How Much Does a Hipster Weigh? . . . An Instagram

Me and my early Christmas Present from my Husband.  Pretty SWEET!!

 Yeah. . . I started Instagram a little while ago, and it's only gotten worse since I finally upgraded my dinosaur of a cell phone last week.  I don't like to think of it as being late to hopping on a band wagon, I like to think of it as missing the band wagon and being totally lame cause the trend is already over.  Here's a couple of pics and I hope to be back to posting real drawings next week.

Saw Red while we were out Christmas Shopping this weekend.

Changed the layout of my Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset Prints, which are now available in the Crypt of DOOM!!

Classic Monsters Show: Wrap Up

"He's So Dreamy" prior to framing.

Well it's December 2nd, which means I can officially post my Classic Monsters Tribute show piece on line.  YAY!!  Seriously, I've gotten so used to doing Work In Progress posts that it was hard not being able to post anything I'd been working on for the last two months.

With out further ado, I give you "He's So Dreamy".

Above you see a series of in progress photos.  I tried to document this painting more than I had others simply because of it's size.  To date this is my largest gouache painting at just a little over 17 inches tall and 7 inches wide.  It was a beast, and as you can see in many of the in progress photos, I got a little "lost in the pretty".  She was a ton of fun to work on and, as usual, I learned a lot seeing it thru to completion.

Sketch

digital color comp

Final

Since I couldn't post the process, above you'll see a comparison of sketch to final piece.  It was really fun revisiting the Creature from the Pink Lagoon again.  I liked the idea of keeping her girly, so as you can obviously see, she's a HUGE FAN GIRL.  The Creature from the Black Lagoon is the equivalent of her "boy band".

A rare photo of the Boogervampire and the framed, finished piece.  Painting on the left by Queenie.

The opening was amazing.  I sincerely thank my friends and coworkers who braved the rain to come out and show their support.  I've never been in a show where they had door men and a line down the block to get in.  It was crazy.  There was a meet and greet before the official opening, which was nice because I'm pretty shy and I usually enjoy just looking at everyone else's work.  I got dressed up for the occasion but felt horribly uncomfortable so we wound up going home shortly after the front doors opened.  After sitting at home for half an hour I decided to be a big girl, throw on some jeans and head back over.  I'm so glad I did or else I wouldn't have gotten to experience my favorite part of the evening:

As I was checking out with my haul of toys and clothes, I noticed a Mother and her 8 year old daughter standing next to me.  The mother was holding my Truly Outrageous print, which made me smile.  I pointed out that it was a cute pic and she told me her daughter had picked it out for her bedroom.  The idea that a little girl was going to have two monster girls playing with their dolls watching over her while she played with HER dolls filled me with so much joy.  I did wind up telling her that I did the piece, thanked her for purchasing it and told her daughter she had excellent taste. ;)

Speaking of prints. . . until January you can only get prints of "He's So Dreamy" exclusively at Halloween Town in Burbank, CA.  After January 1st they will be available in the Crypt of DOOM, along with the rest of my monster prints.  You can see the original on display at Halloween Town until the end of the month (December).

Classic Monsters Show: Part 2

Header I pieced together for my Fan Page.

Only a little less than a week to go before the Halloween Town Tribute to Classic Monsters Show and I'm already nervous.  I know I shouldn't be, but I just am.


In other news, the Frankenbread Men are back for their third year in the Crypt of DOOM!!  I'm not going to be producing the Charm Bracelet this year, but if you're interested in getting the whole set on on something, why not check out my new Spoonflower Shop?  If you've never been to Spoonflower, its a fun site where you can upload your own (copyright protected) patterns and have them printed on fabric, wallpaper or even wall decals (and just for the holidays, my personal favorite, wrapping paper).  It's been pretty entertaining and I'm trying to put together a cut and sew of a Frida Sugar Skull pillow.

Now back to the Tribute Show.  I'll have prints available at Halloween Town on opening night.  Specifically I'll have 20 prints of the new painting available and for the month of December (ONLY) prints of the new painting (entitled "He's So Dreamy") will can only be purchased at Halloween Town.  Prints of the new piece will be available for purchase in ths Crypt of DOOM starting on New Years Day.

If you live in Southern Cali and you're interested in attending the opening night for the Classic Monsters Tribute Show (or stopping by to check it out thru the month of December) click the flyer for more details:

Rick Baker and Rob Zombie. . . my head will surely explode.

EEEK!!!  So excited.  Check out that line up!!

