day 3 for restraintstiel week, a challenge where Cas is always getting roped into something (hosted by @valdelion and @niceworkhuggybear). for this challenge, @lazarus-rose and I have collaborated to create fics and fic art for each of the prompts :00
I came up with the idea for this one (hence why it's not angsty Laz), so it features a cowboy sorta setting and the rope is a lasso, because of course it is. I very rarely ever do comics, and this is like my second ever full page comic so uh yeah that's why it's a mess ig as far as the paneling goes
as a disclaimer I stupidly colored this entire thing at night with the brightness as low as it could go because ow my retinas. looking back and thinking about it for more than two seconds, that was probably a dumb thing to do but oh well. but yeah that's why Dean's boots are pink; I noticed while I was shading stuff but honestly it had aura so I kept it (they were supposed to be an orangish sort of brown to stand out from the background since I colored them in that bottommost scene first). also Cas is actually supposed to be a phoenix which is why his wings are red and orange going down something something fire. I wanted to add more bird-like features to not pull a Supernatural visual effects and go with like. dude with slightly strange features. but it looked really weird and my author tragically vetoed the bird feet so alas, we must sacrifice
plus a bonus picture of the idiots being stupid. Cas is decidedly Not Amused by this turn of events. this coloring and shading style is obviously not something I've done before but I think it actually doesn't look too bad all things considered, especially since I've had trouble in the past with getting colors to complement that specific outline color (which I picked because it seemed a bit cowboy-y). also notice how between the last panel of the comic and the bonus, Cas goes from having the magic rope wrapped around him one time to suddenly three times over, implying Dean took the time to wrap Cas up even more just to bug him a bit. I felt this was very important to point out
the fic this is made for is called 'Save A Horse, Lasso A Firebird' by @lazarus-rose for the restraintstiel week challenge
https://archiveofourown.org/works/85627236
(05/27/26)