Ghosts

YES, another Hot Mess Halloween party at Lava Lounge with One Nite Stan and Broooooklyn. Last year for the Halloween party I did the series of Universal Horror characters. This year I was really feeling a spooky haunted house with an anguished face façade and a ghost field of spirits hanging out on the lawn. I also wanted to go bonkers with the colors for maximum mood setting.



I kept the rough really raw and quick, just to get it down on paper. Sometimes that's the hardest part, just getting ideas out the head and tangible. It's one thing to have good ideas or to talk about them until you're blue in the mugg, but if you can't execute the maneuvers to make it perceptible by anybody else... who cares? It's easy to forget that if you can't nail it on the first attempt, you can always try again. Even if your job is hyper time sensitive, and even then... it's not like there won't be any more opportunities. There's always another show. There's always another reason to bust a move. If there's not, book another show. Bust a move on your own.



Here's an example of an attempt that failed. I don't know why I thought I could do a closer shot of the house in agony. It would be one thing if I was drawing the house the party was in, but that's not the case. I'm glad I did this piece though. I had a good time checking out Victorian Architecture, and looking at all kinds of old houses to get the feel of what a haunted house would look like. One of the things I definitely wanted to be happening with a lack of structural stability. I wanted the house to look like it was about to fall over. I wanted it to seem like nobody had done any maintenance in at least three decades.



I took my rough, and used a light box to redraw it better on Bristol board. Then scanned that and laid out the text using this Blackletter font. Note that I messed up and put the wrong address in this step. It's 1307 not 1304. Who knew?



I then inked the living shit out of this drawing. I mostly used a brush and ink, then went in with micron pens for the details. I then took my trusty tooth brush and splattered ink everywhere. I lucked out and didn't spill it on everything. I like how this came out. It's rough and gritty, but that's Cleveland. That's fall.

I listened to the score to The Proposition by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis while I drew this. It's awesome and in parts spooky and creepy.



I used a light box to redraw this text and keep it real. It's pretty simple, but effective. Sometimes I don't do this, and I just design and draw the text freehand. Other instances call for things being more meticulous. There was a lot of info on this one, so I felt the need to make it fit before doing it up.



I drew the ghosts separate. I like ghosts. I like ghosts. I like ghosts.



So, I drop the ghosts on a separate layer on top of the background art. I set that layer's opacity to ...maybe 65%? I can't remember, but it's more than 50%, less than 70%. Anyway, I was really pleased with how that worked out. The ghosts came out pretty good, and not ...threatening, creepy, or scary. They're having a party. A ghost party.