“Love is like a friendship caught on fire.” – Bruce Lee

When browsing the MSPA forum, there is always a hot topic that catches my attention. Though it’s not pinned, it always floats at the top, with its orange icon signaling wonderful new content. It beckons to me, and against my better judgment I click the link. As the page loads, I enter an insane world of shipping and pairing around every turn, even if you have to be HIGH to appreciate it. This is the Romantic Fanart Thread, and it is truly a FANtastic place. Now, you may wonder why I didn’t go for the regular fan art thread first? I thought the romart thread could be an interesting place to start since the content is always, well, unique. Don’t get me wrong, both threads have their fair share of good art, but they’re two different bodies, and I’ll treat them as such.

The Romantic Fanart thread is an interesting place if you haven’t checked it out yet. It’s certainly full of excellent art of varying quality. Don’t let me scare you away with talks about crack pairings (John x Jetpack OTP) and the fetishism of various happeners. Whether you’re looking for a piece with your favorite characters, or doing shipping yourself you’ll always find something cute to “DAAAAAAAAW” at. In this article, I’ll talk about some artists that I believe really embody the spirit of the thread.

Tenebrais always has something cool to show. Now, some people may argue he isn’t the “best” artist, or the most “realistic”, but I think he’s got the dedication, ideas, and effort that really shows in his art. A hallmark of his is Rose with tentacles (she is a tentacle therapist, you know :winky:). I personally find that his ideas are always a wild twist on what everyone else is doing at the time and that is what makes them great. I can’t really pick anything that’s his hallmark because you can’t capture Tene in one piece.

Eyes5 is a wonderful artist on the thread, though maybe a bit controversial at times. Some of you who peruse the thread may remember the picture that was taken down (later put up again, but fixed [1]) for being deemed as “pedophilia”. But that’s not really what it was at all, so don’t get up in arms about it, stop reading, and hate the thread for life. It was unclear how old they were, so it was dubious at best. All of Eyes’ art is well drawn and emotional, and I think "I Love You, Rose" [2] is a piece that covers it pretty well.

MrBear and Marras make up a large part of the Romart content. Now, I’d hate them to get mad for my lumping them together, but I think they’ll understand I can’t pick one over the other for sheer perseverance they have at their art. From cutesy sketches, to great comics to uh, violent, MrBear covers it all. His drawings may be simple, but they’ll always get their ideas off in a splendid way [3]. Marras has so many drawings and different styles; it’s hard to pick a piece that really covers everything. But I found it [4]. You can all pester Marras about a wallpaper of that now.



And now for the Fan Thing of the Week! My teammate Bipartisan Bread weighs in on a piece he found to be wonderful by GenaLeah (a favorite artist of mine). This is also a good example of “crack pairings” you may run into in the thread. They are certainly a hilarious punctuation in the rollercoaster of love.

I am not a fan of fan art romances a majority of the time. Snape and Dumbledore - posh. Roland and Blaine the Mono - seen it 12 times on the DA front page. Rarely the pieces hold truth to the story. Nothing feels natural. Yet, with the advent of the webcomic MS Paint Adventures, I have found what is the most important of all romantic fanarts created by GenaLeah - Nannaquin and Biscuit's ovens.



The affection is evident as their hearts pair together and they are even on the same beat as their bzzzzzzzzz created a lovely symphony showing that it is time for loving.

My accolades for the piece are too immense to continue indefinitely though I could continue for pages about this piece but I must end as the picture stares at me, swelling my own heart with its promise of love.

And with that we’ll see you next time on FANtastic. Leave a comment or send a PM to submit something fan-made you’d like us to cover in our next article. Thanks for the read, and have a FANtastic week!