uh oh I have swooped into the @infinitecakes bang and made a mess of it (as I do)
I went into this banner with the goal of making Dean look like a wet pathetic cat, which unfortunately meant attempting to draw Rain and Wet People, something I've only really done a couple of times before. as soon as I heard the fic title (and saw how short it was I mean what) I had the idea of trying to make the words into lightning in the sky to reflect the themes of the fic without giving too much away, so it the banner had to be outside. to achieve full Wet Cat vibes, I have Dean at a bus stop just getting completely soaked in the rain. the credits might be a little tricky to spot but they're on the manhole cover in the foreground and on the soggy McDonald's bag + napkins hanging off the edge of the trashcan. I wanted to have the bang's name/logo as an ad on the bus stop's side, and then for the other visible side, I just have an ad for an energy drink (again carrying on the electricity/lightning bolt motif to further hint at the fic's theme, because the huge lightning bolt title wasn't enough ig)
oh also I did make the logo featured on the banner, which became one of the logos people could use for the bang. you can tell it's mine because of the thick lines and bad attempt at swirly cursive icing words on this cake slice that is decidedly Club Penguin coded in my brain. so yeah that's a thing
uh oh I've been experimenting with the random effects again that can't be good. no but please accept Dean and Cas holding hands on the couch, the beginnings of the wings that symbolize their connection only just starting to form (oops spoilers). I wanted to try to show time literally freezing around them when they stare into each other's eyes (hence the giant clock on the wall) but that's not the easiest thing to represent in a still image. also for anyone curious, the pictures on the wall show Charlie, Mary holding baby Dean, Bobby, and Sam and Dean in front of the Impala. just tiny family photos up there because the wall looked too empty lol. also I tried something new with the glowing how does it look guys
this was only just barely finished in time for posting day due to finals existing but I wanted to show another side of the tornado, before it gets too bad. in this scene, Dean and Bobby are working to help the locals get somewhere safe for when the tornado comes, since it's bound to be a bad one by the looks of it. I have some houses and trees set up to show it's a residential area, and Cas is stressed enough to tromp through somebody's flower garden to get to Dean, just the smallest hint of those glowing eyes from before visible as even their closeish proximity ignites that bond again. also fun fact but the old lady faces were just placeholders for the art draft but I liked the expressions enough to leave them pretty much unchanged lol gotta love oversimplified old person wrinkles right guys
this was actually the first piece I made for the fic because the scene was described in claims and made the fic firmly land itself into my top pick for the bang :0 (I am weak but the idea of Dean and Cas' profound bond manifesting itself into this power that can save a city (or at least greatly reduce the costs of potential property damage) and as wings made out of electricity sounded so cool gkhjdgd). granted the author probably wasn't expecting such a weird wing design. I had a lot of trouble getting the lightning to actually look like wings, and this was like my eighth attempt I think it was, in which I had the idea that the wings in the space between the two of them would be larger since the current is flowing between them and gaining momentum something something physics equation
at some point the stacked wings looked weird and it became more like a bolt of lightning, which soon became this weird tree shape complete with branches and roots as seen above. idk how that happened. also I've never tried to draw an actual tornado before beyond like messy concentric scribble on a piece of scrap paper, so this was definitely a learning experience in that regard as well
as a bonus here's Dean and Cas flying and staring with the tornado and wings layers' opacity knocked down. I just liked how they were looking at each other like that and had a hard time not making the wings big enough to cover all that up. plus a bonus screenshot of the background itself because I put way too much time into designing each blade of grass and knocked over tree and telephone pole and dirt thrown up in the wind to not show that a little ,_,
and as per usual now apparently, here are all the quick scribbly MS Paint sketches I made while reading through the fic just to get some ideas down on paper. just to prove that as bad as the final art is, it actually started out much much worse (though the proportions in some of the sketches are actually a bit better I think like that lightning wing one. the bed one makes up for any aura that could've been gained however). I enjoy looking at other people shamelessly adding their before and after no matter the quality and decided to carry on that trend. so yeah enjoy that ig
the fic this is made for is "Arc" by @whoipretended2b for the infinite cakes bang
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
(04/24/26)
