It's a Gwaine/Merlin image. I'd go for gen, but would love a first time romance. This is a redux/AU bit of fanart inspired by the season 3 episode "Gwaine". Because it occurred to me that the moment in the episode where Merlin cuts his finger on the dull-edged swords that are magically sharp, could have gone so much worse. And why not go there? Right? Anyhow, in this fanart, the story is that Merlin escaped the room after cutting himself, but was pursued because was too much to hide and the villainous duo of the episode knew the jig was up. They had a servant to get rid of before he spoiled the plot. But Camelot's Keep is Merlin's home turf, and he found a hidey hole to dodge into in order to avoid the badies. However, waiting them out delayed him getting his hand seen to. And when he finally came out of hiding to get to Gaius, he was faint from blood loss. In comes the fanart! Thankfully, by then, Gwaine was looking for him. And when he found him, boy was he pissed off at whomever had injured Merlin. (which, in my head, leads right to the part where Gwaine confronts the disguised villians and ends up drug before Uther and exiled, just like in the canon episode. In this case, Arthur pleads so passionately because Gwain was sticking up for Merlin, who is prolly not doing so well at the moment.)
If anyone would like to take on writing a fic to go with this image, I'd probably be convinced to do an additional image from the story to go with it. This is the first time I've done serious illustrations of the merlin crew. They were not hard to learn the look of, though I struggled a bit with the decision of how to handle Gwaine's manly face hairs. Sometimes I apply that sort of thing in the coloring stage, some times in the inking stage. I decided that I would ink them, this time. So his beard is part of the lineart. Also, Colin Morgan is a bit taller than Eoin Macken and so I had to go in and lay this out so that the body lengths worked. It's okay, Eoin, you make up for it in breadth, since Colin is one string bean fellow.
And appologies for the under rendered scenery. I've discovered I might well like drawing the castle interiors, but this illustration was scratching inside my head so much I rushed through the background in this one just to get it done. So this is a fast and dirty take on one of the many ubiquitous levels of the castle. Might work more detail into future scene renderings.
Anyhow, here's the fanarts! A fast and dirty comic book style illustration of a scene from Season three that never happened. (Yes, that's Merlin's blue neckerchief wrapped around his hand. The one that, in the episode, he only cut the finger of.) FYI, drawing Gwaine's hair is the funnest thing ever.
I have created my first serious piece of Merlin Fanart. I am hoping it inspires someone to write a story to go with it. (LOL! I'm cheeky like that)