Happy Halloween Everybody!

I just wanted to say Happy Halloween to all. And for my final post, here's a few little cartoons. Thanks to Caffeinated Joe, for turning me on the this Felix cartoon!

I hope you all have a wonderful time!

A little bit of Halloween Music...

Hey all!! This will be one of the last posts that I make for this month. I didn't get nearly as much done as I had planned, and now Halloween is upon me! I think that I may have come up with a plan to make next year's countdown go more smoothly, and have more frequent posts. Yes, I'm already thinking about Countdown to Halloween 2012! Today I will be carving some pumpkins with my siblings and then watching The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror later this evening. Before all that, let's set the mood shall we? How 'bout a little Halloween music?

First up, a podcast I've been listening to for awhile now, 'Music From 100 Years Ago' with host Brice Fuqua. Here's a link to all of the Halloween shows (and one called Autumn Songs). Also he has a short podcast featuring Berlioz 'Witches' Sabbath'. I enjoy listening to this show, not just on Halloween, but on other holidays as well. And throughout the year.

Next, one of my favorite new artists that I discovered earlier this year, Zack Bellissimo, has been posting his own Halloween mixes on his blog, Snaggle Toothsalad. Each volume is illustrated with Bellissimo's super art and as of yesterday (Sat. 29), he's posted 11 volumes. Maybe he's going for 13? Anyway, I'm a big fan of his work and I had originally planned to do a post about him in an 'Artists I Love' feature, which is something I did in my 2009 countdown. But I've been busy at other things. I will say that I love his art and you should check out his work. Go get some of his Halloween mixes or at least go look at the great covers. Here are 3 of my favorites he's posted this month.

Well, I'm off to do some pumpkin carving. I'll have a post prepared for tomorrow, as a final farewell to October *sniff*. Also have to figure out what I'm going to wear tomorrow. Ack!

Halloween Cat & Jack

This is one of my favorite new pieces that I made this year. I also did two versions. An 'old paper' style (which ended up being very subtle), and the regular clean version. I couldn't decide which one I liked best, so I just decided to post both.

Autumnal Skull

Hey Everyone! Here's a little skull piece I've been working on. I've come down with flu or something, so I don't know how much more original art will be posted. I've got one other piece that's finished and a few sketches I was hoping to get done. I had planned to make a new costume this year for Halloween, but it looks like I may have to pull out some old thing from the closet.

Posting this skull is also a good time to issue a reminder: Lost Skeleton Tribute coming soon!! Don't forget! It's going to begin on Nov. 5 and run for two weeks. So get me your skelly stuff!!

Boo Berry 2011

For the past few days, we've had the most amazing fall days here. Clear blue skies, mild temperatures, very breezy with the most beautiful fall leaves you could ever see. I've been trying to embrace these fleeting moments, because I know it will be over way too soon. Much like this month. Jeez, where has all the time gone? October is half over!

Anyway, I finally finished up my Boo Berry piece and thought that today was a good day to post it. These fantastic autumn days have been giving me flashbacks to my childhood. I remember on Saturdays like these, getting up and watching cartoons, eating a big bowl of sugary cereal, and then going outside to play all afternoon. Ah, the good ol' days.

Two years ago I drew Count Chocula for the Monster Cereal blog's fan art month. (I'm disappointed to report that the Monster Cereal's blog is no longer available. It was a fun site with all things Monster Cereal related.) I decided that I wanted to do my version of Boo Berry this year. He doesn't necessarily 'go with' my old Count piece, although I suppose he could. One year I'll try to take on all three characters at once and in the same style. My new Boo Berry borrows heavily from the actor, Peter Lorre, who undoubtedly was the inspiration for the original character in the first place.

In addition here's the first ever Boo Berry commercial:

Also: To those of you who may have been worried that I might have Monster Cereal deficiency, never you mind. I've been eating it for the past two weeks!

Oooh! New Pumpkin Spice Marshmallows!

So I happened to be at Wal-Mart this week and I just happened to see these:

At first I thought 'neat', but I wasn't going to buy them. But then I thought, what the heck, I'll try them out. They're pretty good as far as pumpkin spice flavored food goes. The taste is mild, not too overwhelming, which is nice. But be warned, you might get choked:

Although I must say, I was not seated, nor supervised during said marshmallow tasting. In addition to the 'choking warning' there's a handy little 'Tips & Ideas' feature. Here's some other things you can do with these new mallows.

I already had the idea that I would have some hot chocolate with these, but it is actually one of the suggestions. Still taste just like marshmallows, but with a hint of spice.

I also made microwave s'mores, but the pics didn't turn out. Those were okay. the mild spice of the mallows is kind of lost in the chocolate & graham crackers.

So I like these new flavored mallows. I'm even thinking that I might make some Rice Krispy bars with them.

