Painting ugly things feels ugly

The great reveal - or call it just priming

Without further rambling, let’s have a look at the primed version.

That was again an unexpectedly good result. The unpleasant feeling was there, the white ink on the black primer worked already as lightning.

And that’s also a bad thing cause I was a bit afraid to touch it again with a brush. But first get some colors on it. A blue filter with an ink to catch the coldness of the neon lights and set the mood.

I did like the shadows cast by the airbrush and it suited my idea of a shimmery neonlight on top.

The power of a headlamp

And I had quite some good experience with a headlamp and a brush in “In the end you walk alone” and thus I used that approach again.

Darken the room, take a headlamp with very direct light ( not diffuse - then the shadows won’t be so strong ) and simultaneously use a brush with darker color to emphasize the shadows. Voila!

Scene Illuminated with headlamp for Light reference - Zombie Side

Scene Illuminated with headlamp for Light reference - Girl Side

Then some good amount of refinement: Make the shadows and light a gradient, raise the upper light, highlight some edges, and also add some grime by mixing in a slight tint of brown and black every now and then.

And of course some very thinned down brown mixed with gloss for the sink and the toilet. Ugh!

I was a bit surprised that there wasn’t much more to paint for the scene. A few little things like the tooth paste and pills, sure, but these don’t need much attention.

Everything comes down to the ugly mood and …. BLOOD.

There will be blood

And painting blood or battle damage requires the inner ability to fight any non-randomness. I don’t know why we humans always have the tendency to put things in parallel or structured but I know that the more I try to paint something random, the harder I fail. Thus I planned to do a few trials on plastic card

So what to train?

splatter on the toilets bullet hole
blood puddle and smearing on the ground
little bloody handmarks on the door -> someone might have opened it from the inside

Blood excercise on plasticcard - puddles

Blood excercise on plasticcard - spatter and hands

The blood was a mix of games workshops blood for the blood god and typhus corrosion. And the approach? Well, hard to say, just try. thick puddles are just that. smearing with a sponge, splatter and hands with fine brush strokes, and then a bit of a toothbrush to splatter. And the last part sounds easier than it is when you have to aim with the splatter. I’d lie if I’d say that I can aim for a fly on the desk now with a toothbrush and bloodcolor, but training helped to get it sufficiently precise for a toilet splatter.

The victim and the beast

With that set, there are just the minis left. especially the girl should shine in that muted scene. I went for a yellow shirt and red hair - some color warmth in the otherwise cool scene.

The first try was a bit over the top. Yea she should be a highlight but not that comicy unnatural. Thus, all colors got some more blue added, that made her shirt green and sufficiently but not artificial outstanding.