Day 20: Candyman (1992) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Candyman (1992)

Based on a Clive Barker short story, "Candyman" is a series of Urban Legends brought to life.  In this case, it's Bloody Mar... Er, Candyman, where if you say his name five times, he shows up with his hook for a hand and will kill whomever called his name.

I've always had an interest in Urban Myths and and assorted folklore (as well as regular myths and mythology), so this was sort of right up my alley (there's a pun in there involving "alleys" and urban settings, but I'm just too tired to think of it right now).  I also find the shared storytelling that develops into a mythological continuity with many different people working together as a sort of shared hive-mind.

For example, much of the Lovecraftian Mythology was a sort of open-source story, picked up by August Derleth and Brian Lumley's "Titus Crow" series, for example.  You can also see it turbo-charged on the Internet and see it form right before our eyes: Slender Man, Zalgo, and other Creepypasta creations; before long, what was a brief story builds up an elaborate backstory, with one person adding something over here, and another adding a story thread over there, so it becomes a shared myth.

Hmmm, btw, how many times did I say "Candyman" in this post?  Three?  Four?  I think I should probably say it one more time juusssstttttt to be sure.  "Candyma--..."

* * *

STEP ONE:  The scrawled pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the halfway point, give-or-take, with the first pass with gouache/watercolor.

* * *

STEP THREE:  All done.  I figured I should throw in some bees here and there--after all, it was part of the motif.  So, I wanted plenty of bees, but not so many as to block out the rib cage I had painted.

* * *

Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 19: The Return of the Living Dead (1985) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)

It's the Tarman from "The Return of the Living Dead (1985)".  I found this zombie particularly creepy-the melted way he looked, as well as the strange way he moved.

One of the best zombie movies (right up there with "Shaun of the Dead"), which was co-written and directed by Dan O'Bannon (who also wrote screenplays for "Alien", "Dark Star", "Lifeforce", "Invaders from Mars" (the remake), and "Total Recall").  Satirical and clever, and good movie which happens to have zombies in it (although, the punk characters are a bit broad and stereotypical).  Come to think of it, I also liked George Romero's "Dawn of the Dead (1978)", which had the zombies return to doing what they remembered doing in life: Go to the Mall.

In "The Return of the Living Dead", I chuckle every time I see the scene with one of the zombies using the CB Radio in the ambulance to call for supper delivery: "Come in, dispatch... Send more... paramedics."

* * *

STEP ONE:  The pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the halfway point, give-or-take, with the first pass with gouache/watercolor.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the completed painting.  Lots of pushing the darks and lights, and some little white, specular dots all over the place to make it seem like he was set and slimy.

* * *

Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 18: Mad Monster Party? (1967) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Mad Monster Party? (1967)

Whew!  Done with a couple hours to spare!  Just in time to start the next one...

Things may have gotten a little grim and gory of late (don't worry, there's more to come!).  So, let's lighten the mood with a truly terrifying movie from my childhood: "Mad Monster Party?"  In this case, it's a portrait of Baron Boris von Frankenstein, as voiced by Boris Karloff.

OK, it's actually stop-motion, animated comedy, but there is just something about Rankin-Bass animation which I find... off putting and unsettling.  Maybe it is a sort of "Uncanny Valley" with the way they move which bothers me--the animation style.  I watched plenty of Rankin-Bass movies--mostly because I would watch almost anything animated, or which had monsters/aliens/robots/all-of-the-above.  But, they were also a bit unnerving to me.  Which adds to the creep-factor of this movie for me.

The jokes are all old vaudeville; one of the writers on the screenplay was Harvey Kurtzman of "Mad Magazine" fame; and it had voice talents from Boris Karloff to Phyllis Diller.  It's mildly amusing.  However,  the ending did blow my 8-year-old mind (SPOILERS for a 53-year-old movie):

Francesca: I'm just a machine with hundreds of parts that will eventually wear out.
Felix Flanken: Well, Francesca, none of us are perfect. [Click] Are perfect...  [Click] Are perfect...  [Click] Are perfect... [Click] Are perfect...

