MONSTER MASH

I had this book when I was really little with pictures of all these classic movie monsters, From King Kong and Godzilla, to Frankenstein and Dracula, Wolfman and you name it. Nosferatu was in there and the images from this early picture always seemed to me like they somehow captured someone’s nightmare on camera.  Dude was seriously creepy. Even by today’s standards for make up and special effects he looks terrifyingly real. A vampire to scare you. Not some pale faced kid running through a forest.

NOSFERATU

 I had this View-Master with Frankenstein reels when I was little. Maybe I was three or four years old. Yeah, no back seat DVD players in mom and dad’s car back then as it was the late70’s early 80’s. Yeah and they were in 3-D!!! So the images had these puppets set up in various scenes telling the story of Frankenstein. Today, when I look at those same images, they look more like action figures and the scenes are something like from Robot Chicken. This along with watching countless hours of  The Munsters was how I learned about Frank. Really the funny version of Herman Munster was who I connected with. At any rate, this Frank is probably a little closer to the Munsters version and far from the De Niro version. (Remember that one?) Ultimately I think I’d like to do this image in chalk. Throw in some crazy green and blues. So here’s Frank for now, in B&W.

FRANK

Where I live there is a super old theater downtown called The Tampa Theater. It’s was built in the 1920’s and has this incredibly haunted Mediterranean feel. The architecture is amazing and spooky at the same time. Years ago I was fortunate enough to see the Phantom of the Opera (with Lon Chaney) here accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ with the guy playing the music when it originally premiered in 1925. Was truly amazing! Here, I’m not sure the Phantom was my original intent but that’s who took shape. It’s one of my favorites.

PHANTOM

Back in the 80’s one of the local TV stations here in Tampa had a Saturday afternoon monster show called Creature Feature. They aired all the classic horror and Sci-fi movies you can imagine. Same station also aired a 3-D version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. They made a big deal out of it and you could go to a local convenient store and get a pair of 3-D glasses to watch it when it finally aired a few weeks later. Maybe I should give this one another try but it was always kinda boring to me. Just didn't seem to have enough of the Monster. Again, I’m not sure that is the creature I was aiming for here. Just wanted to draw a water monster with spines and stuff like a lobster or crab. Maybe he even turned out a bit like Merman from He-man.

SEA MONSTER

Sure I have posted a lot of mummies here before, but this was really the first one. Wow, were these bandages fun to draw! So, I kept going and a hundred drawings later I'm doing more mummies. Reminds me a little of Mumra from Thundercats. Not sure I like the bloodshot eyes.  I have thought about reworking the eyes but it kinda works somehow. So I left it alone.

MUMMY