Unfinished Masterpiece: The Mad Painter

My entry for the Unfinished Masterpiece competition from Concept101.

I had a few ideas brainstorming for this brief and this is the one I decided to go for.
Here is a quick draft I wrote to get the juices flowing:

An easel is seen in the foreground with paints and pots. The painting is unfinished. The posing Victorian era family seem to have uncanny expressions and poses. They look stiff and their mouths are open. A tear is falling down the cheek of a character. One character is dead and discoloured grey. The mad painter is seen adjusting the pose of one of the victims adjusting the hair using his brush while holding his dagger behind his back. This victim is wincing looking down trying not to flinch. Multiple canvases of different families cover the walls and stacks of canvases are leaning on the walls and on the floor.
Inspo: Jack the ripper, mtg blood artist. Sinister, Madness. 1900s

From this idea I gathered some reference images from Pinterest. Notably I looked at Francis Bacon for his raw and chaotic paintings that would fit the mad painters style. I also found an image of his studio that is incredibly messy and chaotic! I found some 1800/1900s inspired art studio images as well as family photos from this era. I threw in Edgar Aleen Poe and a cosmic horror image to see if I wanted to go in that direction.

Next I opened Blender and created a quick 3D mock-up of the scene with the painter character and his victims.
I decided at this stage to have only 2 other characters due to time constraints as well as avoiding balancing a big cast of characters.
The original idea of the painter adjusting a victims pose with a knife behind his back meant his face wouldn't be facing the camera.
I decided to go with the last comp with the palette facing downwards with the painter looking over his shoulder at the camera.

Next I took this render into Krita and started painting on top while trying to figure out the mad painters face.
This stage took many variations trying different facial hair, hair colour, and overall face shapes.
I ended up going for a face this resembles Poe. I thought this was quite fitting for a horror character.
I went back to Blender as I wanted to change the background render to add some paint pots and books and also to change the some other bits of scenery. This process is super quick and would save me a lot of time if I had to draw it instead.

I also started to figure out what the mad painter sees when he is applying paint to the canvas from a storytelling perspective.
This gave me the idea that he could actually see beyond the veil at cosmic horrors or he is just mad or maybe both! That's up to the viewer to decide which I thought was engaging for the audience.

This also enriches the storytelling when you look at the other paintings on the wall, you notice he has painted other portraits of people. Suggesting this is not his first batch of victims. I also added some cosmic horror influences to the paintings such as the King in Yellow and classic tentacles implying he's encountered some cosmic entities.

He paints all of his human characters with their eyes scratched out.
I developed this theme further with eyeballs that feed of them depicted in his current painting.
The mad painter can be seen with a awkward smile and his eyes wide open while crying.
Maybe he is compelled against his will to paint these images and is looking for relief from the madness.

The two victims are newlyweds that must of hired him for a portrait to celebrate the special occasion.
I like the idea that they kept fidgeting during the session which drove the painter even more insane.
Something other artists can relate to when drawing from life.
The couple must of been hesitant seeing the unkempt studio and unsettling paintings on the walls, so the painter must went to the extreme to keep them still. Maybe a cosmic being lent a hand and fried their brains instead or maybe the painter patrols the streets like Jack the Ripper and actively hunts for his next muse to paint.

I'm really happy with how this piece turned out and I hope that the theme of unfinished masterpiece translates well.
I wanted to push my storytelling skills and so I fleshed out the story for this challenge.
Also painting an extra 10 images just to put on the walls of this piece felt quite difficult but I hope this helped the final painting!

Thanks for reading this and I hope you get an idea of my thought process.