Hey, I was 8 at the time... cut me some slack!  Of course, much, much later I realized that was a tip-o-the-hat to the ending of "Some Like it Hot" (1959).

* * *

STEP ONE:  These are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint on a 1,500px x 2,250px canvas at 300dpi.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here is about the halfway point.

* * *

STEP THREE:  The finished picture.  Mostly, it was done on a single layer, using various brushes and such.  As always, lots of noodling around and such until I decided "Good enough" and posted it.

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

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Day 17: The Fly (1986) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Fly (1986)

Is this a self-portrait of me on my birthday?  No, but it sure feels like it some days.  It's the 1986 remake of "The Fly", by David David Cronenberg.  Another movie from the 80's filled with body horror and updating an older, slightly more campy, 50's horror B-movie into something more modern and bloody.  Hmmm, I'm sensing a pattern here.

This is from the scene where Seth Brundle loses pieces of himself (in this case some teeth), but has something new to add to his "Brundle Museum of Natural History".

With a tip of the hat to Lao Tzu/Zhuangzi, one of the best quotes from the movie (and most horrifying, in an Existentialist sort of way): "I'm an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over...and the insect is awake."

Although, there's also "Be afraid.  Be very afraid!" is also pretty good.  And good advice, sometimes...

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And the first coat with watercolors.  Unfortunately, I think I used a little too much Casein Fixative, as the watercolors weren't sticking to the paper quite right and would dissolve a little too much when re-wetted with another layer of paint, leaving parts of the cardstock beginning to show through.  Although, it did resist enough to give a little bit of an interesting texture here and there.

* * *

STEP THREE:  I imported the scan into ArtStudio Pro and began working over top of the image digitally, while trying to to keep as much as the interesting watercolor textures.

* * *

Done traditionally with gouache/watercolor, then digitally in ArtStudio Pro on an iPad Pro. 

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Day 16: Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989)

Hey, Lookit me pretending to be pretentious and highfalutin by doing a foreign, black-and-white movie!

"Tetsuo: The Iron Man" is almost a bio-mechanical version of "John Carpenter's The Thing" (Eesh, I keep bringing that movie up a lot this year... I mean, it is a great horror movie, but you'd think I should give it a break!).  It's filled with body horror as people begin to merge with machines like some sort of David Cronenberg amphetamine-fueled fever dream.  Frenetic, frantic, and chaotic.

And, yes, nerd that I am, I always think of Marvel Comics' Iron Man every time I hear the name.  The "Iron Man" part of the title; the "Tetsuo" part makes me think of "Akira", of course... and it does seem to have a few themes from "Akira" woven in, as well.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And the usual halfway point or so.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Here it is about three-quarters of the way done.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Followed by the finished painting, with lots of pushing lights and darks and painting the various bric-a-brac.

* * *

Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 15: The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)

The Abominable Dr. Phibes is bonkers.  There's no other way to describe it: Bonkers.

When I was a kid and saw it (along with a bunch of other Vincent Price B-Movies), I remembered Vincent Price with his weird vocoder, getting revenge on various people he believed contributed to his wife's death.  But mostly I remembered the unmasking at the end, a grotesque reveal for which I was waiting.  Heck, most of the B-Movie/Horror/Sci-Fi I grew up on as a child were mostly boring, and I would mostly only pay attention when something interesting involving monsters/robots/aliens was on the screen.

So, when I re-watched it again yesterday to grab some screen shots, it was like seeing the movie again for the first time.  As a dumb kid, I didn't realize how completely bug nuts the film is.  Part horror, part comedy, part thriller, part slapstick camp, part Surrealist Phantom of the Opera, and all of it just banana cuckoo pants.

