Elvira’s in the House

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Here she is…Elvira. I love the way her eyes turned out. She’s quite suited for this style. I feel like I shorted her though. Elvira needs her boobs and dress and legs to really be represented properly. I may do her that way sometime in the future. She’s such a great character full bodied.

What else is up? More like what else is complete and ready to debut. Well, nothing. It’s funny how you can be very very busy and seem to not get anything done. That’s why I revisited my list of projects and am trying to stay focused on getting only one image in a series done at a time. Holly crap! What a list I’ve got.

Until next week, enjoy the Mistress of the Dark. She’s got me all caught up on sharing the Ladies of Horror in my blog. I’ll be back next week with Lydia Deetz…hopefully. She’s my main focus and almost done.

Revisiting a School Project Featuring the Grim Reaper

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This week I’m revisiting a project from school a few years ago. I did this for my Illustration class. Believe it or not, Zap It! is a real product for swatting flies. Google it! We had to take the style from another artist and make an ad in that style for a modern day product. As usual, horror comedy was a theme in my work. As you may have guess, this was done in Adobe Illustrator.

For the artist, I chose Aubrey Beardsley, one of my favorites, who died way before he was able to truly fulfill his potential. He created illustrations for Oscar Wilde, which is another reason to love him. And Beardsley was a huge contributor to starting poster art, so choosing his style for something like this is kinda a given.

Why share it now? Because I’d like to start a series of grim reapers. Why a series of grim reapers? Because I wrote a short story about the Grim Reaper’s son that I outlined into a book. Hmmm… Is there a pattern with me here? Writing stories about sons and fathers. Actually, I’ve written quite a few short stories about Grim. I should drag them all out and reread them.

Otherwise, I’ve made no progress on Angels Dark and Dumb except for some work on cover copy. Covers are still being revitalized. And Lydia Deetz is in the works and will hopefully be in next week’s status post. Have a great week!

The Missing Ladies of Horror

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It occurred to me that I haven’t posted the 1st two Ladies of Horror here in the blog, so that’s what I’m posting this week with my usual status or rant. As you can see, it’s Lilly Munster and the Bride of Frankenstein. One thing I’ve noticed is that they are getting better with each one I do. Everything was flat for these ladies and I’ve been playing with gradients with the more current ladies. I’ve also been getting braver on making changes to some of the line work. I finished Elvira, but you won’t see her here until next week or so. She’s up on Deviant Art @meanwinniejean if you want to see her there. I’ll always reveal the new ladies there first going forward. BTW, Lydia Deetz is in the works.

What else is up? I’m trying to find direction or training on how to draw zombies. I have this expectation that zombies need to look the scientific way of decomposition and that someone out there has created detailed instructions on how this works and how it should be drawn at various stages. Seems I’m sadly mistaken or need your help finding what I’m searching for. I spent a number of hours last week looking for blogs or YouTube videos that instruct in this way, but couldn’t find what I was looking for. I did find How to Draw Zombies video by David Finch that I should mention. Best part of the video is early on, when he goes over the usual stances for zombies. I found the rest of the video okay. It just got a little boring to watch because it was so long. I also felt the main zombie he drew was washed out. I really want to learn how to draw flesh wounds and shrinkage that pops.

Otherwise, covers are still under renovation, and there are a few other projects in the works that you’ll have to wait to see and hear about until next week. See you then.

Improved Covers on the Way

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Azael the Fallen Angel in the Angels Dark and Dumb Series

I’m really starting to enjoy writing these weekly reports. This weeks should be short though. While I had a very busy week, it was filled with communications with my Angels Dark and Dumb cover artist, R L Treadway at Atrtink, who has been creating my covers for years. She does the amazing character drawings for me as well. This is Azael, who is the antagonist in Fall for Freedom, Warrant for Damnation, and Cause for Redemption along with Margery the Demon. Besides changing the series name, she’ll be doing a minor overhaul of my covers to make them more colorful. Can’t wait to see how they turn out. I highly suggest her if you need any kind of artwork.

Anyway, I learned that changing the name of a series requires the publication of a new edition. So, yes, I’ll be doing this for the 3rd time. Figure I’ll rewrite descriptions and do all the work needed to refresh the series too, which means it’ll take a few weeks to publish Warrant for Damnation along with the others.

In other news, I created a Deviant Art account @meanwinniejean. Drop by and watch me. I’m hoping to upload all in the Ladies of Horror this week.

And finally, I posted an interview with myself on my company blog under my real name. Go to Interview with Wendy Spurlin, Founder of ArmLin House to learn more about the real me.

I guess this wasn’t as short as I expected. Have a great week!

Who Does She Look Like?

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I got another lady of horror in Patrick Nagel style done this week. Guess who she is? Actually, all you gotta do is go to the Vampira post and you’ll find out. Anyway, if you guessed Morticia Addams, you are right. While I’m really happy how she turned out, I’m not happy with the likeness. Spoken like a true artist…never happy and always finding the flaws no one else can see.

I have a long list of other ladies to do, eleven more in total with Elvira coming up next. Got a little help with the list from fellow artist, Lauren Curtis, who is also my art/marketing coach. Her website art gallery is worth a look.

What else happened this week? A whole bunch more Places to Read Horror collages, this being my favorites of the bunch. You’ll have to follow me on social media if you want to see more.

The only other exciting thing from last week is that I saw Cocaine Bear. What a hoot!!! Since I’ve decided not to do official reviews anymore, you’ll have to take my word that I laughed my ass off. Margo Martindale’s story line was the best. Sorry, no spoilers. You’ll have to see it yourself. And the main thing I really loved about the movie was that Elizabeth Banks produced and directed the movie. What an inspiration because men still dominate the horror comedy, in bad taste entertainment that I love to write and create in art.

Have a great week! Mine will be spent trying to change the name of The Courier to Angel’s Dark and Dumb. Wish me LUCK!