Merlin Art
Tropes and genres | |
---|---|
Synonym(s) | Merlin Fanart |
Related tropes/genres | Category:Merlin Art |
See also | Merlin, Merlin Vids, Merlin Fanfiction |
Related articles on Fanlore. | |
Merlin is a fandom with a large, active community of fan artists and a high degree of collaboration between visual artists, fic writers, and other fan creators. This page will give information on graphic fanart and crafts.
For more information on collaborations and other types of fanworks, see the main page and Category:Merlin.
Pairing centric artwork is popular, but works featuring a single characters are very common as well. Recently, the dA communities have had a notable increase of fanworks concentrating on the actors behind the characters.
Crafts
Merlin fandom has an active community of crafters doing things from knitting and cloth printing to explicit cake making. Various types of dolls (knitted, clay or ball-joint) are common and craft works are often made in pairs, generally to represent the maker's love for Merlin/Arthur. LJ community Craftalot was made exclusively for Merlin-related crafts a short time after the end of the first season, in December 2008, as a community "for sharing creative, crafty things inspired by the BBC's Merlin. All kinds of handicrafts are welcome, including (but not limited to) cooking, sewing, costuming, knitting, decorating, jewelry-making, and papercrafts."[1]
Cosplay
Cosplay is often done in groups with representatives of the main four characters, Arthur, Gwen, Merlin and Morgana.
Drawing & Painting
Drawing and painting gained even popularity in the hiatus after the first season. Digital and traditional methods are both common. Primary ships in terms of fanworks created are Merlin/Arthur and Arthur/Gwen with example numbers of 224 for the former and 59 for the latter taken from BBC Merlin News[2]. However, those numbers are contested on the ground that the newsletter's fanart tag isn't applied only to drawn fanart, and that the very definition of what counts as a pairing in a drawing can be more subjective than in other types of fanart[3].
For more information about the art examples click the images or follow the links:
On the Knob Training
cover by Yue KXTending To My Lady's Bath
by lizardspotsSlaughtering Foul Creatures
by Yue KXThe Neverending Legend
by Yue KXAfterglow
by lizardspotsMerlin and Arthur, magic and knight, two sides of the same coin. By H-l-w.
Fancomics/cartoons:
- Merlin/Calvin & Hobbes fusion comic strips by shiyasim
- Shifts in Crystal and Gold - Merlin/Arthur fancomic by nachte (WIP)
Icons
There are many LiveJournal communities for icons, some of them open only to elite icon makers, some running challenges or contests like LIMS. Icon posts are accepted at most pairing- and character-centric communities, even if the icons are seemingly 'gen'.
Icons are the art form most likely to feature minor characters and characters not so often present in other fanart.
Photomanipulations and Banners
There is no central community for posting manips and banners, but they are accepted in most general and pairing communities.
Modern AU manips and banners are often used for fic headers and as vid banners.
Story banner by inderpal, cover art for the circus AU Radiant Under Every Sort of Light, Chapter 7.
vid banner for Only In My Mind
vid banner for Something in the Wind
award banner for the vid The Hitchhiker's Guide to Camelot
Vids
- See main page and Category:Merlin Vids
Communities
- Main article see List of Merlin Communities
On Livejournal
- Craftalot
- Drawmelot (LJ/DW)
- Themed:
- Gift Exchanges:
- Fests:
- Box of Magic (a Big Bang)
- Paperlegends (a Big Bang)
- reel merlin (a Reel)
On Y-gal
- Merlin club is strongly character oriented towards Arthur and Merlin and the pairing Merlin/Arthur.
Deviantart
- HeartMerlinArt, Merlin-Fan-Club and Merlin Fans are dA groups for fans of Merlin accepting fanarts submissions of all types, sometimes including fanfiction.
Recs & Resources
- MerlinFanArtRecs - a rec tumblr
References
- ^ Craftalot Profile
- ^ bbc_merlin_news's fanart category (date March 28th, 2010)
- ^ "Gen" discussion on Camelot_Fleet