Wednesday, December 17, 2014

More Krampus

The Krampus painting is done. I don't know what I was thinking, giving him blue skin with a blue background, but somehow it seems to have worked out.


Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Krampus

I'm still trying to keep myself in the Xmas mood so I decided to do some more seasonal artwork. You can find out plenty of information about him online but basically Krampus is the German anti-Santa. While Kris Kringle comes around with gifts for all the good children Krampus comes around with a switch and chains and drags the bad children down to hell. What a great idea, too bad we don't have stuff like this over here in North America.

This is a cool video I found online that really spells it out.



I'm trying my hand at a painting of Krampus, for now I've just got the sketch and color study done. I'll put up the final painting when I get it done.


Thursday, December 4, 2014

Santa vs the Aztec Mummy


Its a K Gordon Murray Christmas. I've been watching a bunch of old shitty xmas movies trying to get into the holiday spirit. Specifically the old Mexican "Santa Claus" movie, you know the one with Santa vs Pitch, and "Santa Claus vs the Martians". I was gonna have Santa vs the Robot but somehow the Aztec Mummy popped into my head.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part IIII

Well it took me a couple of months but I finally got my painting finished.

Picking up where we left off before I filled in the color of the characters on the bench. I went with blue for the skin of the Bride and my favorite pea soup green for the Monster. I like how the wrappings on the Bride turned out, but I wish I had made the Monster's head a little thinner.


Now its time to finish off the final tree. It was a pretty big one so I broke it up and did the branches first, then the trunk. The color of the branches is slightly more blue than the trunk but I think I got it pretty close. I also added some vines wrapping around the tree. I was still unhappy about the Monster's eyes so I painted over them in order to redo them.


For the finishing touches I redid the Monster's eyes, making them about half the size they were before. I think he looks a lot better than he did before, he has the blank stare I was going for. I also added some patches of grass around the bases of the trees and the tombstones.


 I have to say I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm looking forward to seeing how it will look once I have glazed it.

Now to come up with a new idea.

Thursday, October 23, 2014

Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part III

Well its been a month so it must be time again to check in on the status of the painting.



With the background finished I decided to start on the ground. Just like I did with the sky
I filled the whole area in with a flat black.


Then I went with the sponge and filled in the colors I wanted. I went with a blueish gray
for the most part, and lightened it up and added in some yellow for the light coming off
the lantern. I like using the sponge when painting things like the ground or the sky, it
really makes a nice looking texture.






I finished off the tree on the far right and three of the tombstones. Then added in the
vines.


The last tombstone and the bench were done in the same style as the other tombstones. I
tried to dab in a bit of yellow to look like light from the lantern. And lastly I've
started on Frankie's outfit. I'm going with the classic fuzzy vest look from "Son of
Frankenstein"



Tune in again soon for another update.



Friday, October 10, 2014

Trio of Terror






These old vacuform plastic masks and smocks are something that really puts me in the mood for Halloween. I remember wearing these as a kid. Although when I was growing up we didn't have the old monsters but instead we had mainly costumes from the newly released Star Wars movies.
I went out one year as E.T. I wish I still had that old costume.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Treehouse of Horror

Every year around Halloween I like to do a drawing based on the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons. Working in chronological order I try to do something one of the small stories or the wraparounds from each episode. I just finished this years picture and I've already started thinking about next year.






Thursday, September 25, 2014

Paintblogging - In The Graveyard Part II

Ok, I've been working on this painting for about a while now so I thought I'd post an update of my current status.

The canvas for this one is 24 x 40. I've done a lot of smaller paintings recently and have been itching to do something this size. So I take the illustration and redraw it onto the canvas. This is a very time consuming process that takes me about 2 days to complete.


The first step in the actual painting will be to do the sky. I wanted the sky to look wild and unnatural so I went with purples and magenta. I find when doing the sky its best to use a damp sponge and just smear the colors together. It looks like a mess when your done, but as you start to add more elements it will clean up.


I added some stars to the sky, and then painted in a couple of bats fluttering around. I decided to make the moon a sort of gold color to make it work with the color of the sky. For the castle and the hill I decided to make it close to the sky color and a little blurry to make it look deep off in the distance.


Then I added a row of trees along to horizon and filled the rest of the background with a tangle of brambles.


I kept adding thistles and briars to the background trying to create a sense of depth in the area behind the characters. I made the ones closest to the foreground a pleasing shade of blueish green.

