Happy October 2017: Halloween Octopus and Mermaid : Color

When I showed this colored version to someone, they were amazed at how color can be used to organize an image. I love the sparkling texture with lost and found shapes in the black and white line art version; but it is interesting how the colored piece appears less "busy" but still has all the same details.

 

 

 

Scanned pencils, digital finishes.

©erniekwiat2017

 

Have a Happy Halloween

I had the weekend free; so I painted another zombie piece. This line of revenants may be heading toward your house for a candy raid.

Scanned pencils, digital finishes.

©erniekwiat2016

HAPPY OCTOBER!

I hope everyone has a wonderful and fun October with the kind of Halloween you enjoy.

A zombie raid could be shuffling toward your door this year. I like Payday. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scanned pencils, digital finishes.

©erniekwiat2016

 

Merry Christmas?

I raise a cup of cheer to all on the Holidays.

Sesame Street Zombies

Sesame Street Workshop artist Evan Chen has created some cool zombies with the Sesame Street characters.

Zombie Bunny

Isn't Easter about returning from death? Some folks say the story of Lazarus is the first zombie tale; so hare (ouch!) is a perfectly traditional treat for Easter.

Thanks to TikiKris for pointing the way to this decadency. I am surprised that the Zombie Bunny is not white chocolate.

The only negative I can see to this chocolate bunny, other than a raised blood sugar level, is that it looks a bit too much like a regular rabbet mold, just with pasted on decorations. Maybe if the demand is great, a more creepy Easter Bunny mold could be tooled!

The New Dead

When did zombies get buff and badass? Daunting persistence… always coming at you in often overwhelming numbers… these are descriptions of zombies I am traditionally familiar with. The poster for the book anthology The New Dead made me wonder at what point did zombie became such excellent physical specimens.

I haven't read this book, but I am intrigued enough to look for it.

Carl Barks: Bombie the Zombie

There is a good Carl Barks story, "Voodoo Hoodoo," in Dell 's 1949 comic book "Donald Duck, Four Color #238. The story features Bombie the Zombie.

This is a photo-copy of a pencil sketch Barks did. Maybe it was a study for a print he did. The Sketch is quite different from this finished art, so I'm not sure of the relationship between the two. I can not find much about this finished art either. This scan, from the web search, appears to be of a print.

Acording to cbarks.dk, Barks had no dread of dying. The following few statements sum it up:
"I have no apprehension, no fear of death. I do not believe in an afterlife. I think of death as total peace. You're beyond the clutches of all those who would crush you.
Cemeteries and funerals are for the living. When I go out to visit Garé's grave, I can almost feel her presence, but to visualize what's really there - by now a bunch of bones in a coffin - I feel that's none of my business."

Zombie Pumpkin

It may be too soon to post this; but every day is Halloween to me. This blog doesn't get that may visitors, so those of you who visit are deserving of an early Halloween Treat.

Return of the Zhambie

Several years ago I posted Halloween Pigs as my theme. I liked the way this one came out, especially the inking style. The inking seems rough, but it has a feeling of defining the form without being too slick.

It is still available at one of my online stores, MONSTER SHIRTS.

More Bill Everett ZOMBIE stories

If you would like to read another story illustrated by Bill Everett with the title "ZOMBIE," here are two versions of the same story. The color version is the original from the 1950's and can be read over at Golden Age Comic Book Stories. The black and white art was an updated version printed in Tales of the Zombie, #1, 20 years after the color story was printed - notice the long hair, and you can read it at Horrors of it All.

Zombies on a Picnic

In high school and college classes it seemed that there were always these stark graphically designed covers on the books we needed to read. Sometimes, they had pseudo-semi-kinda fine art looking images with odd crops.

I wanted to give the impression of what an imaginary cover, from one of those publishers of those dry required classics, may have had, if it published a horror book.

Swamp of the Living Dead

I'm sure a lot of people remember the joy of going to the newsstands to look at the new comics and paperback books when they arrived. I bought a lot of books just for the cover art. The great covers from Ace Books ,from back in the 1960's, were some of the best. As I remember, they didn't publish horror but stayed with the genres of Science fiction and fantasy; so I thought I would try to catch the feeling of one of their old worn paperback book covers in a Halloween zombie themed digital painting.

I have not read much horror literature. It is much more fun to draw it than read it. Maybe, that is why I like horror comics, they are mostly art with only enough writing to add more interest.

For those who might be interested to see a little bit of the process in making this, and a couple other digital pieces I will be posting here, visit the forum here.

Zombie Heads

I did two renderings of the blue sketch from yesterday's post.

Mad Zombie Head

I have been doodling zombies lately, with Halloween in my mind. This is a quick drawing made with one of my favorite drawing tools, a col-erase light blue pencil. I am able to draw over the blue lines with dark graphite pencil or directly ink over the blue drawing . When I scan the drawing into the computer it is then a simple task to drop out the blue from the drawing.

Zombie Daily

Zombie Daily is a blog I have just discovered. There are some very nice and creepy images collected there - just in time for Halloween.

The image of the zombie has been gaining in popularity in recent years. Zombies are seen as spooky but also as humorous. I think of them as the U.S.A.'s version of Mexico's calaveras (skulls) for the Day of the Dead.

A Cold Day in Hell

I think some folks were a bit disappointed that I didn't make a creepier Santa this year. No one can say that Uncle Ernie doesn't listen to the public. Here is… A COLD DAY IN HELL.

Swine of the Dead

More brush and ink practice.

Zombie Hog 2

I did another inking of my sketch. This time I only used a brush and black ink. Again, the tone was added in Photoshop.

I am trying to emulate digitally the look of the old Craftint or Duoshade paper. It was, or may still be, a heavy paper with one or two invisible tone patterns imprinted onto it. The dark line or dot patterns appeared by the application of a developer - a separate chemical for either the light or the dark tone. Cartoonists would use dip pens or brushes to apply the fluid.

John Severin is the master of this technique.

Zombie Hog

Finally! We are in October! The look of those letters all together in one word makes me shivers with anticipation. I am going to try to post more new drawings of mine this month, many will have a pork theme - for no special reason.

Lately, I have been playing around with inking techniques. I may post the same drawings inked in different ways; so I hope you don't mind seeing the same basic drawing reinterpreted a few times. The zombie was inked traditionally with black ink, a dip pen and brush. The tone was added to the scanned image in Photoshop.