Deicide: Honours project

"Word spread quickly through the system when the body of a cosmic god was found. Things changed again when a living one was discovered. Humanity changed when they knew it could be killed."

My three paintings made for my honours project and the development of the project
This project is about creating very large, detailed, awe-inspiring, sci-fi paintings of dead celestial beings.
Their bodies like tombs, now home to colonies that harvest the rich resources gathered from their remains
Large and all in high detail (8k) these paintings are made to be seen as big as possible to be striking, intriguing, and 'awesome'.

Spear

Spine

Split

macro painting in context

the video showcasing the paintings. best viewed as big a possible at the highest quality.

initial ideas created at the beginning of the project

idea indicating the type of thing in wanted to do.

thumbnails for ideas for different angles or close ups for the consuming of the body

perspective from the city idea

idea for spear city

thought about using 3d for the reference as it is advantageous to have exact poses and lighting. however the photo reference is much more useful for the body, makes the paintings more real.

studies before starting the finals, just to practice and prove that I can do the final work

getting the body to look like part of the environment was an issue, so I made this test with a study to find how to do that.

construction ideas for what became Spear

construction ideas for what became Spine

construction ideas for what became Split

development of final paintings

Tint tests for Spine. I tried tinting the reference blue and painting that. But I decided it looked more natural to paint it in natural colours then tint the painting after.

I found a 3D skull to use as reference and posed it in Blender.

I had decided that showing the muscle was perhaps a bit too gory so chose to do just the eye.

I didn’t really like the way my initial city was going. I wanted it to be denser with more depth so you can see the layers of the city receding. 3D models in Dreams for each of the sections. This was good reference for the distance fog and lighting.

with the 3D for reference I was able to paint something that was closer to my idea. with the refrence it was quicker an I was using similar layering techniques I had learned in spine.

I tried a lot of things to create the backgrounds, different brushes, different mixing, smudging, mixed media and different star fields. I ended up with images inspired mostly by ‘No man’s sky’

cover image for Degree show