Poster illustration: Mad Love (1935) Staring:Peter Lorre

 

I haven't done a classic monster poster in a while. I think, obscure though this film seems to be these days, it counts as one. The image of Lorre with a the back brace and metal hands has been seen well outside the film it was featured in and the story is based on a book by Victor Hugo.  I think there has been as least 5 movies versions of the story starting with a silent film that influenced the costume in this later film. Unlike other versions, this one has many of Hugos story elements but  also wildly forgets all about other elements and replaces them with some pretty perverted stuff. Lorries fantastic and Colin Clive is great as well. I have read the book in the original French, it's long and I have to say, disappointing. Maybe if I had no seen this film first, my opinion would be different. 

Drawn in Krita and the logo was done in affinity designer. As it often the case with these projects, my image was composed from a mix of publicity photos and film frames plus some influence from the silent version. I am not sure sure that I captured the metal in the hands as well as I would have liked. They were harder than I thought! 

Poster: Phantom of the Opera (1925) Lon Chaney

 

This was one I wanted to add to my monster poster series for a while but finding the right image was not so easy. I went through the restored version of the film and many publicity photos to find something I thought was at least a little out of the ordinary. I blew up a frame from the masquerade sequence, which was also filmed in early colour, as well was reached out images of that Red death costume from other sources. I kept the composition simple, like the rest of the series. Even though ti was technically "in colour" and restored, the image was still not as detailed as I would have liked and the early colour was sort of all over the place frame by frame. Some things red in one frame were orange in another and some shadows were variations of green.  I like to do folds in cloth and this certainly has plenty of that! 

The logo was taken from the 1925 posters and lobby cards. I hand drew it from the references and tried to keep the colours true to the original. 

Book release/Sortie du livre: FLEXIBLE

 

 It has taken me a long while to put this together but it is finally for sale on Amazon! The limited amount of text is English and French. 72 pages in full colour.

The book is a compilation of illustrations of acrobats and athletes I have done over the years, some from a decade ago, some from the last month and are available as prints to anyone who is interested. The book is only 14.95$ USD and 18.88$ CAD. There is a Kindle version but it doesn't work as well in that format. 

My goal is to try and get my artwork out to the public and hopefully sell enough to help with my finances. That is not the most realistic plan, I know, but it's all have right now! 

If anyone out there would be kind and post about his on social media and tell anyone they think might be interested I would appreciate it. I am not on social media so it is fair to say I would not be successful doing that on my own. 

I need sales, but also reviews - they help a lot to get people interested in buying on Amazon. 

J'ai mis du temps à le mettre en place mais il est enfin en vente sur Amazon ! La quantité limitée de texte est en anglais et en français. 72 pages en couleurs.

Le livre est une compilation d'illustrations d'acrobates et d'athlètes que j'ai réalisées au fil des ans, certaines datant d'il y a dix ans, d'autres datant du mois dernier et sont disponibles sous forme d'impressions pour toute personne intéressée. Le livre est à seulement 14.95$ USD et 18.88$ CAD. Il existe une version Kindle mais elle ne fonctionne pas aussi bien dans ce format.

Mon objectif est d'essayer de faire connaître mes œuvres au public et, espérons-le, d'en vendre suffisamment pour m'aider à gérer mes finances. Ce n'est pas le plan le plus réaliste, je sais, mais c'est tout pour le moment !

Si quelqu'un était gentil et postait à propos de lui sur les réseaux sociaux et en parlait à tous ceux qui pourraient être intéressés, je l'apprécierais. Je ne suis pas sur les réseaux sociaux, il est donc juste de dire que je ne réussirais pas à le faire moi-même.

J'ai besoin de ventes, mais aussi d'avis - ils aident beaucoup à intéresser les gens à acheter sur Amazon.

Amazon Canada:

Amazon United States:

Poster project: Lon Chaney Jr's The Wolfman

 

Click image for larger version.

This was the one that started it all and almost anded it all. I tried several times to do a Wolfman illustration/poster over the years and never came close to getting anything close to what I envisioned. This is pretty far from what I going for back then, but I have been fairly successful or at least having enough fun with making monster poster more recently and gave Lawrence Talbot another go. 

I made a pretty detailed sketch based on quite a few reference images. I wasn't sure how much I wanted to show his shirt details and decided to try a style in-between the giant monsters and the classic horror monster posters. So mostly black and white wth hints of colour and still used the charcoal brushes in Krita  for the character. I used some brushes in Affinity photo and modified a 3 moon image I made a long while back which I painted over. The logo is from the opening credits of the film and remade in Affinity Designer. 

Despite the references I have myself  much more liberty to use my own imagination in the pose, details and lighting than in previous projects. Sadly the TONS of detailed I put into the fur on the head is now hidden in shadow but it looks better this way in my opinion. 

This one has a true "move poster" vibe to it. 

poster project: King Kong (1933)

 

 I love the original King Kong, it was my Aunt Helen's favourite movie. She saw it many times when it was released. The looks of the creatures and the jungle scenes are just amazing and Kong is one of the few effects that really reads as a real character even today. 

This went through something like 30 iterations before I stopped changing things. Should Fay Ray be on the top of the Empire State? Should I draw the planes coming for Kong? At first it was to be just a long shot of the Empire State with kong seen tiny at the top and the planes arriving.  Finally after going though the film a few times I saw some interesting shots I had not seen used before and decided a mostly silhouetted Kong hanging off the building inspired by the screenshots and Willis O'Brian's preproduction drawings with an art deco design inspired by the opening credits might be best. 

The logo was interesting. It looks normal enough watching the film but if you start to recreate it it's sort of Escher-like in its construction. The letters looked carved but actually could never exist in the real world. I drew a simplified version of the tower and kept Kong mostly black with white highlights and some subtle dark greys to fill in details around his face. I looked at how the stop motion puppet was constructed to draw the feet and hands. 

There were a bunch of RKO logos in the 30s and I picked one that looked the most interesting with the other deco details. I added grain to the background elements so it would have that airbrushed from the period but excluded Kong and the titles so they would be super clear and stand out more. All things considered I am happy with this as it looks like what I was going for and combined my drawing and design skills in equal measure. I think so, anyway. I struggled with where to to put the title as it was on the bottom and small for most of the process and I did not want to cover his upper hand but it fits more on the top and larger and gives it more a feel of a poster from the time the film was released. 

A good start for 2021!

Nosferatu poster project

 

I seem motivated by monsters these days. When I get an idea and the urge to realize it I'm trying just close the door to the studio and work until I'm done. I started this one a day ago but did about 7 hours on it today.