seraphcastiel’s 2022 monthly roundup: MARCH ⋙ JAN | FEB
new year, new look, new round ups! after starting to do monthly round ups last year as a way to a) keep track of my own content and b) highlight other content creators’ works, i wanted to keep the tradition going in 2022! this time around, however, i’m setting some goals. now that i (kinda) know how to use PS again (lol), i’m challenging myself to learn/try new gifmaking techniques instead of relying on my usual style and aesthetic. i’m also challenging myself to prioritize quality over quantity even more than i normally do — maybe if i actually try to take as much time as i want/need to make each gifset look the way i want, then maybe i’ll feel less guilty about not creating new edits as often as i used to lmaoooo. as always, at the very end i’ll be shouting out some of my favorite pieces of content from the rest of the fandom as well.
so without further ado, onto the roundup! big thanks to everyone who liked/reblogged my stuff this past month, i really appreciated it! xx
deancas + “her sweet kiss”, the witcher: ngl, i’ve never seen a single episode of the witcher but i love @contemplativepancakes and i knew there was a bard character so some quick googling and youtube research helped me make this lil birthday edit. the warm, muted color was a challenge to get consistent across the entire gifset, but i think it fits the vibe of the lyrics and the overall aesthetic of set so i’m happy with how ti came out. the middle panel might actually be my favorite though, i tend not to use black and white coloring in my work but making all three panels with the same green/orange/blue color scheme made it feel too busy. the off-white and black makes the center gif really pop, and the static effect keeps it from being too boring lol.
castiel and jack + “verses about moscow”, marina tsvetaeva: some dadstiel content for thee @dadstiel’s birthday. while looking for scenes to use, i realized how many pretty shots of cas and jack there were in the show in which they were walking together/huddled together and talking. it actually reminded me of a childhood photo of mine where my mom had taken a photo of me and my dad talking from behind while we were hiking, so decided to make the panels look like photographs that were creased and worn from being in cas’ wallet. as simple as the gifset is, coloring actually proved to be pretty difficult bc i wanted them to be vibrant but still look realistic and film-like. i think i went through three different coloring styles before i was finally happy with it. i also had originally planned on putting a bunch of film strip overlays on it, but i decided less was more so that it wouldn’t detract from the gentleness of the aesthetic.
[ castiel + iconic artwork ]: posted back-to-back gifsets on march 4th bc it was also @sarahblakes’ birthday! i’d been meaning to make a second part of my artnatural series ever since i made the first one two years ago, and zoë and i first became friends over our love for art and museums, so this felt like the perfect time to finally create a part two. originally the plan was to do castiel + american artwork but i couldn’t find enough pieces that matched spn scenes so i expanded the parameters to “iconic” works. as with the first gifset of the series, i wanted to match the coloring of the spn scene to the color of the artwork. as busy as they were, the easiest to match was the nighthawks and golconda scenes. surprisingly, the ones that took the most time and adjustments were two one-color dominant works - guernica and christina’s world. a lot of time was spent tweaking the yellows and whites bit by bit, and then posting them on tumblr to see how the coloring changed, and then adjusting again to compensate the tone difference. unlike the first gifset, i chose not to put the art/episode titles on the gif panels itself so that the similarities between the art and the scene wouldn’t be covered by text; i think it made the overall gifset look cleaner and it made the caption more interesting. ver very pleased with how the whole thing came together, and will definitely be adding to this series in the future.
castiel, “heaven save us”: another birthday edit, this time for @lizstiel! i am not immune to mcrnatural, and i felt like this song was perfect for end!verse cas. i don’t normally use pinks in my color schemes, so this blue/pink/gray combo was a nice change and i love the red/pink contrast - that was a complete accident and to me, it’s kinda reminiscent of the red/white contrast on the three cheers album cover so it seemed fitting lol.
