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One
of my favorite movies of all time is Francis Ford Coppola’s
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. This version is faithful to Stoker’s
source material in many respects, yet it takes various liberties
with the story of Dracula. Coppola’s operatic vision has
polarized many a Dracula fan, yet none could argue that stylistically
it is superior to any other filmed version to date.
As
an artist I was blown away by its stunning visual images, enough
so to overlook the films minor flaws. While I would have preferred
Coppola to stick with the physical description of Dracula for
accuracy, I found that the multiple character designs for Dracula
were exciting and thought provoking. They decided to give the
Old Dracula an Asian/Islamic influence in his dress to reflect
the influences he would have experienced in that part or the world,
torn between the Islamic Turks and the Christian Romanians.
One
of the greatest things about our hobby is that many artists create
kits and busts of their favorite movie characters, and luckily
for myself, there are many Bram Stoker’s Dracula fans. I
have tried to collect any bust or figure based on this film, and
many have been released. One of the best is a 1/3 scale bust of
the Old Dracula released by EFX Planet. The likeness is excellent,
and the larger scaled head allows a more detailed paint job than
many of its counterparts. I’ve demonstrated many techniques
for airbrushing skintones before, but this bust gives me the perfect
subject matter for painting pale, aged skin.
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One: To begin, I scraped any molding seamlines that were visible
and sanded and filled any imperfections in the casting. Once the
kit was prepped, I washed it with hot water and soap to remove any
molding residue. After the bust had dried, I sprayed it with a couple
of coats of light Gray sandable automotive primer to prepare the
surface for painting. Priming gives the smooth resin surface some
“tooth” for the paint to adhere to. |
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Two: Looking at the film for reference, I took note of Gary Oldman’s
makeup as the elder Dracula. He had a very pale, delicate skintone,
almost white with translucent tones and age spots. I wanted to try
to achieve the same look on my resin bust by airbrushing layers
of color and tones over the surface for a realistic effect. For
the first color, I use a pale beige flesh tone mixed with Liquitex
Unbleached Titanium White (a beige color) and a touch of Raw Siena
(a yellowish brown). I thinned the paints with airbrush thinner
(you can use a professional airbrush paint thinner such as Polly-S
if you can find it, or another alternative is to purchase a gallon
jug of blue windshield washer fluid from your local auto parts store,
and thin it to a ratio of approximately 2 parts fluid to one part
water. It’s a great and cost-effective substitute!) and sprayed
the color in an irregular “noodle” pattern over the skin
surface. I allow the Gray color of the automotive primer to show
through a bit, making it part of the skintone. |
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3: Here I’ve added a second skintone using my basic flesh recipe
of Raw Siena, Burnt Siena (a reddish Brown) and Titanium White.
I’ve added a lot more white than normal to get a very light
skintone. Taking my Badger Sotar 20/20 airbrush, I “noodle”
this color on top of the others. At this stage, I’m not following
the sculptural details of the face, I’m just giving the skin
an overall coloring with the paints. By spraying the paints in this
fashion you break up the skintones into an organic visual presence
instead of flat shaded planes of color. |
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4: Here I’ve added another skintone, a bit warmer by adding
a touch of Red Oxide (a rust red) to the basic flesh color and noodled
it a bit more sparingly than the other colors. I add a bit more
of the color to the ear lobes and around the eyes. |
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5: Now I want to add some veining to the skin to give it a realistic
parchment paper thin aged look. I take Freak Flex “Pink Eye
Burgundy” and spray fine, irregular lines to mimic arteries.
