A public dumping ground for words and pictures. Contact me at ThomasTamblyn@Gmail.com

Friday 17 February 2012

Lots of things I don't like about these. I didn't exactly rush them, but I forced myself to keep moving rather than dwelling and fixing because I worried I'd abandon them before I got them looking good.

So first, the things I do like:

The name. "Bloaters" is so perfect I'm surprised it's not been used before - slang for their fatness but also what can happen to a corpse after death. The patterns of ... lividity maybe? The patterns around their tumescent growths are cute and evocative of their deadness. To a lesser extent the blotchiness around the gaping wounds, though I worry that two different patterns of the same colour is too much fussy detail. And #3's hair. Patchy hair is something I've not done before. Finally, those cute stubby little legs.


Things I don't like

The way #2 looks like an apple core. I went overboard with the gaping wounds there but it wasn't entirely apparent until after colouring. Could probably lose the rightmost and shrink the centre one. As is it looks like his bottom half is pulling away from his torso, which isn't what I wanted. And a bit too gross besides.

Lack of swappable detail. it's heads and bodies only. I suppose the torn trouser patterns are unique too, but nobody but me will ever notice those. I'd like to have had two sets of detail on each body - chest and belly maybe.

The detail inside the wounds. Did not know what I was doing there. #1's is brainish and #3 is gutsish, but I think that's trying too hard for this style. Something less distinct would be more suitable. I need to play around and come up with something that looks suitably stylised and evocative. #2's blobby mess isn't doing it for me either.

Their wrists. I've taken them a step too far from being stick-men. The arms should have slimmed down to lines before they reached the hands. It's important to stay away from the awkward middle ground between stylised and explicit.

Finally, identity. I didn't decide what I was drawing other than "fat zombie" and so they're all over the place in character. The wounds imply fantasy necromantic zombies, but the infected blobs imply disease zombies. They might make good surgical zombies if I swapped out the blobs and wounds for stitches and patchwork. Lots of lovely space for that sort of detail. Maybe give them fuses and have them be walking bombs. Possibilities.

Not sure if I even want to do traditional necromantic undead as a theme. It's so very tired. I like the way I have things at the moment where zombies and the undead crop up as part of some other themes. I do have a funky liche WIP I mean to come back to, but he's not enough to hang a theme on. Also skeletons are crazy-hard to do when even the living are stick men.

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