, not mine. I only used black ink and white crayong for this. I'm really glad you liked it!

Oh, nifty! I was wondering if that was ink wash or watercolor, and curious what you used for the one spot of opaque white. It's really striking -- the texture of the cardboard gives such an interesting tactile 3-D effect, and that one spot of brilliant white against all the shadowed brown/gray draws the eye right in.

Yeah! I'm with

whymzycal here: the cardboard (hooray for being a broke but fantastic artist!) has a distinct old-poster vibe! It's marvellous, really. I love Crawford (it's him, of course!!) and his pose and shadow!!

♥

(I'll hooray only for the second part, if you don't mind. Being broke sucks!)

Yay! I'm glad you liked it! :D

HOW??? This is amazing, honestly. I agree with what has been said above of this being amazingly evocative. Just beautiful! And that Crawford there, OMG. I'm asking, HOW??? How do you manage all this upon cardboard. There's so much atmosphere in this, so much. I can BREATHE that arena. I just can't stop staring at this, it's absolutely gorgeous.

And I do hope it is first of many!!! Just, wow.

I'd say that upon cardboard this was much easier to achieve than on any other surface! The base colour was already done!

I'm flabbergasted at all your positive comments, I really didn't expect people to like this pic so much. I was half laughing when I finished it thinking "I'm shabby or what?". But you know I don't mind being shabby, so I posted it anyway.

I'm actually looking forward to the next one! (Well, I think I'll draw it next, even if it will take more effort than other one I have also planned out) Hopefully next weekend!

Actually, with cardboard, I meant the drawing, but then I saw what you told

oracle_dreams up there, so yeah, I can kind of see how water technique would make it an okay material to work with. Still, though! OMG.

You know I need to try that sometime. We've got plenty of cardboard lying around due to the gerbils, after all. ;) Not sure how that'd work out though, since I'm not very comfortable with water techniques as yet.

YAY next one!! I'm excited! ^___^ I'm hoping lots of inspiration for next weekend for you! :)

Ah, I didn't worry too much about the drawing. It was just a blur of guidelines. I used a thick sketch graphite lead, so Crawford ended up being a black silhouette, I did the detail with the nib once I had the balance and general pose covered. Then I thought that the nib clashed with the rest of the brush made lines and applied the brush on him, too. Being intentionally shabby from the very beginning gives you a lot of freedom, so I didn't really care for the drawing except as a help in the composition and general "where are things".

Water techniques are incredibly fun, I recommend them. It's frustrating how easily you fuck up in a definitive manner (not so much with oils and acrilics, when you can paint over the fuck-up, but watercolours and ink are crazy!). Fool around a bit, without expectations, and you'll get hooked.

I suspect this week is not going to be a good one, but I'll do what I can!

I've been eavesdroping on your convo - hope you don't mind!

I have a technique from school I absolutely love. The way you are talking about technique I think it may be a fun medium for you to try. It's a fluid technique that has a feel like nothing else.

Charcoal, oil paint and turpentine (or whatever oil thinner you have). I use a single color - usually an umber or sienna to give an 'antiqued' feel. Charcoal spreads like a paint when you touch it with thinner but resembles nothing else when used this way. It can make for a very dense velvety black or subtle shading. A very thin oil color, when used in the shading, just produces this great effect. I should dig up a pic of the end result... I really think you'd enjoy it and I think it would take to cardboard beautifully.

I know you have no idea what everyone sees in this but the texture and warmth of the cardboard is really lending quite a bit to picture. There is this lovely section just above Brad's head - the background of the tent that just has this glow to it. That is probably a bit of the reflectivness working... no matter. Your unconventional surface choices lend quite a bit to your work. They are unusual effects that most people aren't used to seeing - especially now that so much is digital (not that there is anything wrong with that!). You are knee deep in 'happy accidents' which, I think, is a huge part of the artistic process that is being lost in the digital age. I think that may be a bit of what people are responding to - besides the awesome concepts and execution.

Sorry for the soapbox - I don't often get a chance to wax poetic about the nitty gritty of art. Forgive me my repressed enthusiasm wriggling free...

Hmmm... sounds like something I would like. Unfortunately, I don't have turpentine here, it will have to wait till I go back to Cuenca (where I study, that's where all my materials are). And yes, I think it would take to cardboard really well. I have to try it some time.

Oh, thank you for the explanation! Not that I don't like the pic, I do, but I wouldn't have responded to enthusiastically to it as most of you have. I didn't see it so special, really.

If it's to praise me, you can wax poetic to your heart's content! XD!!

OMG this is awesome! The lighting totally made the atmosphere. And the details! I mean, Brad's shadow!

Really looking forward to the rest of the series! <3

Thank you! I'm really glad you liked it!

I'm looking forward to working on it, too! Let's hope next weekend I can finish the next.

Fantastic!

Thanks! :D

This is beautiful! Allow me to join the chorus of comments praising the cardboard — sometimes taking a risk pays off brilliantly, even when you think it won't. Amazing work! :)

Thank you! I'm really glad it worked for all of you! (It wasn't so much taking a risk as being poor and a big fan of shabbiness, though.)

Thanks again!

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WK Fanart - Welcome to the Circus

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