Day 06: The Crimson Ghost (1946) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
The Crimson Ghost (1946)

"The Crimson Ghost" was a Republic Serial--a series of short chapters they would usually play before the main movie started.  It's a twelve chapter story involving criminal dressed as The Crimson Ghost attempting to steal a device which can fry every electrical circuit; I guess it was a proto-EMP.

Being a serial, several times it would end with the protagonist being run off the road and over a cliff in his car and having it explode on impact with the "See what happens next episode!"  Of course, the next episode would show him jumping from his car at the last moment just before it went over the cliff (and one of the things that Kathy Bates character in "Misery" was absolutely right when talking about serials in front of movies: They cheat!).  It amused me how often it happened in the series.

Of course, most people know "The Crimson Ghost" from the punk band, the Misfits, using it as part of their iconography.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.  Well, more like two passes worth... I was on a roll and kept going further before stopping and scanning the painting.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting--mostly just touch-ups and such from the pervious painting.

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Day 05: Bride of Frankenstein (1935) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

D'oh!  I guess I could have saved this one for Franken-Friday, but I usually spend the first week going through various "Classics".  Also, I have plenty of other options for the Franken-Fridays.  This time, it's "Bride of Frankenstein" (1935), which was far more slap stick and Vaudeville than I remembered when I first saw it on TV as a kid.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting.

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Day 04: Frankenstein (1931) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
Frankenstein (1931)

It's Franken-Friday!  I've vaguely decided to do some sort of Frankenstein-based post on each Friday in October.  Also, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the great joke from Joseph Scrimshaw.  In this case, rather than just steal his joke, I found the Tweet directly from him:

Onward!

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting.

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Day 03: The Golem (1920) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
The Golem (1920)

Hey, hey!  Almost 10% of the way through it already!  No, it isn't Swedish wrestler, Tor Johnson, in a hard plastic He-Man wig--It's "The Golem: How He came into the World" (1920), the third of the three Golem trilogy.  The story is part "Frankenstein" (some scenes from "The Golem" were used as inspiration for "Frankenstein" about a decade later), part robot, and uses some cinematic proto-techniques of German Expressionism.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting. 

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Day 02: Nosferatu (1922) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
Nosferatu (1922)

It's the second day of "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween" and so far, so OK!  I usually like to start with the classics, so this time it's the spookiest vampire out there: Rudy Giuliani.  A close second is Nosferatu--the silent era and creepiest of the vampires--even after 100 years, still not topped, IMHO.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished painting.  I'm not sure if I like the pencils and first pass better or not.  They both have aspects that work better than the finished painting--a certain looseness that the finished, tightened one seems to be missing.  Ah, well, something to work on and keep in mind in the future.

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Day 01: They Live (1988) - 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024

31 Days of HELL-O-Ween 2024:
They Live (1988)

Well, well, well, it's time again once again for 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween in which I try to do 31 artworks from various horror movies--posting daily--in celebration of HELL-O-Ween!  This year I will admit that I may have bitten off more than I can chew and am sweating a bit at all the obstacles to finishing this self-imposed challenge.  We shall see if I prevail or I get to use the much-threatened blank page of "The Invisible Man" or "Slenderman" as a stick figure.  As always, I sure complain a lot for someone who has no one to blame but himself for all this...

Anyhoo, I usually bookend 31 Days of HELL-O-Ween with myself introducing and signing off and this time is no different, with a painting of myself as one of the goggle-eyed aliens from John Carpenter's 1988 sci-fi/horror movie, "They Live".

* * *

31 DAYS OF HELL-O-WEEN:
The Take-Home Game!

Once again, here are some logos for those of you who (for some dumb reason) want to play along at home!  It doesn't have to be daily--heck, just do one or two for the entire month--that's just as valid.  I'm just a dum-dum that does stuff the hard way.  There's no glory, no fame, and no fortune (trust me, this is the sixth year and none of those are anywhere to be found).  It's just for fun.  If you do wind up using them or posting anything, send me an e-mail of the link and I'll check it out!

