Final Girls & Cinema Survivors

A year or so ago, I got the urge to make a series of paintings that commemorated some of the most iconic 'final girls' in the horror genre. I was unfortunately in the midst of working on other time-sensitive projects, so I drew a couple thumbnail sketches and filed it away for a later time. I had completely forgotten about the idea when I rediscovered the sketches months later, and decided to try and tackle a "just-for-fun" painting of one of my favourite final girls: Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise.

While experimenting with designs, I ultimately landed on a layout that would allow me to pit antagonist and protagonist side-by-side, while also allowing me to feature the weapon that was best associated with the film.

The result was the first in the series.

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors I: Sidney Prescott

When I released the image online, I was overwhelmed by the response and how much people seemed to really enjoy the concept. It made me instantly want to go and paint a second one: Laurie Strode from my favourite horror franchise of all time: Halloween.

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors II: Laurie Strode

With two down, I started to come up with a list of all the horror heroes I wanted to tackle. The first draft of the list was enormous - it totaled over 30 films, and I knew it was just the beginning. I started painting more and more of them in my off-time and sharing them across my social media pages.

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors III: Loraine Warren

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors IV: Nancy Thompson

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors V: Regan MacNeil

It was around this time that I realized that I didn't want to exclusively only feature final girls, but I wanted to commemorate heroes from sci-fi and action films as well. So midway through the series, I re-titled and re-defined it. It was now:

FINAL GIRLS AND CINEMA SURVIVORS

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors VI: Kirsty Cotton

The film "Phantasm" has always been a favourite of mine, especially growing up. With the recent passing of Angus Scrimm (The Tall Man) I wanted to make sure that the final product really reflected the fantasy and magic that I've always felt while watching it.

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors VII: Mike

A peak at the initial pencils for the eighth piece in the series

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors VIII: Ellen Ripley

Recently, I got the desire to tackle entire film franchises in this style. My current project is creating a painting for each of the Friday the 13th films. At this point I've got the first two finished, with plans to work my way through them all.

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors IX: Alice

Penciled layout for the tenth painting

The second step - rendering the piece in black and white before finalizing colour

Final Girls & Cinema Survivors X: Ginny

I still work at fine-tuning the overall style, but for me that's part of the process and a lot of the fun. It's been a wonderful experience doing these, and I'm just so thrilled at how much people seem to enjoy them.