CHOW #321 :: Mary Worth - Bloody Mary

[Ninsta]

Looking at it, I realise I need to do something about her teeth, they're all kinds of wonky, throwing off her jaw. Kinda going for a 40's-ish feel with the nighty. like maybe she was getting ready for bed brushing her hair and couldn't resist the mirror anymore.

Anywho here's some love going out to the posters.

@ ardentsideburns - Really like your concept here, something about it seems really Mardi Gras, I feel like she needs more necklaces. Are the white line bubble things just reference for the shapes?

@ pastasauca - like your soupy people/ghostiness, are you gonna have a light source out of her hands or from the people on the floor or? And I'm still playing with what's going on with the messed up part of her.

@ Something_Abysmal - is she coming through her reflection and comforting herself? like your lightsource of the mirror itself.

@ z0mbi - Like your cleanlines and the grotesqueness of her face, wish you the best of luck with your coloring. Um I'm trying to remember the website that's good for making pallets, like if there's a picture that you like the moodiness of the colors going on in it, it'll make you a color list. It's a bit easier to get your head around at first if you work with a set of colors when first coloring. I'll see if I can locate it for you.

[Something_Abysmal]

Thanks for the feedback guys sorry for the double posts Forums been giving me troubles
@pastasauca
Thanks for the input, My goal is to put the majority of the focus on the character, I'm going to keep the background sort of dark so I'm hoping to draw the eye to Mary and her situation. I think your right Mary and her reflection seem like they are kind of like only small parts in their own painting. I'll experiment by zooming in and cropping it closer to the character. I think you got a pretty cool character idea coming together there. You may want to consider maybe bushing the hand down a bit. Kind of like this I think it looks a bit more natural and look a little more lithe and graceful.

Just rough paint over of what I was thinking.


@Ninsta
Yeah you nailed it on the head my thought was that the reflection itself feels sorry for Mary and some strange magic compels it to push itself through the mirror. At first I was thinking of making the reflection like a perfect version of Mary but I thought it would be more eerie to keep her disfigured. It is a horror theme after all.

My thinking is that the reflection is making an offer to Mary to come through the mirror where she can be a reflection of any beautiful women who looks in the mirror and but when her name is uttered three times while gazing into the mirror breaks the spell and her true form would show through. Some craziness I thought up when I was sketching. I hope you dig it.
I like how yours is coming along

[MrFrenik]

Cool stuff, guys! My WIP so far. Not sure if I'll add in the mirror or not, but I'd like to draw up orthos since I have the time.

[Havok Reed]

I'm glad to see more posts. I was beginning to wonder if people were still alive! Anyway, I will let you guys know by tomorrow if I extend the date another week because of all the bugs going on. In the mean time, I will be occupied by SC2: Heart of the Swarm I just bought it this morning. Don't worry though, I will still keep a close eye on the forum too :b

[NIZZY G]

Hey, missed the last couple of chows cos iv been really busy, anyway been having a mess around with this one and heres what iv got, given her a green nightgown style thing and made her trying to pull it off cos its too nice to be on someone so grotesque (her thoughts) also going to try and put her in an abandoned warehouse style room as if shes been trapped but thats just an idea. Any crits would be much appreciated

[Niam]

WIP 1 : P not very much so far
i just searched up third degree burns for reference ._. ,wrong move, I dont think i'll be sleeping tonight
thought it would be cool if she attacked people with a spear of broken mirror pieces

[Kafka Dreams]

Since it looks like the images from my last post have vanished I'm reposting that first wip along with the progress I've made

I haven't touched the beauty in the mirror and need to still do Bloody Mary's face and hands.
Pretty much just the walls and clothes have had any work done.

Wanted to show the depressed miserable disfigured Mary staring at a reflection so appealing she would be willing to crawl through glass to become it.

[taffyjones]

great topic liking the mix of genres coming through - not sure if ill get to do any more on this , pastasauca have you tried taking a reference photo of your hand , or draw it from life in the mirror ?

[Animare]

What I have so far.

[z0mbi]

pasta: thanks for the comments!

