DOOM Eternal: Demon saw blades
Made with love
My partner’s absolute favorite game series happens to be DOOM. After endlessly talking to me about the mastery of DOOM: Eternal, I decided that for his birthday I’d make some badass art for him and our home’s gaming den. Having never played DOOM myself, I did a bit of searching to figure out what creatures from DOOM were some of the most iconic. I already had an idea that I’d paint the demons on sawblades since my partner also would go on and on about the amazing metal soundtrack of the game.
I bought a pair of cheap 12” saws from Amazon and traced the outline onto paper so I could make sure the positioning of my sketches would work. Then I did some rough sketches of the cyberdemon and the cacodemon, along with some notes for color.
A 7-year curse
Then I used some old spray paint I had lying around and painted both sides of the saws black. Once that dried, I used a magenta spray paint in a circular motion to create a nice gradient effect. Once that was dried, I used a white charcoal pencil to transfer my sketches onto the saws. This is where I got a little nervous. It had been a solid 7 years since I had painted with a paintbrush. Previously, every time I attempted to create some art before, I’d stop right before actually applying any brushstrokes. At first it was because of lack of time, but then it had become a crippling anxiety of having lost so much time. I was worried that I’d forgotten how to paint with traditional mediums and was afraid of what would happen if I made an attempt and failed.
A PACT IN BLOOD
While at first I had to make tons of color corrections, eventually I got back into the rhythm of things. I joke that I had to make a blood pact with demons to break my curse since I had cut my hand a few times on the saw blades. With each layer I found myself using muscle memory and becoming braver and braver at correcting mistakes. I also had to adjust values and contrast to make sure that the saws worked together as a pair.
After the paintings were finished, I sealed both saws with polycrylic. While, I did stray a bit from my original vision with color, I feel extremely proud of having completed these in a week in time for my partner’s birthday.