Joe Cool - Dawn of the Picture Show

A little while back I held a contest on my other blog ZforZombies.com where the winner would receive a piece of original artwork. I've held this contest before and it's always a fun challenge to interpret what the winners want into an original piece of artwork. Joe O'Connor, the man behind Oduction Production's Midnight Time Warp, won the last prize I offered and wanted something that combined his two cinematic loves - DAWN OF THE DEAD and THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. I thought long and hard about how to approach the piece, of possibly combining characters in a scene and the appropriate ways to initiate a cross-over. Ultimately I decided to channel the iconic imagery used to market these films into one cohesive product.

I sketched out the head over the horizon piece from DAWN OF THE DEAD and its stencil like font and decided to implement the lips and drippy font from THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW. This was all done on Bristol board. The idea was to meld both pieces into an almost movie poster look. You can see little "R"s and "BL"s on the face to help me discern which areas would be painted red & black. I found this to be a big help, almost like my own paint-by-numbers kit.

I decided to use watercolors for a nice blended effect to capture a photo-realism with the lips and to give a warbled hue for the top of the piece as well. I used shade of brown for the inside of the mouth as black would make it look lost in the background later on.

I chose purple for the background to off-set the red that I would use to tie the piece together. I knew that working with a limited color scheme was the only way to truly make the piece "pop".

I went in with India ink and a brush to drop a layer of true black across the piece. This was a little tricky with the lettering, but I managed to pull it off. I doubt the piece would be as eye catching if I had just used black watercolor.

All inked up, you can see my horizon line is a bit wonky. Such is the peril of drawing straight lines without a ruler. To fix this I laid a strip of blue painter's taper across the piece and pressed firmly so that no ink would bleed out. I then took my brush and leveled out all my uneven areas.

After I finished with the ink, I went back over and erased my pencil lines, and the segments where I had marked for color. The thing I didn't account for was that the water color over top of the pencil made it a little more difficult to remove. Once I rubbed out the pencil marks, I had to go back over some areas for color, but this added a nice element of shading to it all. Notice the gradient of purple from top to bottom.

Here it is, all done up. I particularly enjoy how the lips seem to be a part of the zombie head. The horizon line plays a trick on your eyes as it attempts to separate the two images that I have juxtaposed. The flash from my camera picks up the brush strokes from the ink, but they're unnoticable to the naked eye. I think the combination of text and fonts plays a really nice role in the overall aesthetic. I sincerely hope that Joe enjoys the piece as it gave me more exercise with watercolors and inking. Be sure to check out ZforZombies.com for future contests!

A little bit of love for Hannah goes a long way - Daddy's Girl

Hannah Neurotica is a talent to be reckoned with, and for good reason. She's the brains and beauty behind Ax Wound Zine - a self-published zine that showcases and investigates the issues of gender, sex, and horror, as well as taking to the air waves with Zine Core Radio and Ax Wound Radio. She's also one of the strongest voices for feminism in the horror genre, establishing February as Women in Horror Recognition Month. I even made her a bit of "fan art" a while back which you can check out by clicking here. She's an extraordinary women and one I consider a friend.

A cultured writer and social philanthropist Hannah is always eager to lend a helping hand to a worthwhile cause, using her voice to champion the efforts of those most often overlooked. I wanted to show my appreciation to Hannah with a piece of artwork, one with a personal touch. Her father passed away not long ago and their relationship was quite strong as you can imagine. I wanted to pass along my interpretation of a fond memory, and I started with this old photograph from her childhood.

As you can tell it's an older photograph, and I'm sure a bit blurry from scanning it, but this is the happy moment I hoped to capture. The first thing I would have to do is go in and divide the piece into sharp lines for reconstruction. I started out on Bristol board with pencil.

 Sketched out like this, you can tell I need a bit more practice with my figure drawing, but it's hard to find fault in a labor of love. Here I roughed out a bit more of a close-up to factor out the background that I couldn't discern, plus this puts more focus on the individuals. Once I was happy with my pencil marks I went in and outlined it all in black pen and erased my lines.

  I decided to try something new with this piece - water color pencils. I recently received a set for Christmas and put them to use. They color just like a normal pencil, but you have the ability to add water and blend to an enhanced quality not entirely offered by regular watercolors. The difficulty here was creating a realistic skin tone. I had to build this layer by layer and factor in how it would all blend.

 I used a combination of black and brown for the hair, curious how it would blend and hopeful that some of the line work would stay after adding water. I added a bit more red to perk up the color in the face and lips and filled in the eyes.

 I free-handed the pattern on Hannah's dress, hoping to mirror what I could make out from the photo. It's probably not the best representation but it helps fill in the void of white from before.

