Day 23: Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023

 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2023:
Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

It's another Hammer-produced movie starring Christopher Lee as Dracula!  I've watched so many Hammer Dracula movies as a kid and I always found something oddly frightening about them.  Although, maybe it was just Christopher Lee...

This was done with Acrylic Paint and a limited palette of: Paynes Gray, Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, Cadmium Deep Red, and Primary Cyan.

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STEP ONE:  Here is a quick underpainting done with Payne's Gray and Titanium White as a sort of grisaille underpainting.  This time I did a pencil sketch underneath to try and keep everything together and give it a better foundational starting point.  It is painted on an 8-1/2" x 11" extra thick cardstock which was primed with a 50/50 mix of gesso and matte medium.

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STEP TWO:  And here's the next pass with color and some extra modeling done with the paint.

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STEP THREE:  It's the finished painting done with lots and lots and lots of back-and-forth.

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Done with Acrylic paint on 8-1/2" x 11" gessoed cardstock.

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Day 03: Dracula (1931) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020:
Dracula (1931)

Hey, it's day three!  It's another repeat character from last year: Bela Lugosi's "Dracula", directed by Tod Browning.  Alas, I spent a little too much time doing the painting of and now I gotta hustle to catch up again.  Sigh.

OK, enough Vampires!  Tomorrow, it's... well, something newer.  Still not sure.  Odds are you'll be just as surprised as I am!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils done with Indigo Blue colored pencil on gessoed/toned 8" x 10" matboard.

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STEP TWO:  And here's the first pass with acrylic paint.  The palette was Titanium White, Ultramarine Blue, and Payne's Gray.

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STEP THREE:  And here's the final painting.

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Done with Acrylic paint on 8" x 10" gessoed matboard.

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Day 02: Nosferatu (1922) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020

 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2020:
Nosferatu (1922)

It's day two--so far, so good!  I can't do a "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween" and NOT include the 1922 "Nosferatu", Directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok/Nosferatu.  Nosferatu is absolutely one of the creepiest depictions of a Vampire.

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STEP ONE:  Here is the quick sketch done with ballpoint pen on 11" x 17" gray cardstock.

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STEP TWO:  And here is the halfway point done with ink washes using watercolor brush.

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STEP THREE:  And this is the finished ink wash painting, with highlights done with white Gouache (opaque watercolor).  Some of the warping and buckling on the bottom half of the painting scanned in as lighter gray, almost looking like a slight fog effect.  I'll pretend I did something intentional for that effect.

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Done with Traditional Media of Ink Wash on toned Cardstock

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Day 11: Bram Stoker's Dracula - 31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

Day 11: Bram Stoker's Dracula

Hey, another vampire!  This time it's from Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula"--a visually interesting take on Dracula.

Below is just the underpainting, followed by the finished painting.  I tried to make him look a little more decayed and broken down by keeping some of the brush strokes semi-obvious and less blended.  Also, the placement of the "31 Days of Hell-o-Ween" sort of looks like a badge on his jacket.

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Done with watercolor/gouache on 9" x 12" toned cardstock.

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Day 04: Dracula (Bela Lugosi) - 31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

Day 04: Dracula (Bela Lugosi)

This time, it's Bela Lugosi's Dracula, done with colored pencil and white chalk on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.  I used some Gamsol (oil paint solvent/thinner) and a paint brush to smear the colored pencil around and smooth out of most of the paper-grain effect of the colored pencil.

Below is the progression of the drawing.  The first drawing is really, REALLY off model for Bela Lugosi--the nose is too short, the mouth is too high on the face, the lower part of the head is too short and also too narrow on the left side... it's just a mess.  It changed rather drastically as it progressed.  But, I left it in as an example of how much of a difference just a half-inch can make... and to show how much a picture can change from the beginning to the end.  And, ugh, it was a LOT of work to fix!  Well, fix as much as I was able, anyways.  It's not a complete likeness, but it's closer than it was, I guess.

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Done with colored pencil and white charcoal pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" toned cardstock.

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Day 02: Nosferatu - 31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

31 Days of HELL-o-Ween 2019

Day 02: Nosferatu

Hey, two days in to "31 Days of HELL-o-Ween" 2019--so far, so good!  In this case, it's one of the creepiest vampires on celluloid: Nosferatu.

