MF Doom
OK, show of hands: who likes audio clips of the 1960's "Fantastic Four" cartoons with their Hip-Hop? Or skits using sound clips from "Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero" and "Scooby Doo, Where Are You"? When it comes to music, my tastes are pretty wide-ranging. I like to say I listen to everything from Abba to Zappa, and things which would either bore you to death and scare the life out of you. (Humble Brag: I even have a friend who is making some of the music to scare the life out of you... but more on that at a later date--Shout out to Joel. ;-)
Quite a while ago, I stumbled across MF Doom--at the time he was one of the few singers/songwriters that reveled in his comic book kitsch and nerdiness on his albums and it drew me in. I mean, he had Doctor Doom with a mic on his first MF Doom release; c'mon, how could I resist? His albums are smooth and flowing, off kilter rhyme schemes, and the way they fit together all kept me listening. And those audio clips from "Fantastic Four" and "Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero"... chef's kiss! To me, they are the special sauce in the albums.
Daniel Dumile (aka MF Doom / Viktor Vaughn / King Geedorah) died on Halloween 2020, but his death wasn't announced until December 31, 2020. I figured he was nominally connected to my nerdly interests, so I thought I'd do up an In Memoriam for him. He even got a shout out on "Democracy Now with Amy Goodman" news cast, so that was mildly surprising about his reach. He worked around the edges of pop culture, but a surprising number of people knew his work.
My personal favs: "Operation: Doomsday" (1999), "Take Me to Your Leader" (as King Geedorah) (2003), "Madvillainy" (with Madlib) (2004), and "Mm.. Food (2004)".
He also sent out Doombots to perform for him sometimes if he didn't want to do a show... which is exactly something Dr. Doom would do. Sure, if I paid to see him and it was a Doombot instead, I'd be more than a little ticked off, but I also have a part of me that would kinda admire the grift. He **DID** model his character on a super-villain, after all. And Doombots are straight out of the "Fantastic Four", so there's that, too.
BTW, I can't be the only one who was surprised (and a little disappointed) that the "MF" in MF Doom was for "Metal Fingers" and "Metal Face", rather than something Samuel Jackson would say on a plane that had some sort of slithering reptiles on board.
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STEP ONE: I did a very light blue pencil sketch on 9" x 12" Daler-Rowney The Langton Prestige Watercolor Paper - Hot Press (#140), then went over it with blue ink and crowquill.
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STEP TWO: Here is the first coat of watercolor, just to give the next layers something to "stick" to.
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STEP THREE: I realized I should have the coat and background be green to go more with Doctor Doom visual aesthetic. Also, in the original picture reference, his left cheek was obscured by faux fur of the collar on the coat and it didn't read right. So, I'd better draw that in... Also, that background seemed like it would work better as light, so time to bust out the Titanium White.
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STEP FOUR: Several coats of paint and a left jawline later, it was mostly done. There were a few things which I still wanted to adjust, but was out of town. So, out comes the iPad to fix some of the lines needed to be gone over, minor adjustments to the eyes, a few areas to darken a bit more, and the textured airbrush to focus more attention to the center of the painting.
I was somehow hoping to integrate the blue ink drawing into the painting a bit more, but that was largely... mixed in results.
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Done with watercolor/gouache on 9" x 12" Daler-Rowney The Langton Prestige Watercolor Paper - Hot Press (#140) and minor digital touch-ups in ArtStudio Pro.
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