Valence
won the October challenge
Dead of Night
Valence's description of progress through this challenge and a bit about himself:
When I saw the brief for this challenge my first thought was to do a trick or treat image involving a small child with a zombie companion. I still think there's an idea in that but my first sketches went somewhat awry so I ditched it and left the challenge alone to do a couple of portraits.
After seeing the fantastic progress of others I was tempted back into action (the great thing about challenges is the encouragement, motivation and inspiration you get from the works and thoughts of others.) This time though I decided to go for something more orthodox and familiar and the word Graveyard came to mind.
After searching for reference I made a start in ArtRage laying in some green colour to create a retro horror mood. I was initially thinking of doing a confined, shallow image but I experimented with a moonlit sky and liked the split blue/green color combination, realising I could put a creepy mist where they meet. I then started to work on the ground and had what artists call a Happy Accident: without realising I'd put in a light diagonal stroke rising from the bottom left. I thought that this could split the ground plane in two creating a foreground that dipped out of view and then emerged into the middle distance. This kind of undulation is a great way to create depth and interest in a picture and with this in place I knew that the image could work and was worth saving.
It was then a case of working the details using the drippy airbrush and the wet palette knife to create the texture of the nearby grass and using the soft airbrush to make the smooth transitions in the distance.
Even though I was committed to doing a deep, open image I still felt it would benefit from being closed in a little to create a sense of being trapped. I considered some distant church buildings but thought some spooky angular trees might suffice. Sadly this is, I think, the weakest part of the image; the trees are a little too flat, the branches and their angles a little too contrived, but compositionally they serve their purpose.
The zombie mob was put in quite quickly, it's always easy to paint things that are half obscured in mist, and then I set to work on the groping hand using reference that I had created in the Android app Pose Tool but even after redrawing it three times I began to encounter some problems here and elsewhere: the hand didn't seem to fit the mood or composition and some areas of the picture seemed unbalanced and vacant. It was at this point that the beauty of challenges and the feedback they offer came to my rescue.
I took the advice given: Firstly, by cropping and then resizing the image I could remove the dead space on the right side and this then allowed me to move the hand into a better position that was a little less disconnected and also in shadow so that it boosted the contrast around the fingers. Secondly, I greyed the flesh, dirtied it a little and made it thinner to make it seem more like the dead hand it was intended to be. And thirdly, I decided to put some text on the most obvious gravestone. I initially wanted to use that familiar biblical quote "I am the Resurrection and the Life..." etc but it was a little too wordy for the available space and resolution. So instead I went for a bit of Dylan Thomas and one of my top four favourite poems of all time (Pointless Aside: my other three would probably be in no particular order, The Raven, Invictus and slightly more nerdy, Mr Data's glorious Ode to Spot. Aah they don't write them like that anymore. But I digress...)
So I typed out Death Shall Have No Dominion (whilst listening to the splendid-voiced Richard Burton doing his stuff on YouTube) painted some nice highlights, transformed it into place ... and then noticed it didn't fit right because the perspective wasn't quite right on the gravestone. But it was far too late for a repaint so I called it done and hoped that no-one would notice. And I'm quite pleased with it but I'm even more pleased with the excellent feedback and advice that finally helped me to create the image that was in my head. Thank you all.
About moi?
I am a self-confessed third-rate amateur scribbler who occasionally gets lucky. I guess this is one of those occasions.
At this point people usually mention their education and art school but sadly I failed even GCSE Art (for non-UK readers GCSE is the bog-standard, Mickey Mouse exam that every dunderhead is supposed to effortlessly pass at the age of sixteen. But I'm super good at Maths and Physics, so don't judge me too harshly.) Eight years later I was encouraged to have another go but instead of the financial sinkhole of university or college I went for the book-learning, self-taught route via that glorious institution known as The Library. It's free, you know!!
And so, thanks to the ever-familiar Loomis, I draw, doodle and paint using pencil and acrylics (and occasionally gouache until I remember how hard it is to mix dark colours) but I do prefer the digital medium with its distinct lack of brush washing and the magnificent Undo button (surely the greatest human invention since ...erm.. plumbing? Yes, plumbing, you've got to get rid of that sewage somehow. But I digress, again...)
And with that digital work I will happily use any 2d or 3d software that will deign to run on my antique PC (especially if it's cheap or free) but my current favourite is ArtRage despite its eternal slowness.
And at this point people also like to mention how they'd like to break into the concept art industry or freelancing but I'm way too aware of my own limitations for the professional world. My only real ambition is to perhaps get a little bit better. I guess I'm easily pleased but yet frequently frustrated.