The revenge scheme is vaguely based on the 10 Plagues from Exodus.  It includes (but isn't limited to): A masquerade with a man's head crushed inside a frog mask like something from a "Saw" movie; a lady murdered by having honey poured on her face and then eaten by grasshoppers (!); a man run through a bronze statue of a Unicorn (I forget what part of Exodus has unicorns... but it's been a while since I read the Bible), with the witnesses almost off camera having to unscrew him from the wall by spinning his body around it (all you see are his legs rotate onto and off of screen a couple times).  I found it delirious fun.  Did I mention it ends with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" playing over the end credits?  Yeah, it's that kind of movie.

I was half-thinking of it just doing a portrait of Vincent Price from the movie, but the corroded version was just too irresistible.  I saw that version in way too many of the horror magazines I owned as a kid such as in Forrest Ackerman's "Famous Monsters of Filmland", or ads in "Eerie" and "Creepy" magazines.

* * *

STEP ONE:  These are the hastily done pencils, done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And the usual halfway point or so, which almost always looks like trash and I ask myself if I should just start over.  Whenever I see one of the half-draw pictures for the Work-In-Progress in a search rather than the finished one, a little piece of my soul breaks off and dies.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Followed by the finished painting.  If I had the time, I would have liked to keep working on Phibe's teeth a little more.  They need a little more work (I'm talking painting-wise, not orthodontally).  

Sorry to cut this short, but I gotta try and get two--count 'em TWO--pictures done by this evening to keep on schedule through the weekend.  Sigh.

* * *

Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 14: Hellraiser (1987) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Hellraiser (1987)

For today's post, here's one of the Cenobites from Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" (1987).  

When I was a young teen, I read some Clive Barker short stories from "Books of Blood" and found him to have generally well-crafted, if gory short stories (well, he was mostly considered part of a splatter-punk horror movement at the time), with some bits of sex thrown into the mix--Just what a young, teenage boy is looking for!  So I was familiar with his writing before "Hellraiser" was released.  I did like the movie and later read the book, which is very close.

Digression: Odd to think that Pinhead wasn't even called "Pinhead" until much later (he was the Lead Cenobite in "Hellraiser") and was more-or-less named by the fans which I find somewhat delightful, even though Clive Barker did not like the name.  I, on the other hand, am always a sucker for a clever pun.

Speaking of, this is the Female Cenobite.  Or, as originally named by Clive Barker, Deepthroat. **Snicker**

* * *

STEP ONE:  These are the quick pencils done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Before starting, I brushed on a coat of Casein Fixative to help keep the cardstock from completely warping and falling apart from all the Watercolor/Gouache.  And here's where I give a peak behind the scenes to show warts and all, as it were.

So, there's the first pass... and while I intentionally drew the head at a slight angle, when I looked at it after the first pass, to me the tilt of her head looked like either a quizzical look your dog gives you, or it looked like I drew the face crooked.  So, I could either finish painting and then use the magic of Photoshop to "fix" it, or...

* * *

STEP THREE:  I grabbed some tracing paper, painted over the crooked head, and re-drew in the straightened head over top.  Sigh, when will I learn, and why is the answer to that question always "NEVER!"?  Remember kids: Always make sure the drawing is done correctly BEFORE you start painting--it will save you a LOT of time!  Sure, I already knew that, but was in a hurry, which cost me more time.  Ugh!  So, here's the corrected painting.  I did make some adjustments to the drawing--the mouth was a bit crooked (well, more crooked, I should say), and a few other minor things to fix proportions and such.

Good thing Gouache is relatively opaque.

* * *

STEP FOUR:  And, after a lot of back-and-fourth, here's the finished painting.  Another piece of work I probably spent wwwaaaayyyyy too much time working on, alas.  Which means I must get my rear in gear for tomorrow's post.  Sigh...  Keep pushing that rock, John.

* * *

Done with Watercolor/Gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 13: They Live (1988) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
They Live (1988)

It's the scariest thing this Halloween: The dreaded KAREN!  She is displeased with something, and she wants to talk to your manager about it!  Well, actually, it's another John Carpenter movie, "They Live" (1988).  Another one of my favorite Satiric Sci-Fi/Horror movies from the 80's (right up there with John Carpenter's "The Thing").

