So, before I head home to spend the holidays with my family, I wanted to wish all the wonderful people on my flist a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR! Thank you for the enthusiastic feedback on my fanart, as well as for the interesting discussions about Supernatural. I am grateful for the friends I found here over the years. ♥ I hope you all have a peaceful holiday with your family and friends!

So, I finished the first prompt from my 'make a request' present for my flist: This is for you, shawn_anne! I pushed this prompt up - although the deadline for the requests is still open - because she asked for a very christmassy wallpaper, and I thought it would be nice to actually deliver it in time for Christmas, instead of weeks after. :)

( A Very Sam and Dean Christmas )

It’s exactly one week until Christmas Eve, and I thought I’d do something special for my friends-list this year. As a little thank you for making my time on LJ so enjoyable - either by commenting on my art or by engaging me in thinky Supernatural discussions over my reviews - I want to offer you my services as a fanartist/writer for a request of your choosing. I've been thinking about this for a while now, but I always hesitated to actually offer it, not least because I cannot guarantee that a request will spark a creative response in me, but I thought what the heck, just give it a try, make it a Christmas present to your friends and see what happens. Sooooo ....

Hereby I proclaim the next seven days 'Make A Request' week!

IMPORTANT: This is open to everyone on my flist who commented at least once in my journal, and that includes the few regular commenters who don’t have a livejournal account as well. Simply comment on this post with your request, it will be open 'til the 24th of December! There are two options:

1. You can request a wallpaper (max. size 1280x800). You can give me a prompt as simple as 'make me something from scene/episode xy', but you can also ask for a complex and detailed concept you’ve always wanted to see on canvas. I am also open to icon requests, so if you want to have a batch of icons from a specific episode or with a specific theme, I will do that as well.
   
   
2. I know that some people on my flist come here for my reviews/metas, so I decided that you can also ask for a meta on a topic of your choosing or request a specific review for one of the S1 episodes, I didn’t manage to do yet.

My only requirements for either option are: It has to be Supernatural related, and I will not accept slash and/or non-canon ship prompts.

I will start working on your prompts after the Christmas holidays, but please bear in mind that I am not the fastest fanartist/writer on the planet and real life can always be an obstacle, so it might take a while until I managed to work my way through the requests. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS, FLIST! ♥ ♥

The other day I had a chat about Monster Movie in which, sadly, everyone I talked to confessed their profound dislike of the episode. Me, I adore the episode to bits and after the depressing discussion I felt the urge to rewatch the episode, just to fall in love with it all over again. So, I made some icons. They are pretty simple, mostly I just tried to play with different croppings. Enjoy! :)

Teaser

( black and white )

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the lovely snowflakes (and the comments to go with it) I received these last couple of days. ♥ It kinda compensates me for the lack of real snow around here.

I know I am terribly behind with my review for 'Abandon All Hope', but I was really busy the week after it aired and didn't get around to write it up. I am confident though that I find the time to do it before Christmas and maybe I even find the inspiration to make some art to go with it. ;)

I knew about the premise for The Real Ghostbusters for quite a while and given my fierce dislike for the fandom jokes in the show, I dreaded the episode like no other. In the end, I didn’t loathe it quite as much as I thought I would – the brothers’ characterisation felt natural and their interaction had their old smoothness, the ghost case was genuinely creepy, some of the side characters were enjoyable - but it was still pretty self-indulgent, heavy-handed and (mostly) pointless storytelling. Additionally, the episode is adversely affected by the fact that it tops off a run of episodes that not only sorely lack in plot and character development, but also suffer from a tonal whiplash at the most inopportune time of the season. Overall, Eric Kripke and Nancy Weiner wrote a script that, on its own, would have been harmless at best, but combined with he episodes that preceded it, it further drags down the already struggling season for me.