Portrait of an Invisible Boy - WIP

Poster from Universal's 1933 adaption of the Invisible Man directed by James Whale.

Well, the deadline for the "Classic Monsters Tribute Show" over at Halloween Town has come and gone.  I dropped off my piece yesterday with only minutes to spare.  I still can't show anyone for two weeks what it is, but I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Invisible Boy concept sketches.

Thumbnail for Final painting composition.

 What I can show you is this piece.  I'm saying it's a work in progress because I'd still like to complete it one day.  We were allowed to do two pieces for the Classic Monsters Show and the "Portrait of an Invisible Boy" would have been my second piece.  I love how chubby he is!  I'm looking forward to painting all the little bugs on the wall, the microscope and the bubbles in his bubble pipe.

I've shown a few friends, and family members, the sketch of the Invisible Boy you see above and every time I do they laugh and ask why he's dressed like Hugh Heffner.  I always forget that I watch more old monster films than they do so in order to explain it to them, I show them the following two things/images.

My super awesome Sideshow Produced Figure. (Stock Photo)

and a screen cap of the movie:

Claude Rains and Gloria Stuart in Universal's "Invisible Man" (1933).

I'm hoping to complete this portrait before year's end.  Sadly my personal project time has been scarce since going back to work. I'm hoping that since I've already invested money in the fancy mat paper (flocked burgundy velvet), replacement glass and an awesome antique frame I might be more inclined to finish it.  Stay tuned for updates on it's progress.

Just Buried: A Boogervampire Wedding

Our Halloween/Voodoo themed Save the Date card.

I had a much longer, rambley post composed but I decided to save you all the pain of my long windedness and just get to the good stuff.

Front and Back of our Voodoo/Halloween Themed Invites. Painted by me of course.

Front and Back of our Voodoo/Halloween Themed RSVP Cards, also painted by me.

I got married to my long-time boyfriend on Halloween this year.  That was the extremely vague thing I was hinting at over the last few months.  It became an all consuming beast of a thing as I was doing most of the planning by myself.  I do want to say thank you to my friends Lori, Natasha and Valerie for their input and help, just having you three made my life so much easier.

Photo collage by our friend Kristin.  I put the original paintings for the invites on display with the guest book.

My ADORABLE flower girl Sabine.

I don't want to say my wedding was completely handmade, because it wasn't, but a very good part of it was and a lot of wonderful sellers over on Etsy helped make my special day have a unique flair that I couldn't have accomplished entirely on my own.

Closer shot of the bunting.  Letters cut by The Sticker Chick, my friend Nicole.

The totally awesome tree we got married in front of with the homemade bunting.

First up my bunting.  Don't have the best pics yet, but I couldn't have pulled it off with out the help of my dear friend Nicole over at the Sticker Chick.  Although Nicole primarily does vinyl decals, I coaxed her into cutting me 22 letters an blank glitter pages so I could glue them to colored piece of balsa wood so I could make a custom bunting that spelled out "I put a spell on you".

I make color comps of everything now.  This was the third color comp of the bunting.

Next up was my gorgeous bouquet and Carlos' boutonniere.  Both were made by Candace at Flowers from the Garden.  I have horrendous allergies so I thought that if I got a paper bouquet not only could I avoid and allergy attack on my big day, but I could also keep my bouquet for a very long time.

Tissue Paper flowers from Flowers From The Garden.

Also acquired thru an awesome Etsy Seller was my mini top hat veil.  Stephanie over at La Coco Rouge made the most gorgeous mini top hat.  Although I was apprehensive to go the mini top hat route (mainly because they are so popular and I wanted to avoid jumping on a band wagon) I'm so glad that I did.  It was PERFECT.

Top hat courtesy of  LaCocoRouge and photo by Ambitious Misfit.

And finally, my amazingly wonderful photographer Collette over at Ambitious Misfit Photography knocked the ball out of the park. . . well at least from what we can see from the one picture she's posted online as a teaser.

The ultimate thank you goes out to my Mom.  I'd like to think I satisfied a dream of her's by letting her make my wedding dress.  If I didn't then at least she satisfied one of mine by letting me design my own wedding dress.  Thanks Mom.  All three trips to Joann's, in two days, after traveling 1100 miles to make sure it turned out right were, totally worth it.

