Once again I stuck with a corpse inspired color scheme. In all the photos I’ve seen of this creature he looks like he’s pretty pale.
Kiwi Frankenstein (Black and White)
This version of a Frankenstein monster is inspired by photos of the creature in Evil of Frankenstein played by Kiwi Kingston.
I’ve only seen two of the Hammer Frankenstein series; The Curse of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Created Woman. Once of these days I’ll have to catch up on the other films.
Christopher Lee(ish) Frankenstein (Color)
I didn’t add much color to the image after the initial colorization. This creature seemed like he should be pale and corpselike in hue.
Christopher Lee(ish) Frankenstein (Black and White)
This second Frankenstein creature is inspired by the monster played by Christopher Lee in The Curse of Frankenstein, the first of the Hammer Frankenstein series.
Not Really Teenage Frankenstein (Color)
Colorizing was done by –
A. Scanning the original art into Photoshop
B. Duplicating the original art a couple of times onto a couple of different layers. One layer would stay untouched in case I needed an undamaged version of the original image.
C. The original scan is duplicated again and then colorized.
D. The colorized layer is duplicated and then given a gaussian blur.
E. The three active layers (original, colorized and blurred) and then set to multiply.
F. I then erased out the parts of the original layer where I only wanted color to appear in the image (rather than color with a grey undertone).
G. I adjusted the contrast of what’s left of the original layer so that I get solid blacks and the greys are lighter.
H. I added another layer set to multiply and then added color for skin and the background.
I. On additional layers I added highlights or undertones of color.
I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. I’m especially happy with how little time I spent in Photoshop.
Not Really Teenage Frankenstein (Black and White)
I’m constantly trying to improve my skills in creating color illustrations. I’ve tried a number of techniques and media – colored pencils, markers, watercolors and Photoshop. All of the media have their benefits but so far there’s not one that I would use exclusively. The problem with paint, pencil or marker is that, while the colors might look great on paper, the scans I’m able to get leave something to be desired. The illustrations all need some adjustment in Photoshop. And I try to spend as little time in Photoshop as possible. The program is a black hole of noodling opportunities. I can zoom in and fiddle around getting a perfect look to a bug on a wall in the background of an image that the casual viewer wouldn’t notice was there. The more an illustration is done on paper the less time I’ll spend screwing with it once it’s scanned.
So … I regularly check out the work of other artists and, if they’re doing something I like, I try to add their techniques to my skill set. I recently happened across Adam Hughes’ DeviantArt site and got a bit of a clue about his workflow. It was enough of a clue to try some version of it on my own.
As I often do when trying out new techniques I started with a familiar subject – Frankenstein monsters. The art here is done with cool grey Prismacolor markers and black ink.
Tomorrow, the colorized version.
Max 3
Max and his team. The little girl is the daughter of the woman with the glasses and the man on the far right. The boy with the hat is the girl’s cousin. The young man with the shaved head is the team’s mechanic and technician. The blonde is the team’s psychic. Don’t all teams need a psychic?
Max 2
The early Miracle Max was sort of an adopted uncle to a pair of kids. The girl here is the daughter of the two of the scientists of his team of adventurers. The boy is her cousin.
This is another example of inking with Micron pens. I love the things. I was so happy when a friend introduced me to them. For years I used refillable technical pens when I wanted clean consistent lines. The technical pens were fairly expensive and required a lot of care and maintenance. These days I do most of my inking with a brush but I still use Microns for straight lines and when I want to do detail work.
Max 1
I’m fascinated by primates – lemurs, monkeys, apes and, especially, hominids – the offshoots of the human evolutionary line that probably have gone extinct. I say probably because human beings have been seeing mysterious hairy manlike creatures on every continent except Antarctica up until the present day. There’s the Yeti and the Yeren in Asia, Bigfoot in North America, the Yowie in Australia and a variety of creatures in Africa and South America.
Miracle Max was originally conceived of as a sort of simian, more family friendly Doc Savage. He had team of scientists and adventurers that he worked with. Sometimes he fought international criminals. Sometimes he tracked down mysterious creatures – lake monsters, sea serpents, skyfish and other things.
This illustration was done to both play around in that version of Max’s universe and to practice inking with Micron pens. I put as many examples of primates, both real and anomalous, in the illustration as I could fit. The featured humans are members of Max’s team.
Bureau of Drawers Box o’ Comics
So on Friday I went to The Bureau of Drawers gallery show. Aside from picking up one of their minicomic Combo boxes I also got a couple of sketches.
This is Adam Watson’s portrait of me as a muppet. It looks just like me!
From Calamity Jon Morris I got a giraffe pie. Yum!
