Halloween 2016: The Arts

It's the time of year again for the annual Karma Incarnate Halloween trip to California, which means two new shirt designs. Yay. I knew what I wanted to do for the Disney one way back in June, but alas I never got around to it... so at the last minute I had to do a little marathon session to make sure both designs were done in time to get printed.

So for the Disney one, obviously I had to go with something for The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror because in a few months it's going to be changed into something much, much more lame.

Disney shirt 2016

This one is alright, the balance is all off, but what can I say? I was on a tight deadline. I do like the way the lightning came out (probably the best I've ever done) and I'll be using the technique again in the future. Sadly, it didn't print out as well. I also like the static effect. There's a couple easter-eggs in there too, if you can spot them.

Honestly my favorite part of it is the 'Fearwell Tour' it made me laugh when I thought of it. Also, all the letters in it are customized from the base font to make it look more Twilight Zone-esque. I think I got the look pretty well.

What's that? You don't know what this is about? Well don't worry, I've got you covered.



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And then the Universal one. This was a fair bit easier, but less satisfying in the end. I think the idea just never quite came together. Still, people seemed to like it okay.

Universal Shirt 2016

If you can't tell (and I wouldn't blame you if you can't) that's Freddy Krueger, Michael Meyers, Krampus, Jason Voorhees, and Leatherface behind the Crew. Those were the main haunts at Halloween Horror Nights this year, so it seemed appropriate. It was also quick, which was good because -again- time crunch.

I don't like this one as much... usually I do one serious one and one silly one. The Disney one invariably being more silly because it's Disney and more cartoony and fun whereas Universal is more serious. Oh well. 

The backs of the shirts (Universal Left, Disney Right)

The backs of the shirts were a little boring compared to last years, but they did their job and that's all that matters in the end.

Both shirts did perform fairly well this year, people were asking about them both because of the design and because of the Tower of Terror reference, at one point I declared Jake to be the Karma Incarnate Sponsored Tower of Terror Portable Information Booth, so that was good. I don't know if people really noticed the Universal ones all that much, a few did for sure, but that day is kind of a blur.

"One last time, relax have a drink with me one last time" 

Fancy Shmancy Work Sketches

Hello all,

So this is what I was doing at work the other day instead of listening to the calls... I decided to try and match one of my favorite artists, Drew Struzan, at least in terms of style. I may not have not managed it great, I was using pencil after all, but I think I did pretty good. I like them anyway.

Indy, Conan, and Mike

 I don't know if you can tell, but that's Indiana Jones (that one I used the cover of Genesis Deluge which is one of Struzans actual works as reference) and then Conan O'Brien and Mike Nelson.

I guess I can do a little more than draw ponies.

Shine and Cherry, spooked.

This one isn't a big deal, but it's a fun sketch and I like it...and again, art. So up it goes.

It's Shine and Cherry Blossom, two of my friends OC characters being spooked by a 'ghost'.

Spoooooky

Fun sketches are fun.

"Oh ALAN!" 

Trailer Park Boys Shirt Project

I'm going to do my best to be neutral about this one. It drove me crazy for nearly three weeks and the result is...pathetic at best. Oh damn...well, there goes my neutral stance, and we're not even three sentences in! I'll make up for it by making you look at all the sketches, because I scanned them, so you have to see them.

First of all, a little backstory. Some members of the Karma Incarnate team (not me) are going to see the Trailer Park Boys perform live in the coming weeks. As is becoming our custom, they wanted shirts they could wear to help spread the brand. Now, I'm not a fan of the series, though when this began I had seen several episodes, so I was somewhat at a loss at first.

They told me what they wanted - more of the same stuff. Them as characters from the show. Since I didn't have enough of a knowledge base to come up with a scene, I started with how I wanted the characters to look.

Sketches of the look

 So at first I was going to go somewhat realistic with them...well, actually the first thing I was going to do was make them take photos dressed up and then vectorize them...but that was somewhat unrealistic.

So the next step was the sketch on the left, which is somewhat close to my normal manga style of characters (at this point, I was working off memory of what they looked like, so the drawing is far off, but I was working at the time) but after staring at it a few days, I really didn't think it would give the best sort of result for this...

So I came to the style on the right. It's a bit more cartoonish, and somewhat inspired by the Haunted Mansion shirt design I didn't use. I thought maybe it would be a good way to convey the idea...and since time was quickly running out, I couldn't afford to spend hours upon hours attempting realistic coloring which would ultimately turn out shitty.

Next then came the layout design. This was...problematic, again, because I didn't really know enough about the show to make it look natural.

Layout sketches

So I ended up doing something a little simplistic. Sue me. This ended up being a little better than it might have been, because at least I got to use all primary characters which was almost not the case. The trailer in the right image would end up saving my butt in the end since Ricky's car (which is featured in both) ended up being cut.

Ricky and Julian sketches

Once I had the style I wanted down, it was a matter of posing and merging the characters' looks with those of the people going. You'll no-doubt recognize some of the people from my other shirt designs, but two of them were new.

Additionally problematic in this was that those additional two had very similar facial structures to the characters they were supposed to be represented by. This was especially a problem with 'Julian' because essentially the only thing that separated the two of them was the hairline.

Gentleman Jim Layhe sketches

It was at this point that I began forcing myself to watch the show. I made it through 4 complete seasons by the end of this, and while I still don't enjoy it, I was able to get a better feel for the characters which I think ultimately comes through in the final poses and designs for them.

Jim Layhe, the alcoholic trailer park supervisor was the one I really sort of went wild with. his design for awhile and had to pull it back a few times. He's a drunk and an ass, but he's not really a psycho...and even when he is, it's a quieter drunker sort of psychosis which generally means waving a gun around in his underwear.

So how did they come out? Well....

Ricky

Julian

Bubbles (yes those are Jakes real cats)

Layhe

In the end the simpler, more cartoony look worked out for me (and saved the coloring stage entirely). The line art isn't as strong as I'd like, but the inking process was remarkably smooth for a change.

Final design

Custom back

The typeface and look is meant to mimic the logo of the show, which you can find easily enough online. I got pretty close, I think.
The trailer in the background is a quick vector I made off a photograph of an actual trailer...which may be cheating, I suppose, but it makes for a nice background, I think. Simple yet effective?

Trailer vector

Sadly, as I mentioned above, Ricky's Car did not make the cut... the reason for this is that I am something of an idiot. When making this piece, I did each character and background element separate so I could color them more easily. Unfortunately I used the same pen to ink each of them...for consistency...but obviously the characters ended up being much smaller than the car, which meant that the line weight of the car made it the dominant object in the drawing instead of the characters. I could have fixed this...but not in the time I had. While this meant I would need to redraw Layhe, it ended up being simpler in the long run, even if I think the initial drawing was a little more...dynamic.

Ricky's car (unused)

Layhe (unused)

The hell of it is, that's one of the better cars I've ever drawn...yes, I'm aware that's not saying much.

So there you go, I hope you've enjoyed this exhaustive look into something that a competent artist could have crapped out in a few hours.

"It's a shitnami, Randy..."