She’s Alive!

This week marks the 89th anniversary of the classic Universal Monster movie, The Bride of Frankenstein. Michelle and I realized this late into the evening on Saturday and quickly ripped through a new ink wash illustration and process video to celebrate the occasion.

The actual bride of Frankenstein (played by Elsa Lanchester in a dual role that also saw her portray Mary Shelley) only appeared in that one eponymous movie. But despite not having as many times up at bat as Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, or The Wolfman, the character has left just as indelible an impression on pop culture as her monstrous counterparts.

And while I always look forward to rendering The Bride in watercolors and debunking the idea that she has green skin (preposterous!), I wanted to stick to the same black-and-sepia ink and wash technique I used on all those other Universal Monsters last October. Now she fits right in with the rest of them.

The sepia ink is a nice counterpoint to the black ink, but I wanted to use it for The Bride for a very specific reason. Elsa Lanchester had red hair. You can see it very clearly years later when she plays Katie Nanna in Mary Poppins opposite Julie Andrews. It follows, then, that The Bride of Frankenstein may also have had red hair. It’s not canon? Well…it’s my drawing, and I say she did. The warmer tones of the sepia ink do a passable job of conveying the idea that she has red hair, while not being as obvious as a watercolor wash.

If you want to see my process for this image, how it turned out, and listen to Michelle and I gab about movies and toys for seven minutes or so, the link to the video is below.

You Know The Name of King Kong

Back in January, we inked Godzilla as a way to celebrate our love of Godzilla Minus One. This month, Godzilla X Kong:The New Empire hits theatres. And while we’re not sure whether we’ll love it or not, Michelle and I thought it was only fair to ink up a King Kong in anticipation of the release.

The difference between the two should be obvious. I inked Godzilla with pens, using hatching to achieve my grey tones. With Kong, I decided to use ink wash. It’s a softer look, but I think it works well for the composition and subject (a giant gorilla stomping through a misty forest on an uncharted island).

In addition to my own ape inks, we have once again conned Michelle into playing a game of “Ink It or Stink It” where she’ll take a run at inking my drawing of Kong’s apparent nemesis, Skar King.

We both learned a little about technique and materials while working on these, which is our constant goal. But if you want to see how they turned out, you can check out the video at the link below:

Inking Godzilla Minus One

I don’t know what you guys did over holiday break, but Michelle and I just kept going back to the theatre to see Godzilla Minus One. We weren’t even necessarily huge Godzilla fans before this movie. I mean, of course he’s a ton of fun. He’s a monster. But this movie? It stomped us flat and left us breathless. Best movie we’ve seen in a long time.

When I was a kid, when I saw a monster movie that got under my skin, I’d spend days lying on the living room rug filling my sketch pad (and any other random piece of paper I could lay my hands on) with drawings of the monster. So it seemed natural for me to do the same thing with this new, powerful, terrifying Godzilla.

Big difference is that now I have better tools at my disposal. So I lightboxed my sketch onto heavy cotton watercolor paper, and went at it with Black Star inks and Micron fineliners.

My plan was to set up three distinct values — lights, mids, darks — and set up the composition so that they frame each other nicely, and lead the viewer’s eye where I want it to go. I wrestled over whether to render this in inkwash or hatching — each have their benefits — but chose to go with a very measured, hatched linework for the midtones to contrast with the chaos of the subject matter.

I had a lot of fun working on this and practicing my brushwork, hatching, and monster doodling. If you want to see me put the whole things together, Michelle and I recorded my process for this week’s video and talked about our Godzilla Minus One experience (no spoilers).

My Friend’s Mailbox is Haunted!

Maybe haunted isn’t the right word. More like it’s crawling with monsters. And it’s not just one friend, it’s a few. And it’s all my fault. Because this year, Michelle and I decided to draw and ink a bunch of Universal Monsters and send them to some of our friends and Patreon supporters as Halloween cards.

Sending and receiving Halloween cards is a tradition that seemed a lot more prevalent when I was a kid. Hardly any of my friends do it anymore. But it’s something I always enjoyed, and something I’m not willing to let slip so easily into the past.

And while picking a few cards up in the drug store to mail out is perfectly fine, whenever I can squeeze in the time to make the cards by hand, it’s always a lot more fun. So I grabbed some watercolor paper, inks, brushes, and pens and got to work.

