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. 

Poster: Creature of the Black Lagoon

  

Click images to see larger versions.

Still not sure how successful this is but it is a much more fully realized illustration I think. It has background and foreground elements and isn't as graphic design oriented as my giant monster  or sci-fo posters. Again done in Krita and charcoal brushes and too about 25 hours of drawing time. There are many details hard to see unless you are close up to it, like the texture on the creature's skin. I used  the blending stump brush like I did with real charcoal sticks on paper. I drew the underwater weeds over and over again, simpler versions just didn't look right. The sketch was a good guide even though I changed some details like how the swimmers foot was postitioned. For something like this I make a detailed sketch so I can make a grey silhouette and then add shadows, highlights and details and the drawing seems to push itself out of the canvas as I draw. The bubbles etc were just freehand with no plan. I just kept at them until it looks OK to me.  

I looked through the film for references and used bits and pieces as inspiration but I have found the clearest references were photos people took of models made of the monster. The film is burry and grainy and the details are often obscured, especially with the pose I was looking to use. I wish I had unlimited funds to buy some of these toys so I could play with more poses myself. 

I love the costume from this movie. It's one of the best monster design out there and rivals Lon Chaney Jr's Wolfman make-up. It is really well thought out and detailed. The eyes look a little too painted on in some shots but it works