Universal Monster Movies

"Universal Studios Monsters" by Michel Mallory, Universe Publishing (2009)

So I thought I might try something different for this post.  Lately I've been seeing posts on other blogs and sites saying that sometimes followers enjoy not only seeing the artwork that an artist creates, but stepping into the artists world a little as well.  I'm assuming this means things that inspire the artist or that they enjoy so that the followers can feel like they know the artist on a more personal level.  Although I'm not the keenest on letting strangers in, I can definitely share with people my inspirations.  Granted I'm sure every artist with even the slightest penchant for the Macabre has the same inspirations that I do, so if you've seen these things before. . . *shrugs*. . . you get the idea.

So to kick things off, and because I'm just too damn excited about the Classic Monsters Show coming up at Halloween Town in Burbank, CA, I thought I'd share some classic Universal Studios horror related things over the next month or so.

I got into horror a tad late in life.  Most people now-a-days who show an interest in it start in their mid to early teens.  I got started in my late teens/early 20's  (around the same time I found Oingo Boingo, but that's a totally separate post) and I started with the slasher films of the mid to late 90's.  But, instead of moving forward with horror films, I chose to move backwards.

I love all the original Universal horror films.  Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf Man, Invisible Man. . . they're all great!  If you have an aversion to Black and White cinematography they might not be your cup of tea, but considering that they were still in the relatively early stages of movie making for most of those films, some of the things they accomplished (mood, composition, lighting, make-up) is highly impressive.  Also, if your'e the kind of movie watcher that can't tolerate slow movies, the older horror films are definitely not going to be your idea of fun, but the trade off to watching them is you're educating yourself in some of cinematic history.

Bride of Frankenstein (1935) image from Classic Movie Monsters 

Which movie is my favorite?  Well that answer can actually be broken down into two categories.  These categories would be "which movie was more entertaining" and "which monster is the coolest".

In regards to the first category, the James Whale (that's the director, in case you don't know) films are seriously my favorites as far as the entertainment factor is concerned.  Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and the Invisible Man are all great pictures and beautiful to look at.  The Invisible Man especially so.  But if we're going off of which monsters are the coolest from the Universal "major monster" library I have three favorites: The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon and, of course, The Bride of Frankenstein (not really a surprise considering I'm female and she's the most iconic female Universal Monster).

Revenge of the Creature (1955) image from Classic Movie Monsters 

Next week I'll post more about one of the aforementioned monsters in my 'favorite' category, but this week I'll leave you with this awesomeness.

Universal 100th Anniversary Classic Monster Box set (2012)

Two weeks ago Universal Studios, in honor of their 100th anniversary released 8 of their more popular monster movies on blu ray for the first time.  I tried looking at a couple of 'big box' stores around town for the box set of all 8 together but wound up settling for ordering online.  Thank goodness I didn't find them and remembered just before ordering off of amazon something I'd seen in one of my Facebook threads.

Universal Limited Edition Classic Monsters Box set (2012)

Amazon.uk has a Limited Edition blu ray set.  The item specs said it was Region Free, so I took the risk and purchased it thru them.  Yet, I found out today that they will be offering it here in the US starting October 23rd.  Let me just say, I'm on cloud nine!  Not only were they true their word, my set is region free and the discs play beautifully at home, but the history buff in me loves the bonus features.  They did a nice job cleaning up and restoring the film.  I love that I can still see a tiny bit of film grain and even more exciting for me is that I can see some of the fabric patterns in the actors clothing.  Granted I have only checked out my "Dracula" disc, but it's pretty sweet.  Best part?  I got it for half the price that they want for the regular edition set currently for sale in the US. As I stated a bit ago, I did just find out they are offering a US release of the limited box set here.

Until next time!

Images in this post were taken from Amazon.com and the Classic Movie Monsters blog.  The Universal Monsters are all Copyright Universal Studios.  Be sure to check out the Classic Movie Monsters Blog for more images.  They have a ton!

Classic Monsters Show, Part 1

Halloween Town Presents "Classic Monsters" December 1st, 2012

Hey Everybody!

Just as I was getting pretty decent about posting once a week, I go back to work and everything hits the fan.

You may be asking, "What's the Boogervampire been up to lately?"  The answer. . . not a whole heck of a lot.  Had my longest work hiatus ever this year.  8 months.  Didn't really talk about it much because most of the time I wasn't sure if it was going to be a hiatus or unemployment.  The animation industry works that way sometimes.  Good news is, it was just a hiatus so the months I spent working on my personal projects weren't a waste of time.  Bad news is, I didn't realize how much you move around when you're not strapped to a computer all day long!  Kinda miss the moving around (and the cats) but very happy to be working again.

