Welcome to the second day of Gothtober! Today’s piece is by The Thomas Family!
C. Thomas (spawn of both H. and R. Thomas) has appeared in Gothtober before, including on day two last year where their art was part of “Haunted Truck Stop Foods” (Is there a truck stop food that isn’t at least a little bit haunted? I submit to you that there is not.), and on day 2 in 2019 with a sweet little animation about the paranormal. Now 16, C. Thomas is rarely seen without their sketchbook and sells art commissions on Discord and ToyHouse.
Though they often appear with their family – her mom, H. Thomas, is the sister of Cristin Pescosolido, Gothtober’s High Priestess of Web – C is solo this year with drawings of Danny from The Shining as a dragon, and the hotel in that film, done in MS Paint with an old Wacom tablet.
“MS Paint can be both fun and challenging due to the limited tools and single layer: it forces one to think ahead about the placement of shapes and shadows, and mistakes either have to stay or be erased,”
C. Thomas says. “Construction lines are limited for me, I don’t want to go back and erase them. Usually I start straight in the line art with pencil tool (using bucket to fill in), or straight with colors for other brushes (putting line art on top).”
“Dragon Danny was created with the calligraphy brush. I used the bucket tool to color large areas, but had to go back and fill in a pixelated border where off-white was not colored. I made the hotel with the pencil tool, which is more bucket tool friendly (does not leave a pixelated border when filled in, and overall looks crisper). That was fun because I got to make mid-tones, making squiggly shapes and filling them in. The mountain and snow shading are inspired by multiple line-less vector art pieces.”
Happy Gothtober day two and may the only Sunday scaries you experience be The Shining-related.