Thought I’d use my blog for something a bit more interesting than a bragging platform today by sharing some of the behind the scenes work I do and hopefully offer some tips to folk who are wanting to paint or get into building something alien or Giger themed.
Before I start there’s a few caveats with this, I’m no expert and what I do isn’t necessarily the right way, it’s just the best way I’ve found to get the effect I’m after.
To help things along I’ve created a BTS video below to give context. This Piece is called “The Chaos Engine”
Your project may differ, it may be a 3d print or a model you’ve decided to have a go at, what ever the subject matter you should definitely have an idea of the scheme and finish you want to achieve so my hot tip here is to use reference material.
Reference Material
Theres tons of reference material online for this but generally I try to stick close to what Giger did and the guys who painted the original suits did.
I think most people make the mistake of thinking it’s just a case of painting a Xenomorph black and silver or blue and silver but theres a bit more going on.
take a look at the reference photos I tend to use, I’ve ran them through a colour palette app (palette republic)
These apps are great for looking at the colour gradients help loads when choosing paints especially when your working to get a mood.
You’ll notice that these gradients actually go from black through to browns, then from grey to yellow.
This is more prominent in Alien 3 & resurrection thanks to the amber/browns that run the through the cinematography and lighting.
Choosing Colours and Painting the Xenomorph
So for the Chaos machine I used a mixture of acrylics, I’m not tied to a brand but all paints are not created the same it may take a while to find ones you like working with.
I work in layers so first I spray everything black and then dry brush each layer in this order:
Burnt umber
Raw Umber
Burnt Sienna
Raw Sienna
Yellow Ochre
As you start to work each layer, make sure you choose a direction the light is coming from and dry brush in that direction.
This gives us a base, you can vary between the amount on each layer here so if you want the Xeno more brownish go heavy with the siennas, if you want darker go lighter on the siennas, youre just using the ochre to highlight things.
Details and Finish
Theres 2 things I like to do at this stage, a black wash over the whole thing. use this gently as you over do it!
what your trying to do with this part is to let the black pigment fall into cracks, when this dries it will give definition and make the colours pop.
I used to use a watered down black acrylic over the whole thing but recently I’ve been using Citedel black nuln oil sparingly.
Once this is dry I’ll go back over highlights with the ochre, the black wash darkens everything so it takes a bit of practice to know where and when to use it. I even added white to the dome of this guy to bring out the highlights even further.
This time lapse on another Xeno demonstrated this method.
Heres some pics of the finished Chaos Engine, hopefully this should help illustrate what I’m saying here.
So let me know if this has been helpful, it’s very much a whistle stop tour but Ill try and do more like these In the future.
It would really help me if you tell me what bits helped or what areas you want to know more about.
You can do this in the comments or just keep in touch on social media @demonhousedesign.
all the best
Steve