Second only to the line "I've come to kick ass and chew bubble gum and I'm all out of bubble gum", IMHO, is "I've got one that can see!"  One of the things that always bothers me about the scene is I want to tell Rowdy Roddy "You probably don't wanna explain to the aliens how you can see them, as well as how you can see them when you wear these sunglasses."  You're kinda giving up the game, methinks.  That aside, I still think the movie is a great send up of Consumerism.

(Hmmm, for some reason this picture uploads as a bit on the dark side...  It displays normally in Photoshop, etc., so that's strange.  Hmmm, if you click to enlarge it, it seems normal, so that's even stranger...)

* * *

STEP ONE:  These are the quick pencils done on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here is the first pass with gouache (opaque watercolor).  It just wasn't working out the way I wanted (I dunno, the paint just wasn't sticking to the paper quite right, or wasn't quite opaque enough for this session), so out of frustration, I took the scan and decided to do some digital overlay.

* * *

STEP THREE:  As I thought the digital painting for "The Blob" turned out OK, I figured I'd use ArtStudio Pro in the iPad again... Y'know, just to tempt fate, again.  I dropped all the color info and started painting digitally over the gouache painting and what you see is what you get.  Well, aside from the part where it uploaded a little dark.  Maybe it's something which will correct itself, or some sort of bug in the compression.  The world may never know.

On to the next one!

* * *

Done traditionally with gouache/watercolor, then digitally in ArtStudio Pro on an iPad Pro. 

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Day 12: The Blob (1988) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Blob (1988)

Hey, I got today's post done with a full... 90 minutes to spare!  Plenty of time...  Yup, piece o' cake!  Or, in this case, it looks like someone got a little over zealous with the pink frosting...

That's right, today's post is the 1988 remake of "The Blob".  I saw the original "The Blob" when I was a kid, of course, and found it mildly spooky.  However, I really liked the remake.  There is an over-the-top bit of body horror and I think of it as a kind of cinematic partner-in-crime with John Carpenter's "The Thing".  Both movies took earlier B-Movies which were interesting monster pics and made something truly terrifying with 80's horror movie excess.

Also, I'm sure there is some sort of porn joke I could have made with the image.  I just want to record to show that this one time I was a model of restraint.

What's that?  The next day starts in 90 minutes?  Yikes!  I gotta get going!

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 2,250px x 1,500px @ 300dpi.  In this case, when I usually say they are a quick scribble, in this case it appears to be rather literal. 

* * *

STEP TWO:  This is the quick color rough overtop of the digital pencils.  Again, just trying to get a feel for the digital painting, color, and layout.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And this about three-quarters finished.  It was coming along, but just seemed to be needing... something.

* * *

STEP FOUR:  I think the something it needed was to expand the coloration of The Blob beyond just the Blog itself.  So, did a little digital airbrushing to soften and lose some of those edges.  I could have kept noodling on the drawing for quite a bit longer, but there are times when you just gotta let it go.  I reduced the size to 1,500px x 1,000px and here we are.

* * *

Done digitally in ArtStudio Pro on an iPad Pro. 

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Day 11: Silent Hill (2006) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Silent Hill (2006)

Hey, it's the Day 11 post--with hours to spare!  Whew!  

In this case, it's Pyramid Head from the 2006 movie, "Silent Hill", based on the video game of the same name.  I will have to shamefully admit never playing the video game (by then I had mostly quit them--don't worry, I had plenty of other things to waste my time!), nor have I sat down and watched it from beginning to end.  I've caught random scenes here and there--and they seemed creepy and atmospheric enough--but haven't actually sat down to watch it.  I'll have to do that someday, soon.

Anyhoo, this was by request of my youngest daughter; as it is one of her favorite horror movies.  (She even dressed as Pyramid Head at a Mid-West Comic-Con, and the costume turned out pretty cool.)

