The third entry in the Five Night's at Freddy's series released on Steam on the 2nd of March, 2015. I painted this to celebrate the game's second anniversary! It took two days, about ten hours in total, roughly. I have to say that I really enjoy painting dark, dramatic lighting like this, though it can be difficult to pull off in watercolour, and had a lot of fun with this one.
I can't believe it's been two years already! Time's flown, and what a ride it's been! Thank you Scott for this game series through which I've met so many friends, which inspired me to finally start putting my art out there and start writing a story I can stick with. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with the series from now on, as well as any other games you make. Thank you!
Progress
I always start out with a very loose, rough base sketch in 2H pencil, blocking in the initial basic shapes. I don't use any grids or other techniques for accuracy, preferring instead to 'eyeball' my references and just roughly sketch things out and move them around until they look right. I then start to refine the shapes and add details in HB. I use a fine point mechanical pencil for this step. For watercolour paintings, it's rare for me to use darker pencil than HB.
Once I was happy with the sketch, I decided to ink in parts that would be black to save me time later. When painting I generally use ink for any areas that will be 100% black, as building up dark tones with watercolour can be labour intensive. I then put in all the highlights from the candle where the light will touch. Even as I layered other colours over the top of these sections later, they showed through and gave the lit areas the characteristic warmth of candlelight. Watercolours are transparent so this sort of layering is important to the look of the final piece!
I painted in Springtrap's characteristic sickly green, again, because it's important to the final look. Not much of this shows in the final piece but it wouldn't look quite right without it. I added some very basic shadows in the same green, then started to add the orange tones of the light and purple shadows. This layering of colours is called 'glazing.' Also note the bulldog clips I used to stop the page from moving and keep buckled paper to a minimum!
This stage of the piece was almost entirely painting in the shadows, steadily working darker and darker. This part was the most time consuming. Because of the transparency of most watercolours, building up dark tones can take some time without being heavy-handed with black paint. I also added the pink of the cupcake at this stage, then painted the background in black ink. After this came final detailing, a deeper red on the wires, and highlights and sparks in white ink tinted with orange.
Media
Stilman and Birn Gamma Series journal
Liquitex black ink
Pencils, Faber-Castell 9000 2H, mechanical pencil with 0.5mm HB lead
Windsor and Newton Cotman watercolours
Five Star white Indian ink
Faber-Castell PITT artist pens
I hope you found this breakdown useful! If you like my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon or Redbubble! Prints of this piece are available for sale.