Go Back To The Monsters

October, the fall season, the beginning of Halloween. Have a crazy idea about publishing not just one newsletter, but a few. Post some of my work I did during past Halloween seasons, and write about it. Will see what happens, but let’s start with this one.

I have written about this piece before, but maybe will dig a little bit deeper this time…or maybe I am repeating myself, but who cares. Just write.

It was, I think, in 2012. Yeh, that’s it. Was working up in Harlem on a job for a Halloween/Haunted House event. This was my contribution to the job. A backdrop piece to be used, a rendering of the great classic monsters from those great Universal horror films from the thirties and the forties. There was a roll of paper at the job site, where you could unroll it, cut off a piece, tape it on a door, and start drawing. Had a few reference shots of the famous monsters from Universal Films, the great classics such as Karloff as Frankenstein, as being one example. Those films are amazing, coming out of the 1930s and the 1940s, the sets, the lighting, the mood, probably German Expressionism seeping into the scenes, the tone, the atmosphere, the angle shots. Getting sidetracked, but if I remember correctly, you had the tilted/Dutch angle shots in Frankenstein, the laboratory scenes. In Dracula, those incredible long shots/interior scenes in the castle. I think it was Frazetta who said- and I am paraphrasing this off the top of my head, and I could be wrong about this quote- the films didn’t scare you…it was the atmosphere, the mood of those films that stuck with you, that’s what scared you. The look, the tone, not the blood or the gore, that, to my recollection, was not shown in those early horror classics.

A quick pencil layout and then the acrylics came in, building the tones and the layers. For tiny details on the Mummy, I used a toothbrush. If you look at a photo of Karloff wrapped as the Mummy, you see all these rough textures in the bandages. I think it was a spontaneous move. Ink or paint brush wasn’t going to cut it. With a toothbrush, you could get different textures form the hair of the brush. Bristle hair, flick specks of paint on the rendering, build up the textures. Establish the lighting, limit the color palette. Get gothic, muddy it up, no bright tones. Tight details, yet the Wolf Man and Frankenstein were probably a little looser in rendering. Didn’t have a picture of Lugosi as Dracula. So, with a looming deadline, working at the site, and at that time no iPhone with Google images and no time to print out a photo of him, had to wing it a bit with illustrating another vampire.

It went down to the wire on that job. We had to wrap it up by 9pm on a Friday night, for the show to start in the morning. It was an all day event. It also happened to be that day, where we got the news that Hurricane Sandy was going to hit the city, so we had to not only break down the sets, but had to leave before the subway was going to get shut down. I remember rolling up the work and getting back home. When I got home, all the places were closed, barely a soul out on the street. Surreal…and who knew it would happen again, years later, the city being empty of living souls.

Let’s end on a better note. If I don’t hear from you, Happy Halloween. But if I do, hit me up on Linkedin and maybe we can chat a bit. Talk to you soon!