I almost abandoned the digital painting a couple times and started working on something else for the Day 11 Post before bouncing back to it again out of sheer desperation and finishing it just under the wire.  (See below for some of the process.)

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils done on a 1,500px x 2,250px @ 300dpi.  Y'know, just a real quick scribble to get the general pose and layout and such.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here is the start of the painting, Just some of the general colors and such, trying to get a feel for everything.

* * *

STEP THREE:  At this point, I realized the pyramid head part of Pyramid Head was too small and there was just something not-quite-right about the pose that I thought was uninteresting.  I set it aside and moved on to something else to draw/post.  Maybe I'll try to fix it, or just start over again.  Who knows?  Well, I meant at the time I was thinking that.  I kinda know what happened now, but at the time I wasn't too sure... 

* * *

STEP FOUR:  After some cutting, pasting, and other digital chicanery, I enlarged the head and subtly adjusted the pose so it didn't bother me quite so much, and filled in some details.  For the background, rather than just generic looking pseudo-flames and such, I threw in a generic industrial background to go with the generic, pseudo-flames and called it good enough.  (Yeah, the sword is out of perspective with the hand and it bothers me a lot... but sometimes you just gotta say "Good 'nuff!" and move on.)  Onward to the next one!

* * *

Done digitally in ArtStudio Pro on an iPad Pro. 

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Day 10: The Incredible Melting Man (1977) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
The Incredible Melting Man (1977)

When I was young, I got a box of science fiction/monster magazines which we bought at a rummage sale.  One of them was "Famous Monsters" with a cover story about "The Incredible Melting Man", which fascinated me for some reason--there were all kinds of other magazines such as "Starlog", "The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction" (which had delightful spot drawings from Gahan Wilson), Warren Publishing "Eerie" and "Creepy" Magazines, all of which I pored over.  Yikes, it's like a part of my childhood development laid out before everyone.

(Hey it's a copy of the "Famous Monsters" I had as a kid!  Which I also mostly used as a reference for the painting--Obviously, I hope.)

Anyhoo, all that boils down to I've been meaning to do something with "The Incredible Melting Man" for a while now, and here it is!  As for the movie, I finally got to watch it much later: it's a typical B-Movie with marginally OK special effects (covered up by them shooting Night-for-Night on film).  "Mystery Science Theater 3000" also did a great send up of the movie; I recommend it far more than the actual movie itself.  (I'm a huge fan of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" and, sadly, I've seen most of the "MST3K" movies without Joel/Mike, Crow, and Tom Servo in the bottom right-hand corner.)

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock, done with a black colored pencil.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here is roughly the halfway point with watercolor/gouache.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here is the finished painting.  I realized a little too late that the eye in the reference was probably a mistake, meant to be covered for the actual movie?  But, I think it also works, somewhat.  So, I left it in.

* * *

Done traditionally with watercolor/gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 09: Ghoulies (1985) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Ghoulies (1985)

It's another 80's horror movie, filled with hand puppets, sub-par special effects, and cheesy acting.  It's right in my wheelhouse, of course!

One point of contention: the ubiquitous movie poster/movie box would show the green, Fish Ghoulie in the toilet ("They will get you in the End"... OK, I'll give them a mild point for the tagline), for some reason he was wearing a half shirt/T-shirt and suspenders, which he does not wear in the movie at all.  I guess the moralists of the time were concerned about showing puppet nipples even way back then.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils on 8" x 10" matboard, done with a black colored pencil.  I used clear, Casein fixative as an ad hoc gesso for the watercolor/gesso to minimize the wear and tear on the matboard.

* * *

STEP TWO:  This is the first pass with watercolor/gouache, and started working on the head a bit more, but then realized I should probably scan the halfway point in the painting progress.  (A perplexing plethora of plosives in the last paragraph!)

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here is the finished painting.  The usual noodling about with shading and highlights, and spending way too much time on it.  Oh, well, on to the next one!

* * *

Done traditionally with watercolor/gouache on 8" x 10" matboard.

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