Wednesday 25 February 2015

The Strain Vampire Acrylic Painting Work In Progress

The Strain Vampire acrylic art in progress. Painting with acrylic paint on a 50x60cm canvas from the beginning loose paint strokes to some slightly more detailed efforts later on. My hope for this painting is to actually finish it as I rarely complete a painting as I either get distracted or just lose interest in an acrylic painting.

Starting off the painting I always do a light colour glaze over the whole canvas and this was a very watered down Crimson Red and whilst it was wet I used a light brown acrylic paint to sketch with the paint brush the basic vampire in the middle and the two at either side of him. I didn't want to draw with pencil before hand as that would have been a waste of time, so instead paint sketch helps mark everything out that you want on the canvas, because you can paint over anything that becomes a mistake anyway.


the strain vampire painting
The middle Vampire up close painted with a light brown acrylic paint

the strain vampire art
Painting the general shapes with brown acrylic paint helps create an under layer for more layers on top

The Strain Vampire Art
The middle Vampire is starting to take shape slowly with the huge Vampiric tongue with blood drips

the strain vampires
The left hand side Vampire isn't meant to look as impressive as the middle one, but I still want to add some cool detail in on it.

The Strain Vampire Artwork
Only half the head is showing on this Vampire, I wanted to get a sense of them stood in a crowd and I'll probably add a few more figures in the background later on in the shadows.

the strain vampire painting art
Taking a step back to look at my painting I noticed that the background needs to be darker and so that's what I did next.



Here in the final photo I left it for the night. The next thing to add is more details, more colour and quite possible more glazed areas to enrich the colours more. I want the Vampires to pop off the canvas and really look like the Vampires from the horror TV Series. So, please do look for updates on this one! I hope to finish this painting and have it up for sale very soon.
the strain vampire art
The Vampires are looking more defined now that I've added a huge amount of shading, a few areas need cleaning up slightly as I've over shadowed them somewhat.

Tuesday 24 February 2015

Sharpie Metallic Permanent Markers Review

I recently bought some Sharpie Metallic permanent markers in the hopes of using them at some point. Of course you can use them on white paper or usually any other surface type except porous surfaces such as concrete etc. So in this review I've decided to draw on black card and this black card has a similar texture to white cartridge paper meaning it has some tooth to draw on.

First of all if you are familiar with using Sharpie markers they are often permanent markers which are resistant to water and also fade resistant and quick drying.

Here is the 3 pack I bought for £1.99. The pack includes a Gold, A Silver and a Bronze marker and these are the three main metallic colours you can obtain.


sharpie metallic markers
The unopened pack of Sharpie metallic art markers


sharpie metallic art markers
The 3 metallic sharpie art markers ready for drawing with




I like the use of these art pens, although the uses could be limited in some respects as it's not often you might need these three colour combinations, but still there will be some uses for these pens in card making and other crafts. Here though I've thought about drawing something that would have some sort of mechanical metallic sheen to contrast against the black paper.


At first I was going to use a white pencil to sketch something in, but I decided to just throw myself into it and use these markers boldly with confidence. On first use of the markers I quickly realized that the markers are not great at layering colours over each other the Silver showed through the Bronze on the Helmet illustration, the Gold however seems to cover the Silver, so some trial and error is advised in using these pens in conjunction with each other.






It is possible to create a total covering of each colour but sometimes that might mean going over the same areas twice with each pen. Again some more experimentation could be used to try and let some of the black show through from the paper. Like most permanent markers these pens stink and it is best to use these in a well ventilated room or else you may feel light headed like I am now lol!

Sharpie Metallic Marker art


The Silver in the final drawing left some streaks, but again if you want total coverage you will have to cover it a couple of times once the under layer has dried. Now I am wondering if you can add other inks over the top. Well you can but the ink doesn't glide very well over the surface and in some cases with the Uni-pin and the Pigma micron pens I used the ink starts to disappear slightly with a 50% reduction.

As a small test I thought about comparing the pens against using them on white paper and the results are not as effective I think, however the bronze colour shows up well, the silver is dwarfed by the white of the paper and also the Gold doesn't have the same mid tone brightness as it does on black paper. Mixed results Black paper is best.



The best thing about these art markers is that on black paper if you use the bronze as the darkest colour, then the Gold as a mid tone and finally the Silver as a highlight, then it creates a nice effect which is perfect for drawing tribal designs of any sort or highly detailed armour and weaponry and this is something to do more of in the future on this blog.

What do you think of these art markers? Let us know in the comments!


Saturday 14 February 2015

Horror Movie Original Art Prints In The Works

I am working on some original horror movie art prints that I am going to be selling in the near future and this will be a fun sketching time to try and realize some cool childhood memories as I pick some of the most iconic horror movies I can remember. (the bulk of them are from the 80's, that classic era for tons of movies)

Here is the current list of horror movies that I will be delving my creative imagination into.

The Fly
The Thing
Basketcase
Dawn Of The Dead
Day Of The Dead
Hellraiser
Re-Animator
House
Killer Klowns From Outer Space


I'll be adding more to this list as I go along. Look for updates and links to new sketches along the way.  Here is one I'm working from The Thing

Are there any horror movies you can remember that would make a great new horror art print? Please let me know!

upcoming horror art prints

Wednesday 4 February 2015

Daily Sketch Journal #28 - Band Horror Logo Commission

The photos below are of a Band logo commission I did for a Fiverr client. The image of a guitar, microphone and skull help make the design part of a band logo quite well. The inked design looks more solid and the white cobwebs seem to add an extra dimension to the art illustration.

All I have to do now is do a quick logo in photoshop to compliment the design.

band horror logo
The initial pencil sketch of the band logo. Wanted to work out the elements first and see if they worked and they did, so I started inking below

skull band logo

Horror Skull Band logo
The final inked version of the band logo illustration. Nice and black shades that contrast well with the white elements

Tuesday 3 February 2015

Daily Sketch Journal #27 - Freddy Kruger Head Sketch

I have been trying to draw a Freddy Krueger head sketch for some time and this one seemed better than the others which ended up in the reject pile. While I think it's commendable to draw a realistic portrait of Robert Englund as Kruger, but that's not my style. So instead I wanted to capture the essence of Nightmare on Elm Streets favorite horror icon.

Right now the inked version has that raw look and the colour will help bring the character to life. As and when I finish this illustration I'll do an update to this post.



Monday 2 February 2015

Daily Sketch Journal #26 - Tree Skull Art Fiverr Commission

I'm working on a tree skull art design for a Fiverr client and the idea was based on a facebook image that had a tree with a few hidden faces in it.  You can check out the Fiverr gig right here - I'll draw a horror skull in black ink for $5

The challenge with this piece of art was to make the skulls look almost hidden within the tree itself. In the pencil drawing above I think I'm getting away with it. I need to ink this.



Sunday 1 February 2015

Daily Sketch Journal #25 - Killer Klown Sketching

Wanted to try and draw a Killer Klown in oversized onesie like a proper clown. Might do a background on this one. Once again I'll update with updates on this and other drawings in the daily sketch journal blog series.

Just a pencil sketch at the moment, but it could do with some improvements around the drawing and maybe see about adding something in his hands, but what? hmmm? decisions decisions!

The Killer Klown drawing is on a sheet of A4 white card and this is the close up of that early pencil sketch.