Work Text
Forget Me Not by Taruchinator
I'm a fan of hanahaki so I was happy to get paired with this fic. For some reason I couldn't find many good references to draw the Forget-Me-Not flowers at the time I did the art, but I did my best. I've never drawn blood or smears so it was a new challenge to tackle.
This was ironically the last piece I had to do. I was struggling a lot with how I wanted the lighting and shading to go. I tried to give the bathroom a sickly yellow feel to match what Raph was going through. For a such a small bit of the bathroom shown, I tried to give it a feeling that it was used and lived in hence the candle, books, and overflowing trashcan but I didn't want to make it "homely" since it still started out as a public or maintenance bathroom when the train station was active. I like that the blood came out so bright, clear and in the center to put a focus on it.
This one was a lot of fun. Sometimes I just turn my brain off and tinker with the background to see what I come up with and I like the results. I'm pretty happy with how the rendering came out. My little easter eggs are the mugs. I wanted a little visual cue on how Raph felt separated and alone from his brothers.
To be honest, I'm not super happy with this. It was one of the first completed spot arts I did and then I worked my way backwards. I didn't know how much work I would put into the 2nd art with Donnie so it makes this one feel very plain and simple compared to the others.I really don't know how to draw 12 turtle's style with their very boxey shoulders. I need to practice drawing the 12 turtles and work on a more comfortable style.
Finally, I thought it would be neat to have page breaks and having it be the petals of a Forget-Me-Not slowly plucked was just a natural conclusion.
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Flowers For Lovers by (Scoots) BigBlueBabe9
Somehow I got paired to do spot art for 2 fics dealing with flowers. What are the odds 😂The challenge with doing these spot arts for this fic was I only had bullet points and an outline on where the story was going. The author game me free reign on each interaction during the early sketch/writing phase and I may have had a slight hand on how the story went. At least the SFW part of the fic. These are 2007 turtles and I had never drawn this version before so I defaulted to my more general style of drawing them. I was once again having difficulties figuring out how I wanted to render these pieces. I knew I did not have it in me to do full rendering and backgrounds like I did with the other fic's art. I found some halftone brushes that helped keep the rendering simple but still gave them a bit of depth. I'm fond of coloring the lineart and I think that also helped fake there being light and shadows.
I like adding little character bits that hint to their common habits in their day to day lives such as Donnie tying the tail of his mask up when he's working and tinkering. Safety first!I really like how Mikey's shell came out. With him being orange, I kept thinking his back looked like broken pieces of magma and rock.
Mikey just came out super cute here
I intentionally made the towel blue as a little easter egg that Raph like to steals Leo's work out towel.
No Mikey with the Leo pic as I was so burnt out around this time and didn't know how to show Mikey without drawing more flowers
And finally the page breaks. I felt it wouldn't be fair for the other fic to get page breaks and this one didn't. I cheated a bit and was able to just copy/paste the ribbons and then copy/mirrored the flowers and coloring. The poses were my favorite of doing these spot arts.
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My first spread art. I'm very weak for soft gentle mornings. That moment between asleep and awake, the heat of the creeping sun vs the cool of the sheets. I wish more stories had them.The main thought process of the scene was inspired by a lot of fics of them going to Casey's family farm either already entered into a romantic relationship and it's a vacation for them so they can enjoy each other's company without worry or they haven't made that step yet and they use the farm as a place to see what might happen. I struggled a lot with how I wanted the lighting to look. I was breaking out 3d models, I tried recreating the scene in SketchUp, and I spent so much time on ACON3D scrolling through finished models trying to find something I could use to make things easier on me. And then I struggled once again with the rendering.For a bonus here was an alt of Mikey that I was very close to choosing.
While I feel it fits Mikey more, it broke up the feeling that I was trying to convey.