The forty-sixth skull!
Skull 46
Crocodile skull! I had originally planned on painting a little pocketwatch tied around it’s snout or something like that, but decided against it 😉 However, I do really like how the swamp part turned out, which was also something I had planned, so hooray!
It might be amusing to watch the video for this one, because there was a long time where I was using a black-and-white reference for the general shape and didn’t realize that I had made a mistake until I had to get up and copy over some video. I was standing back from the painting a bit, thinking “wait… why is the jaw so large on the back (further) side but there’s nothing holding it up on the front (closer) side?… oh… ohhhhhh.” Check your references more often, folks 😉
Another helpful painting tip that I’ve used a lot is “paint in the direction of motion” – meaning, if the bone is curving to the right, paint that way. It’s tempting to paint in other directions because it’s easier or smoother, but if you paint in the same direction as the bone curves, or the skin curves, or the fabric folds, then you won’t get as sharp of lines. Now, you can certainly break this “rule” to great effect, but it’s very helpful when you’re trying to figure out why something doesn’t look right. Does the fold of your eye come down or across (left-to-right) your eye? It’s “easier” to paint from left to right, but it might work better and look more realistic if you’re drawing or painting up and down, with a slight curve. I’m not sure I can explain this well; maybe someday I’ll make a tiny video where I show exactly what I mean. Let me know if you’d like to see something like that 🙂
Video
Music: “Come on In” by Silent Partner
Spooky Film: Today’s spooky film of the day is “Tremors” – it doesn’t even matter which one, they’re all good fun, hehehe 😉