 Next was just adding more color, but I started to fear that it wouldn't quite look right when I began to blend.

 At a happy stopping point, I began to blend with just a brush and water. The hues I had shaped before blended nicely in the face. Not too bad for only having red, orange, and yellow to work with for a flesh tone.

 I had to be careful to follow within the lines and to not go over the designated areas that were to be lighter than others. I still wanted to factor in light and shadows in with the blending. In retrospect I would also use a pen that wasn't water soluble. There were a few instances were the ink would run, but I was pretty careful throughout.

 I also blended some of the flowers on Hannah's shirt which dulled down the sharpness and faded out how terrible I am at drawing flowers. I was quite pleased with the hair, as I blended it did keep the harsh lines I drew in before.

 Here I began to retouch some of the ink and blend in some other areas, particularly along the hairlines, eyes, and lips.

To make the piece "pop" a bit more I decided to use a touch of black Sharpie to outline the figures. This couple with the pen lines offers a nice duality and small touches like eye lashes. To pop it even further I decided to add a blue, halo like background to draw in the eye and match Hannah's dress. This was done by simply taking a blue water color pencil and drawing along the edge of the hair and blending outward with water.

All in all I'm happy with this piece, especially for working with a new medium. I definitely need to work on figure drawing, but it's not bad from a 20+ year old photograph. I wanted this piece to look like a caricticure you'd buy off a sidewalk artist filled with hand drawn whimsy after a day out on adventure. It's not a world class portrait, nor was that what I was aiming for, but instead I found a happy middle ground of almost cartoony yet still purely recognizable. I wanted to capture a moment of glee and wonder when all was right with the world. I hope it will serve as a remembrance of good times had, not to be forgotten. I like to think that Hannah's father instilled in her the wonderful spirit that exudes from her to this day. I hope that this token of friendship serves that spirit well.

Idle Hands and the Devil's Workshop

I've been unemployed for a little bit, but the time has afforded me the opportunity to craft and generate a lot of artwork that has been swishing around inside my head as of recently.

A while back Carl Manes of I LIKE HORROR MOVIES won a contest I held. His prize an original piece of artwork done by me. His request; Dario Argento's OPERA with a comic book vibe.

For the piece I used fountain nibs and ink to draw on Bristol board. I used the black ink with water & brush to achieve the various shades of grey. I used paper masking tape for the mouth restraint and to hold the nails under the eyes. I used actual picture frame nails and painted my "blood" on with red acrylic paint. The rope is standard twine I found at the Dollar Store and simply glued into place with Elmer's. This is the most iconic image of the associated with the film so I wanted to toy with it slightly without losing what die-hard fans would instantly recognize. The fine points of the Nibs really allowed to capture the eyelashes and the eyebrows. It gives it a sense of fluidity in my opinion, though it was quite the challenge to work solely in inks. I framed the piece in a simple certificate frame I found at the Dollar Store as well. All in all I'm quite pleased with it and so is Carl. Proof positive you should read Z for Zombies and follow me on Twitter.


The lovely Hannah Neurotica who is the brains & beauty behind Ax Wound Zine and a crusader for Women in Horror Month is looking for support in spreading the word about her efforts. I was happy enough to oblige by making up a flyer to show my support.

I clipped out old postcards, comic books, horror magazines, and sex ads to cut & paste a punk rock style band flyer glued on a sheet of typing paper. I outlined it in paint markers and Sharpie to add a bit of pop to this collage. You can find out more about details of making your own flyer by clicking here.


If you haven't heard of the Soska Sisters or their cult classic in waiting DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK then you're seriously missing out. I am pretty much a big fan of everything that they do and I only wish I could give them more of the exposure that they deserve. That being said I decided to make my first attempt at fan art. CJ Wallis is like the Oz behind the curtain and I decided to show some love to one of my favorite characters from the film, Goody Two Shoes.

I drew this up on Bristol board in pencil and then went in watercolors. I tried to grade variant with colors and push myself in controlling the flow of the materials I was using. I kinda feel it has a distinct 80s album cover vibe to it all. I outlined it in Sharpie and went in with a fine point pen for the outline details. Then I went in and erased the pencil outlines to give it a softer, more blended look. The ribbon is actually a separate piece of paper I cut out, water colored, and glue on with a signature piece of his dialogue. The hardest part of the piece was recreating the signature style font of the DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK title. It's a broken, disjointed style that's pretty difficult to replicate though I tried to recreate with Sharpie and a fine point pen. It was a lot of fun to create and I hope others follow suit with their creations of fan art. I'm sure it will come pouring in with the release of their new feature AMERICAN MARY.


Stay tuned as I have more goodies to upload and share with you. I hope you enjoy what you see and be sure to return for an exciting announcement.