After Hours

The figures are He-Man and his arch-enemy Skeletor from Masters of the Universe (figure 1), specifically the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon of the early 80s.
I initially tried basing the layout on the painting L’Absinthe by Edgar Degas in 1876 (figure 2). I couldn’t get this to work and was going to have the figures in two separate paintings when I stumbled across a still from the movie Jaws (figure 3) which was perfect. The scene is on Quint’s boat, the Orca, where Quint and Hooper drunkenly bond over stories of how they obtained their various scars.
I didn’t want the painting to be bright and colourful but to have the feel of a very old painting. Hence the absurdly over the top gold frame (thanks to @oliverandcoframing ). To help with this, I used the ‘Zorn palette’ which is just four colours: black, white, red, and yellow ochre. Anders Zorn was a Swedish painter who did incredible work with this. Figure 4 is his Self Portrait with Model, 1896.
There’s no blue or green in this palette, so possibly not the best choice for Skeletor who should have a blue body and a green skull. Sorry Skeletor.
There you have it.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.