I don’t want to overdo the arteries, but I render more than
I normally would since I’ll be covering over many of them with
more paint. |
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6: In close-up shots in the film, you can see that Dracula has age
spots in his skin. To refect this look, I use a mixture of my medium
flesh color and add Burnt Umber (a dark chocolate brown) to deepen
the shade and spray faint spots across his forehead and around the
facial area. Again, be subtle with the spots, you don’t want
to give Dracula the Chicken Pox! |
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7: To blend all these colors together into a realistic aged skin
effect, I noodle my original skintone over some of the details,
the arteries, spots and so forth to make them appear to lay below
the surface of the skin. I also mist my lightest flesh color sparingly
over the surface to tie everything together. |
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8: To shade the details of the face I turn to Chalk Pastels. I take
Reddish Brown, Dark Brown and Medium Gray pastel sticks and rub
them on course sandpaper to make a powdered pigment. I then use
soft bristle brushes to apply the powders to the face, much in the
same way you would apply makeup. I deepen the shading under the
brows with gray and dark brown, and I add a bit more reddish brown
tones under the eyes. I shade the folds of the skin and ears with
the reddish browns and warm up the area where the hair meets the
skin around the forehead. I also basecoated the hair a pale off-white
(Liquitex Titanium White, Raw Siena, and a touch of Payne’s
Gray) to study the contrast between the skintones and the hair.
I liked what I saw, so I sealed the bust with a couple of coats
of Testor’s Dull Coat, a flat lacquer, to protect the work
done to this point. |
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9: In this photo I’ve drybrushed lighter shades of off-white
to white on the hair for highlights, and I’ve painted the eyes
off-white with blue irises and black pupils. I also cut in an edge
between Dracula’s robe and his neck with Liquitex Cadmium Red
Medium (a bright tomato red) and painted his tunic off white as
well. |
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10: At this point, while I could paint it by hand, it’s going
to be easier to airbrush the tunic for a smoother finish. I use
liquid latex moldbuilder (available at most arts and crafts stores
like Michael’s or JoAnn’s) to mask off the skin, hair
and tunic from the red overspray. I brush around two coats of latex
and allow it to completely dry. |
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11: In this photo, I’ve sprayed a basecoat of Cadmium Red and
shaded it with a slightly darker red in the folds of the fabric.
In the film, Dracula’s robe is a red satin material. To achieve
this effect, I spray a light coat of Liquitex Interference Red paint
over the robe. Interference paints are a clear paint gel with iridescent
pigments added. when it dries you are left with a transparent iridescent
sheen to the surface like fish scales or satin. When you combine
Interference paints over shaded clothing areas, it can look very
convincing as a satin effect. I sealed the satin clothing with Testor’s
Satin Gloss clearcoat to protect the finish. Don’t seal with
a flat coat or the iridescence will fade away. |
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12: After the robe has dried, I peel away the latex mask. If the
mask sticks or begins to pull up your paint, precut the edge with
an x-acto knife for a clean edge. It also helps to peel the mask
away from the painted edge as opposed to towards it. |
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13: For the final touches, I give Dracula his bloodshot eyes by
adding a couple of washes of Raw Siena and Red Oxide over the eyes
and sealing them with Testor’s bottled Gloss coat. I used a
close-up photo of Dracula’s robe from a book about the film
(Bram Stoker’s Dracula- The Film and the Legend by Francis
Ford Coppola and James V. Hart, Newmarket Press, 1992) for reference
and painted the embroidered dragons with Testor’s Gold enamel
paint (I cheated them over proportionally so more of the pattern
would show on the bust.) Finally, I painted the base a light tannish
gray stone color and drybrushed various shades over the stone textures
for an aged stone effect. |
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Finished
Shots: Painting this bust was relatively easy and the effect of
the aged skin gives Dracula a lifelike appearance. This is a beautiful
bust, and I highly recommend it to fans of the film. After looking
at this piece for a few weeks I decided it would be cool to add
real hair to the bust for an even more realistic appearance. I
documented this step for the next installment of my videotape
series, Modelmania™ Five (almost done and coming soon I promise!!!)
If
you want to order Old Dracula, contact EFX Planet at: www.efxplanet.com
for more information. To learn more about the noodling airbrush
techniques and pastels mentioned in this article, I covered them
in depth on Modelmania™ Volume Four, available elsewhere on
this site. This is a great bust, perfect for stretching your modeling
skills, check it out for yourself, and I’ll see you again in
the pages of AFM! |
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