 
Now with the background done it will be time to start tackling the foreground elements.

Friday, September 12, 2014

Halloween is coming.

I was very shocked when I saw these out at the grocery store the other day.  They usually aren't available here in Canada, even at Halloween. From what I hear Boo Berry should also be available, I'm gonna have to head out to different stores and see if I can find it. Lets hope enough people buy it that they make it an annual thing.


Saturday, August 16, 2014

In The Graveyard

This post will be about the newest drawing I've done. I wanted to get back into doing some monster related stuff, so I went back to my old favorite Frankenstein Monster and added the bride into the mix. I'm hoping to turn this one into a painting so I want to do some blog posts just like the ones I did for A Very Merry Unbirthday.

This is the original sketch where I try to cram in as many of my favorite monster movie images in to one drawing. I put in Frank and the Bride surrounded by spooky trees, gravestones, an old castle, a full moon and lots of thistles.



For the actual sketch I changed around a few things from the original sketch. I changed Frankie's outfit from his original blazer to the furry vest from Son of Frankenstein. I got rid of the thistle bushes at the front of the image. I put the haunted castle on a much more precarious looking hill and added a lantern to be a second light source.


Then the easy part, adding the flat colors in photoshop.


Then the fun part, finishing the colors in photoshop.





I'm very happy with how it all turned out, the next step will now be to get a canvas and start turning it into a painting.





Sunday, July 20, 2014

Monday, July 14, 2014

Count Floyd

An acrylic on canvas board portrait of Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd, a late night horror movie host from the great comedy program SCTV.
I think it turned out well, I just think his hand is a little chubby.


Friday, July 4, 2014

Penguins

Some sketches from the other day. Burgess Merideth and Danny Devito as the Penguin.




Friday, June 27, 2014

The Curse of Frankenberry

This is a painting I did several years ago. It was originally going to be of the Karloff Monster running through the woods with angry villagers on his tail. Just like the scene in Bride of Frankenstein where they are running through the woods with the trees that look like telephone poles. Somewhere along the line I decided to swap out Karloff for Frankenberry. I like how it turned out.

Here is the original illustration.


And here is the finished painting.


Sunday, June 22, 2014

Gremlins

I'm a big fan of these movies. I can't understand why they stopped making them after 2. Maybe they should reboot this franchise with Gremlins III Gremlins in Paradise.


Sunday, June 8, 2014

Very Merry Unbirthday Part 3



Well it took a while but I finally got the painting finished, let’s have a look at the final steps.

I finished off the hands of the rabbit and painted in the Mad Hatter character. I also added their clinking tea cups and added the tea splashing out of them. I added some highlights to the characters and the chairs to correspond with the colors of the lanterns. I’m pretty happy with how it looks at this point. The colors are nice and rich.



Now to start tackling the objects on the table. I started out with the stack of cups to the right of the Hatter. I filled them all in with a layer of flat grey and slowly dry brushed them with white until I got the look I wanted. The tea pots were done by starting out with a flat dark color and then building it up with gradually lighter colors. I added the dark outline to the teapots cause I liked how it looked.



And finally it comes to this. Not much to say other than I filled in the rest of the teapots and added the mouse to the one at the bottom. I like how the designs on the teapots look. Overall I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out.



It took about two months to get to the finished product. I’m looking forward to getting started on something new.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

Very Merry Unbirthday Part 2



Ok I’ve gotten some more work done on the painting in the last month. I didn’t take as many pictures as I would have liked to show the progress, so I’ll have to make due with what I got.

The first thing I wanted to do was add the sky. I filled in all the sky areas of the painting with a nice flat black. Then I took some very dark blue and started to drag it across the black. I kept adding layers of continually lighter blue until I was able to get a nice effect of a sky blending down to the horizon.



I also added some glowing stars. And filled in the trees.



It’s now time for the shrubs. For these I used a method similar to the one I used for the sky. I filled all the shrub area in with pure black, Then I started adding dabs of gradually brighter green till I got the look I wanted.



Next it was the lanterns. I played with them for a while to get the glowing look that I wanted. Then I went and filled in the chairs with a flat burgundy. I’m going to then build it up with lighter colors till IO get them to look nice and plush.



And here is where I am now. The chairs are done and the Rabbit is nearly there. I need to finish his hands and his cup and then I’d like to add some highlights from the lanterns, darken in some areas and add his shadow to the chair.



I’ll have more updates soon.