And, here's the pencils I did with a white charcoal pencil.  I painted over top the pencils with black and white gouache.

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Done with gouache on 8-1/2" x 11" black cardstock.

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Nosferatu (1922)

Nosferatu (1922)

To round out this Hat Trick of Halloween, here's a drawing of the silent movie classic, Nosferatu (1922).  Max Schreck portrays one of the creepiest and scariest vampires out there IMHO, and the movie is still disturbing.

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Here are the pencils on 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock.

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And here are the inks, done with a No. 4 Round Brush and Speedball Super Black India Ink.

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And, finally, I scanned it into Photoshop and colorized it with a MULTIPLY Layer in the same general style as the previous two drawings for "The Invisible Man" and "The Bride of Frankenstein".  I decided to do a third drawing in that style and Monochrome so there was an ersatz RGB Color Scheme of sorts to the series.  (I like to think I'm clever, even when I'm not.  ;-)

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Done with pen-and-ink on 8-1/2" x 11" cardstock, colorized in Photoshop.

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Repaneled: Detective Comics #32 - Batman Vs. Vampire

Here is yet another submission to the delightful Repaneled site.  Poor Anthony is going to be so sick of getting my submissions... :-)  (UPDATE: It was posted on Tuesday, August 16th, 2011.  :-)

I saw this panel and did a mental double-take: Batman shooting a vampire in the face with a silver bullet?  Let me repeat that: Batman shoots a vampire in the face with a silver bullet!  How could I **NOT** do a remake of that panel?

The original by Bob Kane, from "Detective Comics" #42.

For fun, here's the process...

STEP ONE:  I did the original painting with black-and-white gouache, which is an opaque watercolor, on Arches Hot-Press 140# watercolor paper.  For things like this, I prefer the smoother surface.  I decided to forgo any sort of reference pictures for this one, too--not sure how much of a good that that is, sometimes.  I also cheated a little bit (OK, a LOT) with the perspective of the coffin: it is completely screwed up compared to the rest of the room, but that way it showcases both Batman and the head vampire.  Sometimes reality has to take a back seat to the art.  :-)

I then scanned the painting into my computer with some minor adjustments in PhotoShop.

STEP TWO:  In PhotoShop, I created a new layer and set it to "Multiply", which allows the original painting layer to remain intact/show through while adding color.  I then put down the flat colors to begin colorizing the painting.

STEP THREE:  I started putting in more highlights and shadows.  I also did some corrections to the picture, as well as adding the gun shot (which seems a little bright, now that I look at it again.  Oh, well...)

STEP FOUR:  The painting still looked a little flat, so I darkened the edges to add a little more dramatic focus.  I then put in the lettering and sent it off to Anthony's Repaneled Blog.  

  This was done with gouache on Arches Hot Press watercolor paper measuring about 5" x 8" and colorized in PhotoShop.

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If I ever find a spare moment, I may have to do a recreation of the entire page in the future.  It is just that crazy/weird/fun!  Here's the page:

Highlights of the page include: 

• Batman peeking around a door to check on a sleeping woman in a semi-creepy fashion.
  
• Batman melting down a silver statue with a **CANDLE** (maybe an oil lamp or bunsen burner?) to make silver bullets.  Considering the melting point of silver is a little over 1,700 degrees F (over 960 degrees C), bunsen burners--let alone candles and oil lamps--generally don't get hot enough to melt silver.  Here's an interesting article about someone who tried to cast silver bullets...
  
• Silver bullets killing vampire? Werewolves, sure. Vampires? That was a new one on me.  [A little research on the internet shows that apparently they can--it's a little archaic, but it was believed to kill vampires. I guess that's why he's The God Damn Batman and I'm just a doofus posting pictures on the Internets.]
  
• Batman methodically walking through a crypt and shooting the lead vampire in the face.  Again, let me repeat that for emphasis: BATMAN SHOOTING A VAMPIRE IN THE FACE!
  
• Batman getting the girl at the end, only to fly off to the next adventure in the next panel. 

 Fun stuff!

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