We even figured out a way to make them a little more than just hand-done illustrations (although, that would’ve been fine). We crafted a delivery system that made the drawings more like actual cards, and even supplied a little mystery by way of a window cutout that obscures parts of the illustration until you open the card.

If you want to see all the monsters we sent out to terrorize our friends this Halloween, you can watch the process video below:

It’s Muppetober! Yeah? So what does that mean?

Hey! During October, a lot of artsy-types do a daily challenge: ink something every day, draw something every day, and they match it to a particular theme. I’ve done it before and I’m doing it again. This year, we’re calling it Muppetober!

For every day in October, I’ll be inking a Muppet. There’s a lot to choose from, so I’m just picking some of my favorites. But I’m not inking too heavily or elaborately, because it’s more than just inking, I’m also going to try to add some watercolor on top.

Will I be able to pull it off? I don’t know. We’re 13 days in and…yeah, it’s a struggle. And it’s not necessarily the drawing and inking. That’s goes down pretty smoothly. The watercolors, they’re a bit more involved. But the real pressure? The real time suck? Michelle and I are recording my process for all of these, editing and uploading a short to YouTube every single day.

All of this is going on, of course, while we’re juggling some other projects and commissions. But we’re letting you know about this in case you need some Muppets in your life every day. Even for just one precious minute.

Here’s the link to our shorts. Have fun!

Zombies and Witches. Halloween is Coming.

Hey, we are back from hiatus on our YouTube channel and celebrating fall, the upcoming Halloween season, and monsters of every stripe. So here’s the latest process videos we dropped.

First, Inking The Tarman Zombie from Return of the Living Dead. A favorite zombie movie of mine, and a great opportunity to practice my inking.

But we also work in 3D at the studio. We wanted to experiment with foam clay, so I made this witch’s mask. Didn’t turn out too bad, and now I wanna make more.

Hope you enjoy the videos. We have lots more fall/Halloween/monster related projects we’re trying to squeeze in before the end of the year. If you’re into that stuff, come on over and subscribe to our YouTube channel, Long Lost Friend Studio. It’s spooky fun. -v

Inking Batman’s Scaliest Villain, Killer Croc

A few weeks ago, Run Red Run and I descended into the Gotham City sewer system to ink Batman villain, Killer Croc. And like some of the other things I’ve inked on our YouTube channel, Croc is currently (as of me typing this) available in my shop.

I used a brush for some of it, but I really relied on my tech pens for texturing his arm wraps, scaly skin, even the hatching on the slimy stones in the dank tunnel.

And for fun, Run Red Run played a round of Ink It or Stink It and inked another batman villain favorite, The Scarecrow.

How did we each do with our inking? You can watch the video and see -v

Toned Paper Drawing of the Kanamit from The Twilight Zone

I don’t work with toned paper very much (I did that Jekyll & Hyde sketch back in February)so I thought I’d get some practice in.

For my subject, I picked the Kanamit from the classic Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man” It’s always been a favorite episode and I had a Kanamit action figure on my shelf to use for reference.

I used the same tan-toned paper as last time, and a range of regular graphite pencils (4H to 6B) as well as a white charcoal pencil.

I think I made just a little progress with this one. And I had fun talking with Run Red Run about The Twilight Zone and my Kanamit action figure. All that stuff’s in the video, if you wanna watch. -v

Two Hellboys for the Price of One!

And since nobody’s charging an admission fee, that price is free. Free to watch me ink this Hellboy.

I used traditional, brushed ink on watercolor paper, something I’ve been trying to get better at.

But that’s not all — I said two Hellboys and I meant it. In an episode of Ink It or Stink It, Run Red Run also took a shot at inking a Li’l Hellboy drawing I did!

How did she do? You’ll have to watch the video to find out. Hope you like it! -v

Inking The Addams Family: Traditional vs Digital

If you watch my YouTube channel at all, you know I’ve been working on improving my traditional inking skills. This week I tried a little test with my favorite family of kooks, The Addams Family.

I did a sketch of the Addams clan and tried inking it traditionally — with pens, brush pens, and brushes. I thought the results weren’t too bad. Definitely better than they would’ve been had I not been practicing inking for the last year or so.

But I also wanted to pull the sketch into the computer and ink it digitally. I’m more comfortable with that process, and I figured I could compare and contrast afterward, to see what I needed to work on.

Both the traditional and digital versions are in this video. As well as some pics from a LIFE Magazine photospread featuring actors who DIDN’T get roles in the Addams Family after auditioning for them.