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quick pencils of myself as an alien from "They Live", done with colored pencil on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Here's the first pass with Acrylic paint.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished image.  Onward to tomorrow's image!

* * *

Done with Acrylic on 8-1/2" x 11" extra-heavy toned cardstock.

.

Moss Piglet (October 2024): Moby Dick - Part 2

Moss Piglet (October 2024):
Moby Dick - Part 2

Here's my second submissions for the October 2024 issue "Moss Piglet" for "Moby Dick" (it's at the presses now, so will be coming out soon).  This time I was thinking it would be amusing to have a page of Comic Strips using "Moby Dick" as the through line, with parodies of "Peanuts", "Calvin and Hobbes", "Popeye", and "The Far Side" (although, "Popeye" was a last moment idea).

Another considered title for the "Moby Strip" was "Moby-ius Strips", which amused me.  Also, the title for "Moby Dickhead" was an obvious pun--too obvious for me to ignore, of course.  As a brief aside, the line (I dunno if you wanna call it a "joke" or not), "Ishmael?  More like FISHMEAL!", was based on a misspelling I did of "Call me Ishmeal", which I noticed if I put an "F" in front of it, it was "Fishmeal", and then retrofitted it to back into the "joke" panel.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quickly scribbled digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint on a 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" @ 300dpi digital canvas.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here is the Ink Layer.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Finally, I just added color and an overlay of a paper texture to give it a vague, comic strip feel to it.  Also, I was able to erase the paper texture make the white for Moby Dick stand out even more.   Also, originally I didn't have the beards for Ahab stand-ins colored for some reason and when I looked at it, they resembled some sort of Lovecraftian leftovers from Innsmouth.  Just weird and creepy.

* * *

For those of you interested, here's the link to the Homepage for "Moss Piglet": https://www.krazines.com/

You can also view previous issues online at: https://www.krazines.com/archives.html  This one was on the back cover for those interested.

If you're able, subscribe and tell 'em John D. sent you!

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

.

Moss Piglet (October 2024): Moby Dick - Part 1

Moss Piglet (October 2024):
Moby Dick - Part 1

Hey, hey!  With October planning on being full-up with my dumb, self-aggrandizing "31 Days of HELL-O-Ween", I figured I'd post my October 2024 submissions to "Moss Piglet" (it's at the presses now, so will be coming out soon).  In this case, the monthly prompt was for "Moby Dick", which I decided to do as a comic page involving Bartleby the Scrivener showing up on the Pequod with obvious results.

The idea for the comic page was blisteringly easy: I was wracking my brain trying to think of something semi-clever for "Moby Dick", when, by some sort of Jungian Synchronicity, someone on a podcast I was listening to said "I would prefer not to".  Tada!  It was just that easy!  The entirety of the strip was crystalized in my mind.  The only difficult part was trying to figure out which speech by Ahab that Bartleby could interrupt with his catchphrase and not have it go on for several pages (as it is, the speech took up a sizable chunk of the page).

I vaguely used Gregory Peck as the model of Ahab from the John Huston's 1956 movie, "Moby Dick" (screenplay by Ray Bradbury, no less!), and for Bartleby it was Crispin Glover from a modern retelling of "Bartleby the Scrivener" called, appropriately enough, "Bartleby" (2001).

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the quickly scribbled digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint on a 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" @ 300dpi digital canvas.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here is the Ink Layer.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Finally, I just added some gray tones, figuring that black-and-white would be more in keeping with the "Moby Dick" movie.

* * *

For those of you interested, here's the link to the Homepage for "Moss Piglet": https://www.krazines.com/

You can also view previous issues online at: https://www.krazines.com/archives.html  This one was on the back cover for those interested.

If you're able, subscribe and tell 'em John D. sent you!

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

.

