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Hellboy (an old Spring Clean Challenge)

Hellboy (an old Spring Clean Challenge)

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A Plan

Tutoring 8
Skill 8
Idea 10
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Mike Mignola’s  work stands alone. As a fan of Hellboy there’s the story and then there’s the way Mike told the story.  I did spend some time wondering if these miniatures could be painted in a style similar to Mikes original minimalist, stark, sharp, dark, high contrast style and while I love the idea of it, the original art isn’t constrained by the 3rd dimension and seems to jump straight to the 5th and 6th.

A Plan

Whilst the original art played havoc with anatomy, and focused almost entirely on the positive vs negative (ie shadow) to evoke the story rather than tell it, no doubt a stroke of genius,  the Miniatures with the game are 3 dimensional with quite good anatomical proportions.

So I’ve discounted the possibility of imitating Mike’s original style but want to see how close I can go.

Painting a full set with all the Kickstarter goals will be a time challenge even with all of spring (for me Autumn). As of this post I’m staring down the idea of working full hours from home while watching over 3 kids schooling from home. So I have to be smart about this.

Right now my plan is to focus on underpainting a good sketch layer on all miniatures first.  A zenith layer, but taken up a level like Dana Howl does here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGYWYDv8Gq0&t=286s

Then I will attempt to make some glazes based on Mike Mignolas colour pallet. Hellboy comics rely on block shadows and 1 block colour per subject/object so I will attempt to do the same, though my shadow/zenith with be a graded 3d B&W base.

I’ll keep my finger crossed it will evoke the comic style, and be efficient on time.  It does mean my B&W sketch layer will have to be quite good and my colour matching and glaze alchemy will have to be spot on but I wont have to spend hours colour blending or layering . At worst I’m sure it will provide a great base and I will forgive myself further washes and high lights if required.

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