Me & the husband went out to the movies this afternoon to see 'Captain America'. The theater was all decorated for Halloween and on the way out I took this shot:

When I took it I thought there was too much glare and that it wouldn't be a good photo. There is a lot of glare, but I like that in that glare, you can see the reflection of the fall trees. And that ghoul's face and the fall leaves are both the same mixture of red & green. I thought it was pretty cool. I'll have more original Halloween art coming soon! Keep a look out!

Time for a Witchy Re-Pulp

I contributed to the 'Re-Pulped' blog again. I found this witchy cover and thought it would be perfect for Halloween.

Horror Cons & Things

For the past three years or so, I've been doing commission work for a gentleman who lives in Florida. He goes to multiple conventions during the year, but the big one is Spooky Empire. That's the one I've consistently done pieces for. Every time he goes, I ask him to try to get photos of the people I've drawn, holding the art. So here's some of the photos from this year's event:

Alex from 'A Clockwork Orange'

And the man himself, Malcolm McDowell:

I don't know if you know how much this photo, thrills me, but it does. A great deal. I'd been thinking about doing an Alex piece for awhile (since the summer). This was the perfect opportunity for me to get it done. I was happy with the way this piece came out.

Then there was Butch Patrick as Eddie Munster:

Neat, eh? Drawing Eddie made me want to draw the other characters. And get The Munsters box set. Maybe I can make that happen before Halloween.

If you've been following the blog for a while, you've probably already seen the Herbert West 'Re-Animator' piece I did awhile back. Well, I sent along a print of this piece since Jeffery Combs was going to be there.

And I THOUGHT that I had posted my piece of little Damien from 'The Omen', but I can't seem to find it here on the blog. I'll have to try to post it some other time. I'm a huge fan of the original Omen, it's one of my favorite horror films. Here's Harvey Stephens, the original Damien.

On the same topic of conventions, last weekend I attended my first 'Horror Con'. I've been to conventions before; some comic book conventions, Wonderfest, Dragon Con. But I've never been to a convention that was just for Horror. I've always wondered what it would be like to go to a 'Horrorhound Weekend', Rue Morgue's 'Festival of Fear' or even 'Spooky Empire'. Well, my first experience was not all that eventful. I had planned on blogging about my trip last weekend, but there really wasn't that much to write about. I was there for about an hour and a half. It was late in the afternoon on Saturday and there weren't very many people there. I went to see Sid Haig do a Q&A, and none of my photos of him turned out. I met PJ Soles, and she was super, super nice! But the big highlight of the trip was meeting Ogre of the band Skinny Puppy. I'm a fan. I started listening to SP when I was 19, so I took along my vinyl copy of 'Rabies' to be signed. Here's some old photos of Skinny Puppy & Ogre.

And here's a more recent photo from an interview with him in Auxiliary Magazine.

And then there's this. *sigh*

Look at my face. Total goober going ga-ga! He was really nice. I could have fainted.

Ogre has appeared in two horror related films, 'Repo! The Genetic Opera' (2008) & 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams (2010).

Random things for a Saturday night...

I've been busy yesterday & today working on an upcoming project and some more original Halloween Drawings to post here this month. So before I let another day slip by, I wanted to do a post. First, here's some little doodles:

And, I wanted to share this, because I was so excited about it.

I went to visit my mother and she brought out my old Fisher Price viewer. I hadn't thought about that in forever and I had no idea that she still had it. The first thing I wanted to know was 'Do we still have the Lonesome Ghosts cartridge?' And YES! It was in a large ziplock bag, along with all of my other films. I used to have a movie viewer that had a little monitor, in addition to the hand held. But that thing is long gone. Strangely enough, I found someone who posted a youtube video of this reel, so I thought I would share it with you.

Prof. Owl and the Haunted Tree Stump

Hey everyone! Here's a new Halloween piece that I did for the countdown. Hope ya'll like it! As you can see by this piece and the banner for this year, I'm obsessed with this color palette.

I also wanted to mention that I work long hours Mon-Fri, so I'm not always able to reply to comments right away. But I do really appreciate you fine ladies & gentlemen, taking time to make them. I'll be doing my best to make pre-scheduled posts on the days that I'm working. I did well to get a Mon-Tues post in this week, but I missed Wednesday. I'll also be trying to catch up on reading all the other blogs that are pumping out some amazing content for Halloween!

Ideals Thanksgiving Magazine 1967

These are some Halloween images from 'Ideals Thanksgiving' magazine from 1967. Even though these are called 'Thanksgiving' it's more of a celebrations of all things fall.

The Ghost Song

Here's a fun song & I love watching this guy perform it!

Why Hello There October, Nice to See You Again!

Welcome one and all to my Countdown to Halloween. I'm still not prepared but I've got some ideas of things I want to share, and some new original art as well. And as always, I've created a brand new super fun Halloween Banner for 2011, I hope you all like it.

As I said I'm not really sure where this countdown will go, so we are ALL in for some surprises!