Moss Piglet (September 2024): 1970's

Moss Piglet (September 2024):
1970's

For the next few posts, I'll be posting my submissions to to "Moss Piglet", a small art magazine out of Wisconsin I've been contributing to the past couple years.  They use a monthly theme for it's publication and this time it was the "1970's".  I did have a bad pun off of Robert Crumb's "Keep on Truckin'" featuring some of the actors in Watergate, so I figured the result would (vaguely) work for my Nerdy/Geeky Blog.

I wish I had been able to think of something more "Star Wars" related, as it was far more fundamental to my growing up in the 70's, in which every stick or pole I found was a lightsaber in my mind's eye.  Heck, it still is, now that I think about it.

* * *

For those of you interested, here's the link to the Homepage for "Moss Piglet": https://www.krazines.com/

You can also view previous issues online at: https://www.krazines.com/archives.html  This one was on the back cover for those interested.

If you're able, subscribe and tell 'em John D. sent you!

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

.

Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

 Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

Hey, hey!  It's been a while.  I figured I'd sum it up the movie Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) as a parody of "The Dark Knight Returns" #2 cover.  To be honest, it is less a movie and more a string of vignettes, nostalgic Member Berries, and so many fun cameos and Easter Eggs that I had a blast watching it.  I'm always a sucker for meta-humor, alternate dimensions, and fourth-wall breaks, so the entire Deadpool franchise was right up my alley.  (Deadpool's start in the comics, though, never really clicked too much with me, aside from a few of his later runs when he fully became what he is thought of today.)

It was great seeing Cassandra Nova on screen, and Emma Corrin was fun to see in that role.  I won't spoil any of the cameos--but most of them were fun and amusing in their own right, along with a few that I was genuinely surprise seeing (I avoided most of the Spoilers I could).

It was definitely strange hearing so many "F" bombs in a Marvel/Disney movie.  Not that it bothers me, generally, but the cognitive dissonance was a bit of an adjustment.  All that said, it is a movie to turn off your brain and let the nerd nostalgia and comic book deep cuts wash over you.

* * *

STEP ONE:  Alas, I don't have any digital pencils, per se, as I got a little delete happy with some extraneous Layers and accidentally deleted the Pencils.  So, here are the digital inks, instead, done on a 1,5000px x 2,000px canvas @300dpi.

* * *

STEP TWO:  I exported a .png of the inks from Clip Studio Paint into Rebelle 7.  Clip Studio Paint has an excellent Brush Engine, while the Paint Engine in Rebelle is great, and to paraphrase Jack Sprat: between them both they keep the digital platters clean... or at least can be used together to make a digital comic page of sorts.

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint and Rebelle 7

.

In Memoriam: Roger Corman

In Memoriam:
Roger Corman

Well, I'm a little late the to the Memoriam of B-Movie Schlockmeister, Roger Corman, a director and producer that had an inordinate affect on the life of a young John Douglas.  I watched an embarrassing amount of Corman movies when I was growing up on a local show on WLUK Channel 11 out of Green Bay, WI, called "T.J. and the A.N.T. (All Night Theater)".  Apparently, they got a library of various old TV shows and B-Movies and anything which had monsters, aliens, or space ships was in my wheelhouse.

When I was a dumb kid (as opposed to now when I am a dumb adult), the movies were scary and terrifying... as opposed to now when I watch them and find them terrifying for a different reason: They point out how dumb and gullible of a child I was (again, as opposed to now when I am a dumb and gullible adult).

When I watched "It Conquered the World" (1957) as a 6 year-old, the alien, nicknamed Beulah, was absolutely terrifying.  Now, only marginally less so, but it remained a part of my monster vocabulary even now (see several postings on this very Blog!).  I didn't see "Jaws", but I did see "Piranha" (1978) at a drive-in movie theater.  And so many others: "Death Race 2000", "Battle Beyond the Stars", "The Raven", "The Masque of Red Death" (and so many other Edgar Allan Poe stories... well, in name only), "Little Shop of Horrors", "The Wasp Woman", "Teenage Caveman"...  I've watched so many movies growing up which were on "Mystery Science Theater 3000" without Tom, Server, and Joel/Mike in the corner, which isn't nearly the flex I like to think it is.