Your next question, "So what exactly is that flyer for?"  This answer is an exciting one.  For a couple of years I've been trying to figure out what I needed to say or do to get into the art shows that take place at a year long Halloween shop near my home in Burbank, CA.  (The answer was just be myself.)  Happily I was accepted and get to be in my first show there on December 1st.  Keeping my fingers crossed that the shop owner and others like my piece enough to be asked into another.

The Halloween Town shop owner has politely requested that the artists participating in the Classic Monsters Tribute Show don't leak their artwork on line prior to the show opening.   So, although I can't show you what I'm working on, I can say that it is my most adventurous piece to date.  I'm hoping if I finish with enough time before the deadline that I can possibly do a second piece.  But for right now I'm just focusing on finishing the first one.

I will give you a hint.  It's got something to do with this guy:

Behind the scenes image from "The Creature From the Black Lagoon".

Finally, I'd also like to announce (with extreme pride) that Halloween Town is now carrying prints of some of my monster paintings!!  So if you're local, and happen to swing by Halloween Town, be sure to check them out.

The current selection available at Halloween Town.

Ballerina for Louise

"Louise's Ballerina" Gouache; 6"x17"; 2012

 A million years ago. . . probably close to 5 actually, my Sister-In-Law graduated from Highline Community College doing some law related major.  I should probably know exactly what she majored in, but I don't call my brother as much as I should.  I'm a bad older sister.

Color comps.  Originally the chosen painting was #3, but after a paper mishap and having to start over, it turned into #2.

Anyway, I gave her an IOU, along with her graduation card, that stated I'd do a painting for her.  She has framed magazine pages of some of Degas' ballerinas in her bathroom, so I thought it might be a change of pace for me to do a "normal" ballerina (as opposed to a gothic, black swan type ballerina).  I used her bathroom's color pallet (God I hope she hasn't repainted in the last two years), and her hair, as inspiration.

Got tired of drawings ballerinas and drew Poison Ivy instead.

So, Louise, here's your painting 5 years later!  (One day I'll learn to stop putting work before personal stuff, and hopefully before I'm 50.)

Goth Chicks

A couple of plain-old, ordinary Goth Girls.

Violet.

Mauve.

Nothing witty or special to report this week.  Did a couple of smaller paintings since I was still in the mood after completing part one of my Halloween project (which is probably the biggest part of the project).  Next I get to go back to some long over due commissions.  I always feel guilty taking a break to do something fun for myself with no rhyme or reason.

Oh yeah, and I finally used more of those frames I keep hoarding for these two paintings.  On the fence if I want to spray paint them black or keep them they way they are. Leaning more towards keeping them the way they are.

Mid-week Blogging

Preview of the "Piece that Must Not be Named".

 
I don't normally post in the middle of the week.  If someone was observant, or just bored, they'd notice I only post on the weekends.  Primarily Sunday evening.  But, since it's been over a week and a half since the last post and I didn't want to go too long with out blogging this time, I thought what the hell?  Not like I have anything more exciting to do right now anyway. (Kidding.)

Although I've had a totally exciting week and a half, most of it's been unrelated to arts and crafts.  Honestly I've been doing that thing where I try to finish unfinished items floating around the house again.  And that's what you see up above.  It's a snippet from the "secret" project that won't be unveiled until Halloween.  I'm doing a small series of paintings for that and what you see above is a small portion of the second painting.

I have an unhealthy obsession with Candy Corn Monsters.

 What else have I been up too finishing?  That guy.  Candy Corn is back for 2012 as a plush/stuffed animal.  I started conceptualizing him back in June, but finished him off for real last week.  I posted it over on the Fan Page and in the Crypt of DOOM!  So if you find yourself in need of more snazzy photos, go check him out in either spot.

I ran ALL over town trying to find a suitable sealant for my coasters.  Finally found a spray polyurethane (man does it STINK), but sadly the paint has to cure for a week if I don't want it to stick to the bottom of the glasses.  Still have to conduct a heat test, but the cold test on the sample that dried a week went pretty well.  I might just have to have a spot of tea.  No pics, you'll just have to take my word for it.

And lastly, Journal entries.  I tried catching up on the month of July.  Time always goes way too fast.

San Diego Comic-Con Re-cap. . . the 12th is missing, but believe me, it was just like the 11th and 13th, only with out getting the toys.

Carlos got a summer cold.  He's horrible when he's sick.