Day 14: The Thing - 31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

Day 14: The Thing

Hey, it's two weeks in and I'm still going one with this mad thing!  Although, I am still flying by the seat of my pants... YIKES!

John Carpenter's "The Thing" is probably my favorite horror movies.  It has just about everything I find terrifying: Body horror and horrific transmutation; body replacement and doppelgangers; loss of self and identity through absorption into an alien monstrosity.

Based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s short story, “Who Goes There?”, "The Thing" features an alien creature which absorbs and disguises itself as its victims.  It's filled with a slow-burning tension (ironic, 'cuz it's set in the Antarctic) that continues to build.

This is the scene in which Bennings was exposed as a Thing--the transformation was 95% done, except for the hands.  It drops to its knees, lets out an alien scream, and it set on fire.  

Spoilers on a nearly 40 year-old movie: MacReady and Childs survive at the end, but for how long as they don't trust each other and it is getting colder.  The ending is a little elliptical: is one of them a Thing, waiting to go back into hibernation?  If so, which one?  I prefer to think of both of them as human and just too untrusting, where they freeze to death.  Something about the nature of humanity would make that seem to most logical ending, IMHO.

As for the picture: It was done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.  The paper was coated with casein fixative, to keep it from warping too much, as I originally intended to do some gouache over top the colored pencils.  But, instead I used some Gamsol (oil painting solvent) to brush around and smooth out the colored pencil, and just finish it with colored pencils, instead.  Done and done!

Here's the work in progress...

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This was done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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