Corman managed to launch the careers and work with so many big names, it shocks the conscience.  Jack Nicholson, Dennis Hopper, William Shatner, James Cameron, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, and so many more.

* * *

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

* * *

STEP TWO:  And for some dumb reason I keep forgetting to do a halfway step when using Rebelle.  Done mostly with the Acrylic Filbert brush and the Digital Round.

* * *

Done digitally in Rebelle.

.

May the Fourth be With You 2024 (Belated)

May the Fourth be With You 2024
(Belated)

Greetings!  It's my (belated) "May the Fourth Be With You"/"Revenge of the Fifth"/"Revenge of the Sixth" post featuring Darth Jaxxon.

Once again I must point out "May the Fourth Be With You" is such a bad pun I'm disappointed in myself for not doing it first.  Also, there seems to have been a shift this year to saying "Revenge of the Fifth", rather than using "Revenge of the Sixth".  Either one works well, and I also swing back-and-forth between which one I prefer.

To re-explain everything about Jaxxon (and to copy-and-paste this part from last year's Blog), he's part of my continuing--although not as Quixotic as it used to be--quest to make Jaxxon, the "Star Wars" version of a green Bugs Bunny, into something vaguely popular.  Jaxxon started in the Marvel Comics "Star Wars" #8, taking place after "A New Hope", in a pastiche of "7 Samurai"/"Magnificent 7" and...  And it's a long story.  He's a 6' tall, green rabbit which was loosely based on Bugs Bunny, that was in "Star Wars" comics.  Now he's appeared in comics (sure, the "Star Wars: Adventures" line, but I'll take it as a win and say he's officially canon, now), and apparently even has a Black Series action figure.  He also is the star of the "Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories" one-shot with Dark Horse Comics this year (with an awesome Mike Mignola cover).  So, shall I declare myself the winner and say I'm done?  Heck no, time to double down and keep this train going!

Happy (belated) May the Fourth/Revenge of the Fifth/Revenge of the Sixth!

STEP ONE:  Here is the quickly scribbled, digital pencils and the color flat laid down.

* * *

STEP TWO:  Jaxxon's face is mostly finished and the armor is more fully sketched out.

* * *

STEP THREE:  And here's the finished picture of Darth Jaxxon.  I added red highlights for the lightsaber, finished the armor, some tattoos, and other bits and bobs.

* * *

Done digitally with Rebelle 7

.

Moss Piglet (April 2024): Green

Moss Piglet (April 2024):
Green

OK, this is probably the dumbest submission I made to "Moss Piglet" (and that's saying something), a small art magazine out of Wisconsin I've been contributing to the past couple years.  They use a monthly theme for it's publication.  This time it was "Green" and I figured the result would work just fine for my Nerdy/Geeky Blog.

The first thought for "Green" was Kermit the Frog, which was the obvious answer.  Next I thought about Godzilla... Then, hey, why not both?  So Kermit-Zilla as a giant Kaiju destroying Japan it is.  Of course, I realized just as I submitted it that I had used almost the same setup for almost the same joke involving the Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles in Japan:

Ah, well.  It's a joke good enough to be told twice!  (That's the lie I'm gonna keep tellin' 'til people believe me!)

* * *

STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done as 1650px ×  2550px @ 300dpi canvas in Clip Studio Paint.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Finally, here are the colors, done on a Multiply Layer.

* * *

For those of you interested, here's the link to the Homepage for "Moss Piglet": https://www.krazines.com/

You can also view previous issues online at: https://www.krazines.com/archives.html

Oh, hey, now that I think of it, I did the Cover and Back-Cover for the March 2024 (Self-Portrait), which is fitting for an egomaniac such as myself.  

If you're able, subscribe and tell 'em John D. sent you!

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint.

.