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!

Halloween Countdown Begins in less than a week!!

Can you believe it? It's almost October! It is now officially fall, and the Halloween Countdown begins next week. Am I ready for it? Heck no! For the past three months I've been sketching and preparing a list of what I'd like to do, but I'm afraid it's going to be a mad, last minute scramble. I some stuff I just have to prepare the posts. Anyhooo, I thought I'd share some more of my random Halloween purchases this year.

From World Market:

This great repro-vintage candle.

Another vintage style item, a paper lantern. I hope they still have these after Halloween so I can get some on clearance. I think they're very cool!

These multi-colored skull tea-light holders. We couldn't decide on one color, so we bought these three, because we liked them together.

And my first Pumpkin Ale of the season.

And next, stuff from the Dollar Store (where everything's a Dollar!):

I love these Skeleton Straws, even though they are very cheaply made, they are super cute. I bought 2 packs! (Hey, it's the Dollar Store.)

They had this really nifty window cling set! I thought it might glow in the dark, but I haven't tried it yet.

Ok, I know it's not Halloween, but I love Thanksgiving/Harvesty images. So I had to get it.

And this great owl! Isn't he cute?!

They also had these great photo cut-outs, you can hang on the wall. Nice images too.

Here's the front:

Here's the top label with all the cut outs pictured.

And here's the backside of the package. Ooooh, creepy crawly!

Next up, Michael's Craft Store:

This wasn't in Halloween, but it caught my eye and I had to get it.

Make It & Bake It Suncatchers for $1. I used to make these when I was a kid. I remember I had a Garfield one hanging in my window. I have a sister who is still in elementary school, and I decided that I wanted to make her a Halloween gift package. They will include the next few items listed.

Super cute paint books for $1 each! I love the illustrations, they are so cute:

Here's some of the interior illustrations from these three books. Really cute!

Velvet Posters, $1 each.

And I don't want to elaborate on these too much, because they will be part of the countdown. But these are little 3 inch high vinyl figures that you can paint & customize yourself. They're really cute and they are $2!

This will probably be my final post for September. I'll see you all in October!