Figured I'd return the favor and give you my .2c on your problem. I'd pull the arm out a bit to strengthen the pose and the silhouette rather than have all of that business all up on top of each other. Should help with your cloth problems, too, having the arm not extended directly in front of her torso. A bit of a twist in the upper torso will also make the pose more appealing. When drawing cloth, make sure you draw the underlying structure, and then use that to guide you on how to drape the cloth over the volumes and where to put the wrinkles. On my paintover, I used the knees as a 'poking' point to guide the wrinkles around, and guided the direction of the wrinkles along the line of action. I'm not the greatest at cloth, either, but this seems to work well enough.

*edit- it just occurred to me your intention was probably to have her holding her hand out to the viewer, so in my paintover it may be too far off to convey that message. You can still have her holding her hand out to the viewer without it being dead flat facing the camera, though. Just offset it enough so where it's still giving you that message while also gaining some dynamics. In this case, I would probably have it lower, angled down, palm facing the camera, with fingers in a half-grasp with the index finger curling up, beckoning.

[z0mbi]

Having trouble posting.

*edit. Darn. Lost my crit.

Pasta, I wrote up a crit for you but it errored out. Here's my paintover anyway, trying to help you work some construction/pose stuff out.



*edit again: Ok, it worked that time. One thing I had noted (after I already did the paintover) is that perhaps you were trying to convey the character holding her hand out to the viewer? In which case, I probably jutted it out too far, but even so I would avoid pointing a limb directly flat dead on to the camera, especially if its going to be directly in front of the torso and a mass of wrinkles. Perhaps tilt it down a bit, and draw it palm-up toward the camera, in a beckoning pose.

*edit III: tried a little foreshortening. Hope this helps!

[z0mbi]

@ z0mbi - Like your cleanlines and the grotesqueness of her face, wish you the best of luck with your coloring. Um I'm trying to remember the website that's good for making pallets, like if there's a picture that you like the moodiness of the colors going on in it, it'll make you a color list. It's a bit easier to get your head around at first if you work with a set of colors when first coloring. I'll see if I can locate it for you.

Thanks for the PM you sent with that link. When it comes to color, I need all the help I can get.

[cumquat]

here's my progress so far. I started off with a sketch that I thought was too ugly, so I decided to reverse-engineer Bloody Mary. First I painted her as a lovely Gibson girl, then I f***** her up. I might not have time to color this for the deadline, but I wanted to share it with you guys.

The Fez - those are some great sketches. Hope you get to paint them up. That one on the left is looking particularly nice

zOmbi. Those sketches ! I love them. Great gesture and lines. Good luck with the color - I'm sure you'll do great. Can't wait to see the finished piece.

Niam - nice anatomy and subtle colors. Good start.

Taffyjones - those are some really interesting textures you're using. They're coming through very nicely on the skirt.

MrFrenik - that's looking really cool. Nice high-contrast stuff. Might I suggest distorting the pattern so it wraps around her dress a bit more ? Right now it's flattening your forms out a bit.

[Havok Reed]

haha, you guys make me laugh when you creep yourselves out with this by looking up references. This is good though! I'm sorry I find humor for the possible expense of your sleep.

[pastasauca]

Something_Abysmal and z0mbi, thanks so much for those paintovers!! They really made me see the character in a different way. I hope I can really improve it

I wanted to make her a bit of a larger girl, more like the kind of figure you'd see in a renaissance era painting, but there definitely needs to be more curvature to the outfit.

[ded]

nobody expects the bloody mary inquisition

[Appylon]

My First CHOW (first anything - actually) Woo!

Hey everyone, here are my WIP sketches trying to get an idea - nothing hitting me yet, don't know if I will have time to see this through to the end (<- disclaimer for being lazy). Some nice stuff happening already for a lot of you guys - cool to see your ideas developing and can't wait for your final pieces... Having some problems with a lot of broken images - but that seems to be the forum and not my crappy internet.

As expected there definitely is quite a few people here figuring out how to utilize the "mirror" theme. I'm trying to push a few different ideas I had for Bloody Mary, some she is ghastly - ripped out of Silent Hill, others I wanted to play with the idea of her losing her mind over something minimal like a little scar or something, though that might break the rules. I thought having a shimmering emerald green satin dress mixed with the blood red would be some cool painting practice, but It feels very Christmas-y in my head.