sam/eileen, “my lagan love”: tbh, i wasn’t sure if i was gonna have time to make a gifset for the saileen anniversary, so this gifset was born out of me panicking and slapping something together during my hour lunch break. nowadays, most of my gifsets take at minimum 2-3 hours to make, but in the three years i’ve been making spnedits i’ve learned a few tips and tricks to cut down on time when i really need to: that’s why this three-panel gifset is based only on one scene, with “simple” coloring (aka coloring that i had been messing around with for a different gifset that i ended up copypasting onto this one instead lol) and my go-to font in white. the text come from a traditional irish song (highly recommend listening to the hozier version of it), so i found actual scans of the music sheets from the 1940s and used the same overlay technique from my destiel first anniversary edit to add texture to the gifset (and create some sort of cohesion between the two wedding anniversary posts). looking at it now, i do see some things i would’ve done differently had i had more time to mess around with it, but for an hour-long rush job i’m pretty proud of how it turned out.
the good spn that lives in my head — “TVC15″: another installment in the most frustrating and simultaneously satisfying series i’ve ever created akjsdfalhdf. of the four gifsets i’ve made so far for this series, this was by far the hardest and most time consuming of them all. i guess it didn’t dawn on me when i decided to make a cas-centric changing channels-esque, “superwholock” inspired episode that not only would i have to do my usual comb-thorugh of spn episodes for usable scenes, but ALSO comb-throughs of ALL THE OTHER SHOWS :)))))). if i had to guess, the prep work and “research” i had to do for this gifset took about 4 hours of trial and error- and that was before i even began putting the scenes together to create the manip. (i went into a bit of detail re: the tv shows i ended up choosing for the edit here.) like the artnatural edit i made, i wanted to match the coloring of the spn episode clips to the coloring of the tv shows i would be adding cas into to further the idea that cas was “crossing” into a different universe with each show. the good omens panel was the easiest one to make (it was actually the first one i had thought of when i was planning the gifset), and in a shocking twist of events, the ted lasso panel was the hardest. the number of times i thought about scrapping it completely and using a different tv show,,,,,,,, i may have had to walk a few laps around my bedroom so i wouldn’t scream in frustration lol. honestly, i’m still not fully happy with that panel, but it is what it is. the drag race panel was a last minute addition, i needed one more show for dean and sam to see cas in and i wanted some kind of either a sitcom or a reality show to contrast the dramas and comedies i had already used; other contenders i considered were th office and keeping up with the kardashians, but drag race ended up being the easiest, funniest, and (imo) most in-character choice. the first and last panels of gifset were actually the most fun for me to make — idk if anyone caught it, but those shots of the tv in both gifs are faked, the actual shot tv in the spn scene was too shaky and small for me to simply overlay the riverdale/rpdr episode over it, so i added a thick black border around the new show to make a new “tv” and added some purple color correction that i timed to flash in line with the flashing purple lights of the original magical tv that was in scoobynatural. literally the tiniest adjustments that i’m sure nobody really noticed, but i feel like it helped make the doctored scenes look more realistic and i’m kinda proud of myself for taking the time to put in those little details haha. and now some of my favorite edits, fics, and art from this past month:
buffynatural by @nobodydean this art by @skepticalfrog this dadstiel art and throne-less king by @angelhannah this cas art by @slurcas this saileen art by @but-theres-wolves the angel at his church by @han-ban-bam this cas art by @justcastiel pieta by @smintyfreshart he’s a shooting star! by @citruscas this sam and cas art by @fan-arter this cas art by @mishoru this deancas art by @redwing this twofaced!misha art by @sirlsplayland this deancas art by @mjulmjul helloooooo holy man by @butchnoise
this fic by @seffersonjtarship every breath is sacred and give your tears to the tide by @angelfishofthelord the truth by @chevrolangels (inspired by @pussypopstiel) samson went back to bed by @twoheadedcas oh my darling by @pinknatural the gentle art of making enemies by @duckyboos (art by @depairt)
this wap amv by @mothersoldiergun super (wizards of waverly place)natural by @angelcasendgame
this cas edit by @chessinparis dean & cas + hydrangeas by @holy-terror on the head of a pin by @emeraldcas this cas edit by @deanncastiel