Fanart For Doves And Arrows

Fanart for Doves and Arrows

So there’s this amazing Tf2 Bushmedicine fic called Doves and Arrows, by @anonymous-astronaut, and I decided to make a thing for it. Astro at one point put the title of his fic into an ai generator, which produced this image:

I got permission to turn it into a wall hanging, and have finished this after almost 3 weeks of work (front and back):

If anyone wants to see my explanation for choices I made or in progress photos I took, I’ll put them under the cut since I tend to ramble. Please go read Doves and arrows, it is fantastic.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23886154/chapters/57423127

So, I started out by trying to make sense of the original ai image. I threw it into an art program and made 2 copies of it. One sticking closely to the original image, just cleaned up. The other changing some of the weirder shapes into something recognizable. I especially focused on including actual arrows into the second image.

I decided to use the second image, and put it into a site called Bracelet Book, in order to get a pattern to use. I did my best to make the pattern as symmetrical as I could on the first pass, but the dove was very difficult to work with. 

People looking closely may see that the final project looks a little different from the pattern. Especially the dove’s eyes and the fletching on the arrows. That’s because I would sometimes make on the fly decisions to alter parts of the pattern, since it’s pretty flexible like that. Most edits were done to make parts look more even or less cluttered (except for 2 specific changes). Here is the edited pattern I had by the end of all this. The edits are a little messy since most were drawn using my phone. :P

Once I had a pattern, I started working on making it. The kind of method I used is used for what’s called Alpha bracelet patterns. If anyone wants to know more, I recommend looking up tutorials by the youtuber Masha Knots, as she was the one I learned from. Here’s some progress photos, as you can see it’s a pretty messy looking process.

I changed the eyes and and arrow fletching colors for a specific reason actually. I wanted the eyes to be blue since the dove represents the BLU Medic, Josef. The arrows fletching then became red for the RED Sniper, Mick. I just felt like the plainer pattern wasn’t as clearly a Tf2 thing.

Once I finished off the pattern, I tied the strings I had been tying my knots on into little tassels. I sewed a black outline around the beak, since it didn’t stand out against the body as well as I hoped. I also decided to make a cover for the back. This is because, for anyone who doesn’t know, the back of an alpha pattern pretty much always looks like a disaster. It takes a lot of work to hide the mess, so I like to make fabric covers for it. I did neaten up the mess where I could before sewing on the cover though.

When I made the fabric backing, I originally just planned something simple and plain, but the only fabric I had was blue, which didn’t match the look of the piece. So I got the idea to paint it to lean into the red and blue theme, complete with the characters class symbols. I cut out the fabric, hand hemmed it as best I could, and painted it with some acrylic paints I had.

Then it was just a matter of sewing it on and adding a string for the wall hanging to hang from! This is the biggest project of this sort I have ever made, nearly twice the size of the second largest wall hanging I’ve done. It’s about 5 1/2 inches tall (not counting tassels), and 5 1/4 inches wide. If anyone is interested in making anything like this, I have some advice. One, always get way more string than you think you need. I got two bundles of each kind of thread I purchased, since I got some specifically to color match as best I could. By the end I had to make another run to Michaels for more green since what I had wasn’t enough. Also, try to keep your knots neat and evenly sized. Some parts of the pattern aren’t clear on the final project because the knots are hard to see.

If you actually read through this whole thing, I hope you have a good day!