Day 08: John Carpenter's The Thing (1982) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023

 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023:
John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

I've gotta do "John Carpenter's The Thing" for 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween.  It's probably my favorite horror movie, with copious amounts of body horror, blood flows freely (in multiple senses of the word), and there are horrifying philosophical implications of being replaced cell-by-cell.  This year it's the Norris Thing, which went from a guy with a giant, vertical mouth running down his torso (no VJ Dentata or Sarlacc jokes, please) that bites a guys arms off, to a long-necked abomination with segmented legs, to a spider-headed horror.  Quite the range on that one.

I've mentioned before in my Blog that my reading of the ending is [SPOILERS for a movie that's over 40 years old] MacReady and Childs are both human, but as one cannot trust the other, they each just freeze to death in the snow and ice of Antarctica.  Y'know, a typical, nihilistic and bleak ending that I can understand and get behind and makes the most sense for the movie.

This was done with Acrylic Paint and a limited palette of: Paynes Gray, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Cadmium Red Deep.

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STEP ONE:  Here is a quick outline done in Paynes Gray to suggest the general layout on the page.  It is painted on an 8-1/2" x 11" extra thick cardstock which was primed with a 50/50 mix of gesso and matte medium.

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STEP TWO:  And here's the first pass with a thin layer of various colors to just try to get paint on the page and to vaguely layout the shadows and forms.

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STEP THREE:  It's the finished painting done with lots and lots and lots of back-and-forth and thinly painted layers.

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Done with Acrylic paint on 8-1/2" x 11" gessoed cardstock.

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