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.

Little Things

Key L-eye-me Cupcake!!

Well, I had grand things in store for this post, but alas, they fell thru.  I had wanted to do a large scale comic about my adventures at the 2012 San Diego Comic-Con (in the same vein as my journal sketches), but the con was so exhausting that I found myself needing nearly two weeks to recover.  Good news, I got what I went for and the short story is that it took 3 whole days for me to get into the line at the Hasbro booth to buy it because soooo many people wanted the My Little Pony Exclusive this year.  Silly Bronies.

Anyway.  What have I been up too the last three weeks. . . not drawing in my Journal, that's for sure.  I now have too many days to make up.  But I have been tinkering around with new stuff for the Etsy Shop.  Shall we take a look-see?

First up (and if you're a Facebook Follower, you've already seen some of these):

Soul Sista Medusa.  She's having delusions of Pam Grier.

The original has been framed in an orange frame exactly like Marie Medusa's Lime green one!

So I've been wanting to add some Medusa's to the "Hair Style" series.  I've been seriously wanting to do an afro inspired style for a while now.  At first she was going to be more of an innocent hippie with a daisy in her hair, but the more I thought about possible names, the more I thought of Pam Grier and how AWESOME she is.  Since Medusa's kind of a mean, bad ass type woman that wouldn't take any crap from anyone (cause she'd turn them to stone), I thought big 70's shades, hoop earrings and a "Coffee" inspired necklace would be much better "Afro" accessories.  Unlike the other Medusa's in the series thus far, I changed up the color scheme a little.  I knew I had an orange frame that was exactly like the lime green one I framed the "Marie Antoinette" Medusa in, so I wanted to make sure the background, scroll and accessory colors complimented the frame.  *Fun fact. . . found out by accident last Halloween that this frame actually fluoresces under a black light.*

Next:

Test coaster.  Not quite finished, but far enough along to share.  Coaster number two in the works next to it.

Coasters.  When I posted the sugar skull print set in the Crypt of DOOM, a couple of fans started asking when I was going to make coasters out of them.  I thought they were nuts.  How the heck does one make coasters?  Who do you go to to have them made?  And could I sell something with my art work on it that I didn't personally make myself on Etsy and feel morally okay with it?

Well guess what?  It's EASY!!  I checked out a few tutorials online and found that I didn't really need a whole lot to make a decent set of coasters.  Since the test coaster went well, I'm going to move forward with creating the full set of 4.  Hopefully I'll have that up in the shop before next weekend.

And then:

The multi-bat sketchbook was a test.  That one will stay with me, the others below will be in the shop soon.

On the left, two unlined/sketch Moleskin journals, on the right 3 lined journals.

Another Crypt of DOOM follower contacted me once about putting my artwork on Journals.  I'm pretty sure she was referring to the sugar skulls, but I was tossing the idea around in my head the other day and though it might be fun to give it a go!  And it gave me an excuse to get out my block cutting tools and make a custom stamp (which I haven't done in forever).  I looked up custom Moleskins on Etsy, and there's a ton of them.  But what I didn't see a whole lot of was black ones.  I thought a simple image of bats in a fun, bold color might be interesting to try.  Of course every one is different due to it being a hand made stamp and sometimes the block printing ink went on thicker than others, but hey, they're handmade!  And, it was a fun escape from the pen and pencil (stylus and computer?).

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Journal Dumpage and Super Grover

 

So, the trend you will probably keep noticing here on the blog this year is me following thru and completing forgotten tasks.  Well, not forgotten, but sidelined.  Case in point today can been seen above in my journal entry from the other evening.

My friend the PotatoFarmGirl has quite the eclectic taste.  Mostly people see that she likes super heroes, unicorns, cats, flowers, forrest animals, and of course, animation.  When I first met her 15 years ago, she also expressed a love of Super Grover.  Three years ago at Christmas time, I found the softest, most adorable little stuffed animal of Grover.  Although I think she would have been happy with him the way he was, it seemed kind of boring to be giving to a friend that was in their late 20's.  So I decided to give him a custom Super Grover Costume.  I bought the felt, and even gave her the doll and the pieces 3 years ago and said "He'll be Super Grover when I get done with the costume!"

And he is.  Now.  After he was locked up in my supply locker for 3 years.  Hence the lame joke that the locker was dark in the journal drawing.

Front.  The Logo is a brooch that can be removed.

Profile.  The helmet took forever, so needless to say I'm pretty proud of it.

Now onto the JOURNAL DUMPAGE!!  A good friend asked me why I only post some of my journal drawings since they thought they were all funny.  Some may assume it's because I'm not proud of the drawings or I think they're ugly.  In all honesty, most of the funniest ones are the one's I DON'T post because they aren't the most appropriate.  I usually depict exactly how I feel or a very particular something that happens on that specific day. Occasionally my political correctness, or kindness filter can, how shall I put this. . . be a tad bit off.  So I don't alienate and loose what few friends I have, or get them in trouble with their friends, I choose to only show the ones that won't be too offensive.  So enjoy the most recent Journal Dump!

Got up after 4 hours of sleep for lunch with the Ambitious Misfit.

Instead of going to see fireworks, we spent the 4th rearranging our house!

Up next for Carlos and I is the San Diego Comic-Con.  We weren't going to go this year, but then this happened:

I really hate Hasbro.  They have almost all of my money.

Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset

"Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset" 5"x7" Gouache; 2012

 Whelp, she's finished.  Thanks to everyone on the Fan Page that voted for their fave color comps.  As I mentioned last week, I went with an unpublished color comp that happened much later on.

The framed "Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset"

Closer look at framed "Pretty-Pretty Pirate Playset"

 This painting has been 4 years in the making.  The original idea came to mind a few years back for one of the Gallery Nucleus "Power in Numbers" shows.  I can't remember exactly why this piece didn't get made then, but I'm fairly sure it had to do with the frame.  I knew from the very beginning that I wanted an antique oval frame for it and had trouble tracking one down.  That was before I found out about Etsy, obviously.

I have to address the frame again.  I fell in love with this frame as soon as I saw it in the Little Byrd Vintage shop on Etsy.  I knew it would be perfect for this piece as I thought it would help "tell the story" of the ship wreck.  Or at least match the shipwreck, if not add to the "story".  I also knew that I HAD to get a double oval matte cut for it with a burgundy flocked/velveteen and the gold matte.  Although the frame is beat up, I thought that maybe using the velvet and gold together would subconsciously add to the story of shipwrecked treasure.

Any way.  Yeah.  4 years later she's finally out of my head.  The Creature from the Pink Lagoon has a second piece featuring her now and I must say she looks FABULOUS!

P.S. Not quite done matting and framing the piece exactly, hence why you can see tacks and some black masking tape on the wall.  I'll be finishing her off properly for the first time, which means she'll be getting stapled in place and having brown paper backing on the frame with a fancy hook.

**Update**

I finished the final framing today.  Cut a new gold matte as it had some scratches from when I expanded the opening from 4"x6" to 5"x7".  Also cleaned the glass really well and made sure there were no dust or paper flecks on the matte before I sealed them in forever with some glue and brown paper.  Very excited to have "professionally sealed" sealed the frame on my own.

Sunken Treasure-y Type Stuff

Well, finally got a little motivation towards the end of this last week.  I've been sorely lacking any since finishing the last painting.  (As I probably mentioned in the last post.)

Although I can't show you one of the two paintings I'm currently working on, I can show you stuff from my new pirate treasure themed painting.

Early pose concept.  Her legs got a little long.

Early color comps.  Actually chose the unseen #8.

Last but not least, time for a new mini painting!  I love little scarab beetles.  As you can see in the photo up top, the little beetle below was put in a very tiny 1.25" by 1.75" frame I bought quite a few years ago at an antique store.  Even though I tried to make him small enough to fit in the opening, his little legs and tips of his antenna are bumping into the edges of the frame.  As a side note, the June Bugs are out a little late this year here in Burbank (usually see them early May), so I've had fun seeing large, brown beetles with no antenna on the patio.

Speaking of the patio. . . I've managed to not kill my little garden yet this year AND I brought my hydrangea back to life.  I think I'll be calling the hydrangea Zombie Plant 2.0.  The first zombie plant was a desk plant I had back when I was at Neopets that I would forget to water for a while then once I remembered it would come back to life.

The elusive Nico and her Cat Grass.

Zombie Hydrangea and Garden

That's it for this week.  Next post, hopefully the Treasure Painting will be finished and titled!

Another Year Wiser

Whelp, it's my birthday.  What do I have to show for it?  A couple more gray hairs have been added to the streak at my temple. Although I normally try to hide this patch with some completely unnatural hair color, every two years or so I let my hair grow out so that I can get back it's natural moisture and strength. On the plus side, to the gray hair con side, I'm now 15 pounds lighter which means I can fit back into some of my older jeans!  (Translation:  I don't have to go buy new ones!)

The last month has been relatively uneventful.  With no hard deadlines looming on anything I've gotten a little lazy.  Not sure if that's a good thing, since I was nearly pulling my hair out while I ran all over the place getting the "Just Desserts" show ready and some would argue I could use the break, or if it's a bad thing. (Speaking of, Monkeyhouse just asked me if they could extend the show til July.  You can see the show online by clicking here.)

Most of the things I have been working on I can't post online yet.  Some of them have to wait until after Halloween.  But be sure I'll be doing a HUGE post after Halloween chock full of Voodoo Doll goodness.

I've started my first personal Monster Kid painting (translation: not created for a group show of some sort).  I still have no idea what to call that series of paintings, but as it grows I think I might have to figure something out soon.  Monster Kids just sounds lame.  I digress.  This painting goes back to one of the first monsters in the series, the Creature from the Pink Lagoon and I've been dying to do this painting for a couple of years now.  Found the perfect frame on Etsy about a year ago, so I've kind of been working backwards on it.  Got the frame, then got it matted, and now I'm doing the sketch so that I can size it to fit in my mat since I knew exactly how I wanted to present it

Then, when I wasn't procrastinating on my voodoo doll project, or my Creature painting, I had my first sugar skull commission thru Etsy.  I don't normally do commission work due to my work load from my day job, but since it was sugar skulls representing the client's kids, I thought I'd give it a shot.  Got to try a couple ideas I'd been tossing around in my head for future skulls, namely trying to make a boy skull, incorporating a diamond into a skull, and of course, fire.  The client was gracious enough to let me post the finished skulls here on the blog and on my Facebook Fan Page.