( I think that the Dean and Sam story sucks! )

For the last two episodes I had pretty high expectations, and I found myself sorely disappointed. For Changing Channels, on the other hand, I had very low expectations, due to its silly premise, and found myself pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Go figure! Jeremy Carver’s characterisation for Sam and Dean was, for the most part, enjoyable and felt more natural to me than in the past episodes, which was an immense relief. Additionally, I found some of the depicted TV show parodies in the episode genuinely funny and even meaningful in places, and although I also cringed at quite a lot of the 'jokes', there was enough good in the episode to outweigh the bad for me, not least because the episode managed to make a strong turn at the end and tied it into the mythology.

( It’s about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. )

So, a challenge over at Buffyforums motivated me to try my hands at one of my more conceptual wallpaper ideas and the last couple of days I worked on it like crazy. *g* I really need to catch up on some episodic art for the latest episodes though, there's a couple of scenes that I'd like to pin on canvas if possible. So much to do and so little time, life clearly has the wrong priorities. ;)

( haunted & best friends )

On a superficial level I enjoyed The Curious Case Of Dean Winchester by Sera Gamble – the humour was more entertaining than in the last episode and the characters weren’t quite as silly – but unfortunately superficial was also (almost) all this episode was. If I was a casual viewer of Supernatural I’d probably be amused and move on, but as it is, I take this show and its characters very serious, and I can’t help but feel disappointed about the waste of potential in this episode, plot-wise as well as character-wise, which seems to be exemplary for the general direction of the show lately.

( No matter what shape you’re in, bottom line is, you’re family. )

Sorry this review comes out so very late, but given that we have no new episode this week, I thought I might as well lift the pressure to have the review finished within the weekend and give myself a bit of breathing space. But better late than never, right? ;)

The latest instalment in S5, I Believe The Children Are Our Future by Andrew Dabb and Daniel Loflin, left me with pretty mixed feelings. On the one hand its main plotline had a strong and interesting parallel to the Winchesters in general, and Sam in particular, which positively deepened Sam’s S5 characterisation, but on the other hand the tone and character work of the first half of the episode didn’t work at all for me. Unfortunately the uneven script negatively impacted the excellent premise of the story to a point where my enjoyment of the episode was outweighed by my frustration with it, and I really regret that.

( I have to believe someone can make the right choice. )

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LYN!!

I hope you have a fantastic day, hon! *hugs* Your family better showers you with cake, presents and, most importantly, hugs, or I'll send the Winchesters over to scowl them into hugging you. *g*

( Unwrap Me! )

This week I made a quick wallpaper from The End. I am pretty sure I am not remotely done with arting that episode. *g* I was fiddling around with it way too much these last couple of days, so I thought I put it out in the open, because usually that's the only way to stop me from doing that. :)

( derelict )

In typical Supernatural fashion the angst heavy mytharc episode The End is followed by a more light-hearted monster-of-the-week type standalone with the obligatory brother development on the side. In short, exactly what I needed at this point. I really miss the typical S1 casefile episodes – the brothers alone in a random small town, siblings banter, research and Sam and Dean whumpage - a lot. Anyway, Fallen Idols by Julie Siege explores the effects of Sam and Dean’s ongoing trust issues on their working, as well as their personal, relationship in the wake of their tentative reconciliation from last episode and culminates in a major step forward towards healing. ♥ The episode has a couple of weaknesses, but I think the character development more than compensates for that.

( You gonna have to let me grow up. )

It's Supernatural Thursday and I have some art. :) I still have a couple of conceptual pieces in my mind, but my creative attention was redirected to the emotional turmoil that were the latest episodes, momentarily at least. So, here are my first two S5 wallpapers, two simple episodic pieces for the brotherly scenes in Good God, Y'all and The End. ♥

( separate & together )

You know what? I think Ben Edlund should write more drama and action and less humour in this show. Nightshifter, On The Head Of A Pin and now The End prove that the man can do some amazing things with his scripts, if he drops the quirky attitude and tries to tell a serious story about the characters instead. The End temporarily concludes the four episode mini-arc that deals with the immediate fallout to Sam and Dean’s estrangement in S4. It's an intense character drama set on an apocalyptic background and a visually stunning viewing experience. I haven’t been this thrilled with a mytharc focused episode in a long while, and I am looking forward to the rest of the season more than ever now.

( We keep each other human. )