One detail I was never in doubt about including in this year’s painting is the stylised pumpkin flowers and stripey vines. I absolutely love them! As always it’s a featured that’s painted in steps. This photo shows me mapping out these elements and placing the vines along the figure. You can also catch a little peek of how the face is coming along.
Zombie texture added I can now start going back into the figure and tightening up the shading and details like the fingers. You can also see where I’m starting to develop the pumpkin and build up more of an idea of how all these different elements are going to work together!
Anyone who remembers last year’s piece, or has watched the Halloween YouTube video I released at the start of the month, will know that giving the figure a textured zombie appearance is a big part of creating this character. It is however, an effect that is built up over stages. Today’s photo shows the first step towards the zombie skin is painting the base colours and loose shading.
I think you can start to see how it relates to last year’s Halloween painting. The colour scheme is much the same and I’m planning on having the character herself looking like the same person. At this point I hadn’t decided whether all elements would be the same, like the spider web in the hair, but certainly I intend to add some flowers much like last year’s. As you’ll see from the progress photos this week, there’s a lot to work on before I get to these fine details.
Ardent Shadows 