Day 10: Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023

  31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023:
Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)

Hey, Day 10--It's almost one-third of the way through this vainglorious, self-imposed challenge!  So far I am (barely) keeping on schedule.  Of course, I was hoping I would be able to actually get ahead a little bit more so I could give myself a bit more breathing room.  Here's to hoping!

Anyhoo, this time it's the Australian action zombie movie, "Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021).  It's mostly hammy and over-the-top, the story goes through all the tropes and is paint-by-numbers, but the special effects and make-up are generally pretty good.  This picture features a remote-controlled zombie used by the evil scientist to do his dirty work.  And, once again, it scanned much more harsh than the original painting.  Oh, well.

Although, I will give one bit of free advice to future Zombie/Horror directors: If you have the zombies breathing out some weird, green miasma, it's just gonna look like they have really bad halitosis and are doing a commercial for mouth wash.  So, you may wanna avoid that.

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

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STEP ONE:  Here is a quick breakdown done in Paynes Gray and Titanium White 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.

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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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Day 19: Dawn of the Dead (1978) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2022

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2022
Dawn of the Dead (1978)

No, it isn't some sort of ultra-messed up zombie porn scene.  Who wouldn't want to see a Zombie hit in the face with a cherry cream pie?  Just one of the many strange scenes in George Romero's semi-satirical "Dawn of the Dead" (1978).  After being turned into zombies, many of the undead just go to the one place they remember from their previous life--the Mall.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils on an 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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STEP TWO:  Here's the first (and probably part of a second) pass with acrylic paint.

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STEP THREE: And here's the finished painting.

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Done with Acrylic Paint on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 19: The Return of the Living Dead (1985) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

It's the Tarman from "The Return of the Living Dead (1985)".  I found this zombie particularly creepy-the melted way he looked, as well as the strange way he moved.

One of the best zombie movies (right up there with "Shaun of the Dead"), which was co-written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote screenplays for "Alien", "Dark Star", "Lifeforce", "Invaders from Mars" (the remake), and "Total Recall").  Satirical and clever, and good movie which happens to have zombies in it (although, the punk characters are a bit broad and stereotypical).  Come to think of it, I also liked George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead (1978)", which had the zombies return to doing what they remembered doing in life: Go to the Mall.

In "The Return of the Living Dead", I chuckle every time I see the scene with one of the zombies using the CB Radio in the ambulance to call for supper delivery: "Come in, dispatch... Send more... paramedics."

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STEP ONE:  The pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

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STEP TWO:  Here's the halfway point, give-or-take, with the first pass with gouache/watercolor.

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STEP THREE:  And here's the completed painting.  Lots of pushing the darks and lights, and some little white, specular dots all over the place to make it seem like he was set and slimy.

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Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 19: Night of the Living Dead - 31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

Day 19: Night of the Living Dead

Today's installment of "31 Days of Hell-o-Ween 2019" is George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead".  It's the movie that launched a million zombie movies--and invented almost all the tropes for the entire genre.  The two immediate sequels were also darkly ironic fun, being a take down of consumerism and shopping malls.

For this one, I did it as a sort of digital scratchboard.  On a black canvas in Clip Studio Paint, I used a white ink brush to build up and create the highlighted areas.  Below is the progress pics... Well, two of 'em.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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Happy Halloween! - Zombie Dark Phoenix (Redux)

Happy Halloween!

OK, this one probably looks familiar to those who have visited the blog before.  It is pretty much the same as the drawing I did last year for Halloween of ZOMBIE DARK PHOENIX... but, this time, I flipped the pose around, did it in black and white acrylic paint, and got around to digitally coloring it.

For those interested in the process... well, you know the drill and keep readin'...  :-)

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STEP ONE:  Here is a real quick pencil layout on 9" x 12" sized and gessoed 1/8" masonite.  I wasn't completely happy with the pose and modified it a bit while I was painting it...

