Day 19: Alien (1979) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2026

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2026:
Alien (1979)

It's the Xenomorph from the 1979 classic, "Alien", often called a "haunted house in space".  Which isn't wrong... There's a living area with a giant, hissing critter that jumps out and says "Boo!" every once in a while.  But, also has a strong sense of direction and tension wondering who will be next.  A movie filled with strange landscapes and designs that lent themselves to look like something, well, alien.  Although, to be honest, as the series and spin-offs propagated, there were probably some questions that were probably better left unanswered.

I'm also reasonably sure there's a joke here somewhere about asking for flowers before putting that thing in me; I supplied the ingredients, you all can finish that half-baked joke.

And, yeah, it was a bit of a cheat to put in a previous drawing of mine as part of the punchline, but I believe it worked, time is tight, and I still have... 10... 11... 12 days to go?  Hoo-boy...

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STEP ONE: Here are the quick pencils done on a 2,000px x 3,000px canvas @ 300dpi in Rebelle 8 Pro.

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STEP TWO: Here is the finished digital painting.

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Done Digitally with Rebelle 8 Pro.

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Unwanted Valentines: Alien (1979)

Unwanted Valentines:
Alien (1979)

It's time again for an Unwanted Valentine--Valentines so nerdy and built upon puns so terrible that no one would be pleased to receive them... especially a loved one!  I'm revisiting "Alien (1979)" for this Unwanted Valentine, calling back to my (by far) most popular Unwanted Valentine featuring a Facehugger.  Rather than the "Hugs and Kisses" Facehugger, it's a Chestbursting overflow of Love!

Yeah, I know the Chestburster is a lot bigger than in the movie, but I'll just say it is enlarged to show texture, as they say on the cereal boxes!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital blue pencils, done on a 2,000px x 2,800 @ 300dpi canvas.

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STEP TWO:  And the digital inks, done mostly with an 8pt and a 12pt brush.

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STEP THREE:  The colors were done on the layer below.

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint

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Day 28: Alien (1979) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020
Alien (1979)

"Alien" is a great movie, the equivalent of a sci-fi haunted house in space with the Xenomorph jumping out and yelling "Boo!"  Oh, and killing people.

While trying to take a closer look at the Xenomorph, I noticed a lot more things on the costume that, while I knew they were there, it never really registered.  This time, I was looking and asking myself: "Is that a dryer vent?  That looks like a hex nut!  Etc."  All those inorganic items stuck to the costume.  Sure, H. R. Giger was into a biomechanical aesthetic, but didn't realize how literal it was in the Xenomorph in the original "Alien".  I guess I never looked closely enough at the original costume, but am used to the Xenomorphs from the later movies which, while it's still there, isn't quite as obvious.

If you will forgive the shameless self-promotion, I have to point out that among my most popular "Unwanted Valentine" by far is the Face-Hugger one, and turns up in some of the oddest places when Valentine's Day approaches.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils on 11" x 17" toned cardstock.

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STEP TWO:  This was followed by the inks, done with a couple different brushes.  When I was about 3/4 of the way through, I started to regret just doing the Alien Xenomorph only in ink and wishing I had just done a watercolor/gouache.  Also, some of the proportions of the nick-knackery stuck to the costume wasn't quite right, but it was already inked and too late.  Sigh.

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STEP THREE:  The brush and ink seemed a little bland compared to all the previous watercolor/gouache paintings, so I thought I'd import it into Procreate and work on colorizing it just a little bit.  Nothing too fancy, just some airbrush tools and such on a Multiply Layer.  I figured I haven't really used Procreate since the new update and would see if there was something new.  I also thought I'd go with something that looked vaguely like a black light poster, why not?

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Done with brush and ink on 11" x 17" toned cardstock, and digitally colored.

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Unwanted Valentines: Alien Face-Hugger

Unwanted Valentines:

Alien Face-Hugger

Happy Valentine's Day!  Well, here's the last of my series of Unwanted/Vaguely Inappropriate Valentine's Day Cards for this year.  I may return to it again when February rolls around next year... :-)  This one features the Face-Hugger from the Alien movies.

And, yes, that is my face being hugged, sans glasses. :-)

Here is the pen-and-brush original, which was scanned in and digitally colored in PhotoShop.  I used a No. 1 size scripting brush and Speedball Super Black ink.

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Done with brush and ink on 8-1/2" x 11" paper and colored digitally.

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