Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part IIII

Well it took me a couple of months but I finally got my painting finished.

Picking up where we left off before I filled in the color of the characters on the bench. I went with blue for the skin of the Bride and my favorite pea soup green for the Monster. I like how the wrappings on the Bride turned out, but I wish I had made the Monster's head a little thinner.

Now its time to finish off the final tree. It was a pretty big one so I broke it up and did the branches first, then the trunk. The color of the branches is slightly more blue than the trunk but I think I got it pretty close. I also added some vines wrapping around the tree. I was still unhappy about the Monster's eyes so I painted over them in order to redo them.

For the finishing touches I redid the Monster's eyes, making them about half the size they were before. I think he looks a lot better than he did before, he has the blank stare I was going for. I also added some patches of grass around the bases of the trees and the tombstones.

 I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will look once I have glazed it.

Now to come up with a new idea.

Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part III

Well its been a month so it must be time again to check in on the status of the painting.



With the background finished I decided to start on the ground. Just like I did with the sky
I filled the whole area in with a flat black.

Then I went with the sponge and filled in the colors I wanted. I went with a blueish gray
for the most part, and lightened it up and added in some yellow for the light coming off
the lantern. I like using the sponge when painting things like the ground or the sky, it
really makes a nice looking texture.

I finished off the tree on the far right and three of the tombstones. Then added in the
vines.

The last tombstone and the bench were done in the same style as the other tombstones. I
tried to dab in a bit of yellow to look like light from the lantern. And lastly I've
started on Frankie's outfit. I'm going with the classic fuzzy vest look from "Son of
Frankenstein"

Tune in again soon for another update.

Trio of Terror

These old vacuform plastic masks and smocks are something that really puts me in the mood for Halloween. I remember wearing these as a kid. Although when I was growing up we didn't have the old monsters but instead we had mainly costumes from the newly released Star Wars movies.
I went out one year as E.T. I wish I still had that old costume.

Treehouse of Horror

Every year around Halloween I like to do a drawing based on the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons. Working in chronological order I try to do something one of the small stories or the wraparounds from each episode. I just finished this years picture and I've already started thinking about next year.

 

Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part II

Ok, I've been working on this painting for about a while now so I thought I'd post an update of my current status.

The canvas for this one is 24 x 40. I've done a lot of smaller paintings recently and have been itching to do something this size. So I take the illustration and redraw it onto the canvas. This is a very time consuming process that takes me about 2 days to complete.

The first step in the actual painting will be to do the sky. I wanted the sky to look wild and unnatural so I went with purples and magenta. I find when doing the sky its best to use a damp sponge and just smear the colors together. It looks like a mess when your done, but as you start to add more elements it will clean up.

I added some stars to the sky, and then painted in a couple of bats fluttering around. I decided to make the moon a sort of gold color to make it work with the color of the sky. For the castle and the hill I decided to make it close to the sky color and a little blurry to make it look deep off in the distance.

Then I added a row of trees along to horizon and filled the rest of the background with a tangle of brambles.

I kept adding thistles and briars to the background trying to create a sense of depth in the area behind the characters. I made the ones closest to the foreground a pleasing shade of blueish green.

 
Now with the background done it will be time to start tackling the foreground elements.

Halloween is coming.

I was very shocked when I saw these out at the grocery store the other day.  They usually aren't available here in Canada, even at Halloween. From what I hear Boo Berry should also be available, I'm gonna have to head out to different stores and see if I can find it. Lets hope enough people buy it that they make it an annual thing.

In The Graveyard

This post will be about the newest drawing I've done. I wanted to get back into doing some monster related stuff, so I went back to my old favorite Frankenstein Monster and added the bride into the mix. I'm hoping to turn this one into a painting so I want to do some blog posts just like the ones I did for A Very Merry Unbirthday.

This is the original sketch where I try to cram in as many of my favorite monster movie images in to one drawing. I put in Frank and the Bride surrounded by spooky trees, gravestones, an old castle, a full moon and lots of thistles.

For the actual sketch I changed around a few things from the original sketch. I changed Frankie's outfit from his original blazer to the furry vest from Son of Frankenstein. I got rid of the thistle bushes at the front of the image. I put the haunted castle on a much more precarious looking hill and added a lantern to be a second light source.

Then the easy part, adding the flat colors in photoshop.

Then the fun part, finishing the colors in photoshop.

I'm very happy with how it all turned out, the next step will now be to get a canvas and start turning it into a painting.