Radu - Vampire of the Week #3

I've been busy preparing a piece for an upcoming art show, but I was determined to stick to this Vampire of the Week thing, even if it kills me. This week I decided to do Radu from the 1991 Full Moon production, 'Subspecies'.

I also wanted to let you all know that I'm on Tumblr now. Actually, I've had the account for about a year, but never posted anything to it. But I'm using it now. You can see the images that I post here, but I'm also uploading photos that I take on Instagram. These photos usually consist of sketches, WIP, cool stuff from around my house & my cats. Follow if you dare.... The Doo Wacka Doodler

Now, I must get back to work...

Countess Bathory - Vampire of the Week #2

With the beginning of the new year, I always get anxious that I should have some small goal. I wanted to do something like a 'challenge' type thing, that would keep me posting new art to the blog more frequently. I looked around online for ideas, but ultimately what I decided to do is a project I've been thinking about for about two years or so. I wanted to do a collection of vampire characters throughout cinema. Sooo, after last weeks post, I started sketching out other screen vampires. I originally had intended to do 'Count Yorga', but my drawing still needs more work. So instead, I present Countess Bathory from 1971's 'Daughters of Darkness'. I caught this film on Netflix a couple of months ago, and really enjoyed it. I hope that I'll be able to do a new vamp each week, but that will all depend on how busy I am, and how successful my sketches are. I want to try to keep them all uniform in this style.

I also wanted to share this link to this really great documentary, 'Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss'. This is a follow up to his other fantastic documentary, 'A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss'. If you have some time (this is a full hour & a half), you should check it out. And one of the first films he talks about is the very one that I have depicted here today.

Blood and Roses

Yesterday I sat down to watch a couple of movies while I was doing some sketching. One of the movies I watched was Roger Vadim's 'Blood & Roses' from 1960. It's been about 20 years or so since the first time I watched it, and at that time, the film didn't really leave much of an impression on me. But watching it again, I decided that I liked it a great deal. The film is loosely based on the Sheridan le Fanu 'Carmilla' story.

While I was sketching I did a simple little doodle of the main character. I decided that I would try to do a final version of it, but that I would try to keep it as simple and clean as possible. I wanted to to kind of have a 1960's graphical style.

Happy New Year! Hello 2013!

Well, here it is the first post of the new year! First on the agenda, take down the Christmas banner, and put up a brand new banner for 2013! I decided to go with a witchy theme. Witches, the year '13, seems like a good idea. Plus for whatever reason, this is the time of year I like to watch the film 'Haxan, Witchcraft through the Ages' from 1922. I have a fancy pants DVD from the Criterion Collection, but it is a copyright free film so you can watch it online. One place you can get it is the Internet Archive (if you are interested).

So here we are into the new year already. Where does the time go? I've got all kinds of plans for the year 2013, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to follow through with them as much as possible. I want to try to re-focus and work on some project that have been buzzing around in my brain for awhile. I think lately I just haven't been interested in sitting in front of my sloooooow computer to work on art. But I have been getting a lot of enjoyment out of sitting down with a sketch pad. This year I really want to try to explore other media, although I will still be doing digital art pieces.

As I've mentioned here on the blog before, I currently have art on display (and for sale) at the gallery ZaPow! in Asheville, NC. The owners of ZaPow recently began doing a podcast called 'Illustration and a Beer', where they sit down with one of their in house artists for a chat. This past Sunday, I was the featured guest. If you are interested in hearing me go on & on, you can find it on itunes or you can listen to it on ZaPow's website.