FROM THE GROUND UP PART 4 (A) — MAKE ME PRETTY (Patreon)

Welcome to the fourth instalment (part A) of FROM THE GROUND UP (don't forget to check out FROM THE GROUND UP PART 1 — THE HOOK, FROM THE GROUND UP PART 2 — GETTING IT ON THE PAGE, and FROM THE GROUND UP PART 3 — THE WRITING IS THE HARDEST PART) a series of articles is to give you, as honestly and thoroughly as possible, a real-time insight into constructing a Delta Green operation, from the raw germ of an idea, all the way through to a fully-realized, play-ready book.

Today, we're delving into part A of Part 4 MAKE ME PRETTY...creating art for the scenario AB OVO.
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SKETCHES

First, I begin with a sketch. This is usually done in 3b pencil or charcoal (digitally). I use ARTRAGE to paint, because it has the best natural simulation of oils, watercolours and paints I have found. Sometimes the sketch is inspired by something, and sometimes not. Usually there are one or two sketches. (Sometimes my scribbles can be a bit incomprehensible, so a translation is provided in the image this wouldn't usually be on the image in red text).

For the AB OVO opening image, I did two sketches.

SKETCH 1 is a close-up, and SKETCH 2 is a pull back (it's above in the images). I picked 1.  

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REFERENCE TIME

Nearly every painting for Delta Green is photo referenced, usually with a bunch of images (but some images are just weirdly out of my head....like the GOD'S TEETH cover and most of the monsters). I dig through sources to find things I like to use to create colours, lights, faces, and more. For those playing at home, this is all standard fare for professional illustration, especially in the realm of photo realism.

The reference images I settled on are above, marked REFERENCE. They are "tacked" on the page for easy uh...reference as I paint (see PAINTING).

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FINAL DRAWING

This usually takes a bit. I finalize the drawing in pencil or charcoal and mark out large negative space areas to black out. I use the photo reference to add interesting detail bits here (like reflections, water, odd coloured areas, etc). 

Usually, when a painting dies a death of "it just wasn't right", it dies right here before I start flopping digital paint on it.

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THE GOAL

The goal of the image is to make it look like you're staring into the eyes of a scientist in some type of biosafety gear, and you can see the reflection of some horrific something in his visor. Very moody, dark, cold and clinical.

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FIRST COLOURS AND PALETTE

When I put in the first colours on an image, I usually use a 100% charcoal, putting in wide swatches of colour in areas...this is very rough. Then I'll fill in areas in deep black or other dark colours with an Oil Brush (100%). Sometimes I block in the colours for the whole image (usually when there's a lot of different elements in the painting, or complex backgrounds) but for images like this one, I usually just do a chunk like that, and then go in and work detail until I become bored.

The palette is established here. For example, for this image, I went cold, with greens and sea blues, leading up to cold tans and browns, all the way to black. Sometimes this palette will shift dramatically over the course of a painting (but I sure hope not, it's a huge pain in the ass). 

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DETAIL WORK

And this is what takes forever. The detail work. Once the flat colour is put in with Charcoal or Oil, I use the Palette Knife tool (50% pressure, no loading) to control the paint and charcoal. (That's one of the magical things about digital, you can watercolour on top of acrylic on top of oil, with 0 issues.) This makes the painting "chunky" super close up (which I love), but becomes more and more "photo" like as you move back.

You can see what I mean by "take forever" in the image marked DETAIL. All of that has been manually squidged around by a Palette Knife. I am on hour four of this painting, and I have perhaps another 8 hours to go on it. Most paintings take a day or two of painting to complete, depending on their complexity.

This image is complex not because of its subject matter (close ups tend to me more simple than lots of figures in the image) but because of what I hope to achieve in the lighting/reflection of the mask.

If a painting dies at this stage, it is usually because I tried something too funky, or tried to redo the palette colours and completely fucked them up. It happens.

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FINISHING

Well, I'm not out of the woods on this image yet, but it's going well so far, so I believe I'll finish this one. Wish me luck and we might see a final before the end of the week.

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IMAGES

Pretty much every image goes through these steps, give or take. For an operation like AB OVO there will likely be about 5 of them. So, about a full week of work.

I hope this gives you a bit of an insight into how the art gets made for Delta Green.

Next up in PART 4 B — MAKE ME PRETTY we'll look at maps and any visual design that might be needed.