14 is Art: #girlavenger, or How Natasha Trended on Twitter and Saved the World, for emmypenny's heroine big bang fic.

1) You've hit on the first art post I put up on AO3. I used to only put graphics on my lj, because in my heard AO3 was just for words, but as I started doing arty stuff for big bangs it just felt tidier to have that on AO3 alongside the fics that were being written.

2) I like the concept of having the tweets as the backdrop to kick ass Natasha and Skottie Young Natasha for the fic covers/banners. I recently reused this idea for the August be_compromised community banner, this time putting prompts in the background but in a less readable fashion.

3) And a third 'first' - this is the first time I publically shared 'actual art'. I don't tend to think of my graphics work - banners, icons etc - as 'real art' because they're more collaging images and other people's art into something Iike the look of. To me 'art' is something someone has created from scratch - painted, drawn, online or by hand - and I'm not good at actual art. I'm not terrible, but I'm definitely not good, and I have no inclination to practise at it. Colouring I find relaxing, collaging, just messing around with crafty stuff, but not art. But I really, really wanted to have a twitter bird sitting on a Skottie Young style Natasha's head for this fic, and I was the person emmypenny had gotten for her artisit, so if I wanted that then I had to be the one to do it! And with some encouragement from a friend I did :) I took me ages, it turned out just okay, and I'm proud of myself for having tried to do something different.

bonus 4) it should say 'defuse' and not 'diffuse' on the meme graphic, but by the time someone pointed it out to me it had already been posted. Meh.

I LOVED this art and this fic, and yes, I'm glad you're posting your art. You can hand me a ruler and a pencil and 50/50 whether you'll get a straight line, but I can do graphic art and it IS art. :hugs you:

THANK YOU *hugs*. I doubt they'll be much, if any, more art in my future because I don't have as much creative time anymore and I decided to prioritise the writing - although when alphaflyer does her third James Bond/Avengers fic I WILL be getting creative for that and I'd love to do some more icons at some point - but it means a lot to have someone encourage new creative things :D