Any Tips on Making Horror Art?

[Indigo]

I really want to get into making some horror art, finally. The thing is though, every time I try I am not good at making it though.  I love the genre so much for years, yet just attempting it feels like a challenge for me.

I did get some tips online researching on how to make some horror art from articles I have researched but to anyone out there that made some horror art in the past, please feel free to help me out with some tips of your own as well. I would liked to hear more horror artists and their experiences. Much appreciated.

[asahelix]

Draw him



Okay, but seriously. I've made a few "creepy" pieces in the past. Unfortunately, I'm not too great with art, but I think a good way to make your works look a lil spooky is if you use materials like charcoal (or at least imitate it) and limit your color schemes to mainly darker/gross colors. But if you drew that skeleton you'd be on the right track making some scary horror related art     

[Indigo]

Well bastard skellies were big in Army of Darkness so there's something there. hmm...

Lol. But thanks for the tips! I must remember that to help me with the drawings. I do love adding textures when drawing.

[orangecarnation]

obvs depends on what Kind of horror you're going for lol BUT if you're one to shade your art, i like giving My horror art some low moody lighting..  or sometimes kind of like flash photography in a dark place

but!!  the main thing.. is.. ..



..... to have fun and be yourself 

[Indigo]

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, I have been hearing mainly that learning anatomy is key to distorting it. (I should probably look into the anatomy books to really study it.) That's also true too, I really need to think about more what kind of horror I am going for.(Gosh I have to self reflect and learn about what horror scared me a lot as a kid now.)

[ValyceNegative]

Horror is a huge umbrella term for so many aesthetics, and while it is always a good idea to learn basics if you want to draw anything (anatomy, color theory, proportions, 3d shaping, perspective, values, even storytelling and directing if you wanna do comics!) remember that you can make a creepy/scary/disorienting pic with very little.

It all depends what specific genre of horror do you want to represent. You mentioned Army Of Darkness, so I can imagine you like the gorey maximalism of classic slasher movies and games. Jason, Freddy, Splatterhouse, and all that! I'd say it's the genre that most requires anatomy knowledge but also full of referencing for you to study on. There's a lot of beautiful movie posters, game covers and going back to Army Of Darkness, even fantasticly drawn comics you can take inspiration from!

Talking about comics, bear in mind that horror can also be parodistic, funny and slapstick at the same time. There's no need to limit yourself with dark palettes! I did plenty of horror-esque art that was full of bright and contrasting colours, their clash together gave the feeling of confusion and aggressivity.

However! You can also go to the opposite direction and think of horror as moody, atmospheric and lonely. I've seen a lot of horror-coded modern art that feature empty environments, dark halls, liminal spaces with looming shadows or bright bulbs of light as the only creature inside. Let the viewer imagine the monster rather than drawing it directly! X3

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

The very basic operation of horror media is, if I'm not mistaken, to take something homely, cozy, and to subvert it. It works very alike to surrealism in that manner, where the usual is only shifted a little bit to give some feeling of eeriness - the viewer needs to identify with the base setting to be lured in, but something should be slightly off.

This is why Alice is a popular basis for horror media: It does the first two steps for you by delivering a somewhat tilted image of childhood fantasies (Svankmajers Alice film is a great rendition, American McGees video game a less refined one). You will also find this within many Stephen King novels, that often start with descriptions of everyday scenes and childhood memories ("It"); the "Poltergeist"-Movies (and countless other "young family moves into a haunted house"-stories) are another rather clear example. Twisted, morbid children-drawings and songs are a very vulgar way to perform this, and are thus a typical sign of low-quality horror media (although these also appear sometimes within good works, but this is difficult to perform).

With this as a base, depending on how heavy your horror shall be, the grotesque, the morbid, and the macabre can enter the stage.

The grotesque works by directly subverting expectations: Rooms and body parts, or even concepts like logic or morale are of the wrong size, twisted, and/or distorted, but somehow still functioning in a perverted way. Cosmic horror or madhouse-type of horror often works this way.

Morbidity works by commemorating death and the concept of finiteness: Rotting cadavers, flesh, or body parts, corpses, graveyards - and again, this also works on a more abstract level: Decaying social structures, defunct families, environmental destruction. "Der Todesking" is a movie that does this absolutely masterfully.

The macabre utilizes one of the prior two concepts, but adds an ironic layer of humor: The killer who uses the remains of his victims as material for sculptures, or the ghost that plays deathly jokes to his victims.

From a quick reflection about it, I believe that these are the main concepts used to create "horror" - but using them without subverting the expectations will often result in rather boring pseudo-horror (a prime example of this, in my book, is the "SAW"-Series - gore, morbidity, and macabre - but everything goes as expected, resulting essentially in horror-pornography). Concepts like the mysterious or the thrill are related, and they go well along with horror, but they are basically discrete concepts, that can also work out independent from horror (and vice versa).

Basically, the subversion and the grotesque/morbid/macabre can be layered in different variations, and mixed in different extends - the mental ill daughter of the spooky wracked family that lives near might surprisingly turn out to be the ally of the protagonist, and later be shot by the cop who appeared helpful at start, but turns out to be the psychotic stalker of the protagonist from the very beginning.

Freuds "The Uncanny" might be a good read.

[Indigo]

I appreciate all the advices on this. Thanks very much you guys. I am starting to understand more now that horror is such a whole other skill I got to practice more of over time. This is going to take me awhile, oh boy. But I am willing to commit to this. I need to remember not to see this as a complicated thing(for the most part?)And just get back to my roots of having fun with spontaneous art again.