SCARY MONSTERS #79 -- a whole lot of vampires!

Here's an advance look at the just-finished cover for Scary Monsters #79. Created with a combo of Manga Studio and Photoshop. Get out your garlic, mirrors and crucifixes, folks -- that's a LOT of vampires!

How MONSTER MEMORIES are made.

For quite a long while now, I've been creating the cover art for SCARY MONSTERS magazine and its annual MONSTER MEMORIES edition.   Over the past two days, I produced the wraparound cover art for the upcoming MONSTER MEMORIES 2010 issue.  I thought it might be fun to follow the process.  

It begins with an email from editor/publisher Dennis Druktenis outlining all the images and copy he'd like on the cover.  As this issue contains a previously unpublished interview with the late Forrest J Ackerman, Dennis sent along multiple photos of Forry in his cluttered office.  For the movie monsters/actors depicted, I searched my collection and the web for appropriate reference photos.  On this cover we have Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster, Bela Lugosi as Dracula (from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein), Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Lon Chaneys, Senior and Junior -- and Aurora model kit "Big Frankie."

The next step is a rough pencil layout -- which I neglected to take a pic of -- but it's just a bunch of squiggles anyhow -- you're not missing much.  I then drew all of the cover-featured creatures in pencil -- roughing in the logo and placement for some of the cover copy.

I scanned this image, dropping out the rough logo and copy, and using Photoshop, altered the pencil tones to a light blue.  I then printed this onto bristol board.

Using colored inks, I started working on "Uncle Forry."

Here we are a little further along.

The  Forry portion of the piece was fully colored/painted -- with the messy elements on his desk just suggested, and fading away into white in the corner of the piece.  Using blue inks I added more depth and detail to the "background" monsters/actors. I also printed out a light blue scan of FJA's "Frankenscience Monster" book and with x-acto knife and glue, placed it in Karloff's hand

The next step was to scan this and start playing with contrast, hue and saturation in Photoshop.  I bumped the blue up to a darker purple and tried a greenish background color.

I liked that -- but maybe orange would look better?  Yup.

Next step was to hand draw the logo, scan it and combine it with the already existing illustration. 
More fussing with color -- a deeper reddish orange for the background, and a little more contrast saturation on that purple.   A little "Sam Scare" head was added by the logo, as well as all the cover copy requested by Dennis.  A few minor tweaks, and it's done.  Look for the cover below on your newsstand in the not too distant future!

Pumpkin... GOOOOOD!!!!

A Happy Halloween to all the readers of my blog!  Here's the "Frank O'Lantern" I carved this afternoon.  We're getting ready for Trick or Treaters, and will be giving out back issues of various Batman comics that I've inked along with the traditional candy.

House of Frankenstein!

Here's another Scary Monsters wraparound cover illustration -- this one featuring various characters from the Universal horror film House of Frankenstein, as well as TV horror host M.T Graves.

Karloff "Mummy" illo wins "Rondo" Award

My cover illustration for SCARY MONSTERS magazine #64 has just won a monster/horror fan "Rondo" Award.  For more information, take a look here: www.rondoaward.com

RONDO AWARD nomination!

Once again, one of my SCARY MONSTERS cover illustrations (issue #64, Boris Karloff in " The Mummy") has been nominated for a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award. This is the sixth annual round of awards -- and while I've been nominated before, I've yet to win one of those spiffy li'l Rondo busts. Maybe this year?

If you are a fan of classic horror films (and if you're not, what's wrong with ya?) PLEASE Go to www.rondoaward.com and cast your votes today! There are many categories, including best movie, book, magazine, etc.

All you have to do is copy the ballot, paste it into an email, and place an x beside your choices. Then email it to the address provided, taraco@aol.com - It's that simple.

And if you are a certified monster maniac and not yet a member of the Universal Monster Army -- please join us at: www.universalmonsterarmy.com