Halloween in July

I love Halloween. And while it is still a few months away, I thought I would bring in a little early taste of it. One thing about Halloween I really love is the vintage graphic design & illustration work that you see in early to mid 20th Century party decorations & favors. While I don't collect much vintage Halloweeen, I do have several books that feature photos of pieces from various collections. I have spent hours looking through these books. So after doing my first Day of the Dead lady, I decided that I should try doing a Halloween piece with a vintage flavor. This is my first attempt. The female figure was actually drawn from an Illustration that was featured in Dennison's Bogie Book from 1925. I gave her my own twist, and the cat was constructed from various cat images. I hope to do more stuff like this in the future, as it was great fun and I love the subject matter. Here is the image from Dennison's:

The Witch Livia & Her Imp

I love Roger Corman's 'The Undead' (1957). I really wish this film would get an official DVD release, because I know that my crappy VHS copy will not last forever! Although it's holding up pretty well. The witch Livia is one of my favorite horror cinema characters ever. Livia was played by the gorgeous Allison Hayes and her Imp was played by Billy Barty.

Vampire Bill & Sookie

So, about two weeks ago, I was sitting at my desk and with nothing else to do, so I did two very quick caricature-like head shots of Sookie & Vampire Bill from the HBO series 'True Blood'. I liked the way they looked so I just decided to see them on thru into a final Illustrator piece, rather than going back & trying to do a lot of re-vamping (ha, ha). When I look at these (especially Bill), it makes me think it's like 'True Blood' the animated series. I hope sometime soon I'll be able to work up a piece that features Sookie & Bill together.

Luna

This month's challenge over at the CHFB is The Ladies. Ladies of Horror. I'll probably do a couple this month. I've done some sketches, I just need to do finals. But for now here is Carol Borland as Luna from 1935's 'Mark of the Vampire'.

Classic Horror/Monster Art Challenge! 6 Months In!

Ok, I posted about this earlier this year, and now I'm going to do it again. Over at the Classic Horror Film Board, artist/actor/writer, Frank Dietz started up the 'Classic Monster Art Challenge'. Every month he assigns a topic, and members are encouraged to share their artistic renderings of said topic. It is not a contest, merely an exercise and a chance to share work with other creative people. I'm always excited to see the newest topic & what other members have to contribute.
I have now been participating in the challenge for 6 months! And I have only shared 1 of those pieces here on my blog. So today is the big 6 month dump.

Here it is.... 6 months later....

Jan. 2009 – Reptiles! I did two. The Giant Gila Monster & The Reptile. The Reptile piece will be featured in an upcoming issue of Little Shoppe of Horrors magazine.



Feb. 2009 – Vincent Price. Posted before but here it is again. From 'Tomb of Ligeia'.


Mar. 2009 – King Kong! He's not very scary, but I was pretty happy with how it turned out.


Apr. 2009 – Boris Karloff. The challenge was to draw Karloff in a role that wasn't Frankenstein or The Mummy. I picked 'Die Monster Die' from 1965.


May 2009 – Lycanthropy! Werewolves. Being a Hammer fan & Oliver Reed lover, had to go with 'Curse of the Werewolf' from 1961


June 2009 - The Mummy! While I am a huge fan of 'The Mummy' from 1932 and in particular the Ardath Bey character, I wanted to draw a proper bandaged mummy. So I drew Kharis from 1944's 'The Mummy's Ghost'. I had a good time preping myself for this drawing as I hadn't visited these Mummy sequels in a very long time. So I re-watched them all, trying to pick out something to draw. I did draw an Ardath Bey head, but I'll save that one for another post.

Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead Lady #1

I'm trying to get back into working after having my wisdom teeth removed last week. This is part of that warm up.

After doing the Voodoo Priestess piece for The Blue Zombies, I liked the idea of doing another 'skull face' girl. So I decided to do a fancy Day of the Dead lady. I found some photos of little statues online, and just drew up my interpretation of them. This is #1 of 3. The other 2 ladies will follow soon, maybe by the end of the week.

I have another important project for Little Shoppe of Horrors to get to and I also have a piece from the last Dr. Sketchy's I attended that I would like to finish. So much to do. Check back for more...

The Voodoo Priestess

Here is a design I recently completed for the jazz/lounge act 'The Blue Zombies'. Check them out on their myspace page:

www.myspace.com/thebluezombies