Nothing profoundly original which is why I'm bored with these sketches a bit...If anyone has any thoughts, let me know!

[ded]

update

[Sid Bane]

Did a little addition to the design, as well as changed the pose and such. I made her pose a bit more of a stereotypical flapper girl pose with the light coming from the mirror. Crits are welcome, and such.

[MrFrenik]

Another update.

[ded]

update

[Niam]

@cumquat -- thanks! watch out for her arm that's not dripping blood, according to her hand her arm should turn more outwards or bend further inside

yet i'm struggling with my own arms ._.
tiny tiny update >"<

[codeToad]

Appylon - Dig your forms! I opt for action. Upper right fig caught my eye.

[Havok Reed]

Ok, guys, I am going to extend this for another week. In the mean time, do your best to make things look right; you will have a lot more time now. And while you are all doing that, I am going to announce the next mod to help me out and get them up to speed on things. Again, if anyone is interested in helping with being a mod, find the thread that addresses the position and follow the instructions on how to apply!

Thanks again guys, and keep at it! Looking great so far.

[Thujon]

Been busy this week, but I came up with something new after my failed sexy mutation...

So this is what I got so far, I am quuuuuite unhappy with the static pose ( MrFrenik yours is adorable.... and the pose too )

Any crit woud help a lot!

Thx Havoc for the extented time... I will surely be able to color it this time... :-D

Really neat ideas here! WOW just WOW

[Heliux]

so far...a little too close to The Ring...I'll muss around with it. O_o

[z0mbi]

So this is what I got so far, I am quuuuuite unhappy with the static pose

Any crit woud help a lot!

I think it's fine for a character design pose if your intent was just to nail down costume and body details. If you were looking for more of a pose which conveys character and emotion instead of merely information, you should try to think of what she does, how does she attack people, how you would see her after calling her name in the mirror. Try to think of an emotional situation that she would be in, such as being summoned or about to kill her summoner, and imagine the pose from there. Think of an action you would want to see her doing, and sketch out some potential poses for that.

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Haven't done a Chow in forever, may not get to finish this but here's a wip.

Now Mary, she was the daughter of a 49er named Charles Worth. She was the cutest thing in Seven Falls, afore she had that accident. Fer, y'see she liked to go rid'n like all the menfolk, cause her ma died givin' birth an she was raised with just us men. She was kind 'n sweet, and could outshoot 'n outride most fellers around. Now we warned her not to go rid'n up the bald ridge by herself, but ole Mary was as stubborn as a unbroke mustang. Well, now she hit the top a that there ridge an the wind caught her scent an drug southwards. That Mary, though she loved to rough around an shoot her pistol, she was all lady, an she loved her perfume. Well, that perfume caught in the craw a this nasty ole bear we called Ironhide. Big as a boulder 'n twice as tough. Now Mary she was caught off guard by that big bastard an he knocked her from her pony sure as shoot'n. Well she was a thinker, so she pulled out that sixgun an started hammerin' his underbelly, but as I tole'ya ole Ironhide was tough as stone. So he swiped down on her like a big blue northern an cut her up woesome bad. But even bleed'n an half blind Mary had her wits 'bout her. When he came down after her again, she rolled to the side an stuck that six shooter under his muzzle, and fan'd her last three shots right through his head. Killed him dead away. By the time we got there, we thought she was a gonner, but she lived. Never was the same after that day, sad t'say. We broke all the mirrors in town, cept'n we couldn't break that clear babblin brook down by her pa's place. When her one good eye was healed up she went down by that stream and looked in, and oh did she go t'wailin. A power lonesome wail, like a banshee, an dove in she did, looking for her old self she used t'see in that clear stream. Now menfolk stay away from that place, cause'n you go 'round there you might see her glint'n in the water an she calls t'ya. And if you say her name, she springs up outta that crik an will kill you just like she got that big ole bear.

[z0mbi]

Think I'm finished with the inks. Time to attempt to tackle color

[ded]

update