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STEP TWO:  Here is the black-and-white acrylic painting.  I took a digital photo of the painting and imported it into Photoshop to clean it up and to do some digital coloring.

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STEP THREE:  I added a MULTIPLY Layer and then put in a gradient.  I then added some flat color so I could create and Save some Selection Areas, which is why some of the coloring on the sash and Phoenix symbols are colored a little off-key--it is easier to select each part separately, and then recolor it once I save it as a Selection area.  I saved selections for the HEAD, BODY, GLOVES/BOOTS, SASH, and PHOENIX SYMBOLS.  I could then select them and add highlights without having to worry about the colors running over into something else I just colorized--I use the Saved Selections as a quick-and-dirty masked areas.

For fun, here is both MULTIPLY Layer with flat color over top the painting, and the colored MULTIPLY Layer by itself for comparison.

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STEP FOUR:  After looking at it a little bit, I thought it looked a little muddy and dark, so I decided to lighten and black-and-white painting a bit more.  I also digitally extended the top a little bit more, as the (undead) Phoenix Force was cropped a little close to the top-edge of the board.  

Here are the finished black-and-white layer, as well as the color plate.

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STEP FIVE:  And here is everything all put together.  I added another one or two layers for highlights and a few other odds and ends, then lightened the picture just a little bit more and Saved it.

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Done with acrylic paint on 9" x 12" sized and gessoed masonite panel, and digital coloring in Photoshop.

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Happy Halloween - Zombie Dark Phoenix

Happy Halloween!

OK, technically it isn't Halloween anymore, as I am posting this after 12:00am CST, but as I haven't gone to bed yet, I'm still counting it as the same night as far as I'm concerned.  In your face, Greenwich Mean Time!  :-)

For a Halloween picture, I thought I'd do a zombie version of Dark Phoenix.  Sure, Zombies in general, and Marvel Zombies in particular, seem a little over-exposed, but 'tis the season.  Oh, well--What're ya gonna do?

I left it as black-and-white for the moment, as I wanted to get this up on the blog ASAP.  Perhaps I'll colorize it in the near future...  I plan on using the same pose for a non-zombie version of Dark Phoenix I will painting in a few weeks.

Just for fun, here is the process I used:

STEP ONE:  I roughly sketched out the figure on 12" x 18" gray bogus paper (BOGUS, man!  I will never get tired of saying that...).  Bogus paper is sort of like a thicker, slightly rougher newsprint.  I prefer the gray tone, as you can add darks and highlights on top of the gray tone.  I always say it is like cheating, because you get three values (Black, Gray, and White) for the price of two (Black and White used for the drawing).  And, when you add white to it (see below), the highlights really stand out.

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STEP TWO:  I then immediately smear everything all out into a blurry mess and start tightening the linework, adding shadows, and using my kneaded eraser to begin carving out where I want the highlights to go.

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STEP THREE:  More shading and linework.  I'm about halfway finished with the drawing at this point. 

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STEP FOUR:  I begin to add white and highlights, as well as some of the final darks to the drawing.  I'm about three-quarters of the way finished for this drawing and heading into the home stretch...

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STEP FIVE:  Here, I finished all the highlights and shadows.  I will call it done for now.  I didn't intend to take quite so much time on this drawing; I intended to just do a quick sketch to post and get back to some other projects I'm starting/finishing.  The usual.  But, I once I started I just kept working at it more and more.

And, in case anyone is wondering, the "lights" coming off the top of the Phoenix wings in the costume were going to be part of a radiating light coming off the costume, as well as surrounding the figure as a manifestation of the Phoenix Force.  I may work on that further, as I am still trying to figure out exactly what I want to do with that.  So, I just kind of left that there as a placeholder.  However, now that I look at it again, I also think it looks a little strange out all by itself as it currently is.  Sigh...

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This was done with charcoal and white chalk on 12" x 18" gray bogus paper (Bogus, man!).  

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