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" 

Haunted Mansion shirts

Hello,

So I managed to make it all the way through September without posting anything. I would have taken this as a failure of my goal at one time, but ah, not this time. No, because now we're only a couple days into October and I'm posting something I actually like. Woo. 

So the company I do volunteer work for, Karma Incarnate, is taking me to Disneyland in a few weeks time and they wanted shirts made. I made a fairly poor showing which I'm not going to post here, because it's terrible and as soon as I'd finished it, underwhelmed as I was (but working with a fairly narrow deadline) I accidentally came up with something I liked better.

Before I show the finished piece, I'm going to post the originals because for some reason, all my best work is done in pencil. I don't think there's been a single thing I've ever drawn in which the inks and colored version look as good to me as the pencil sketches...but who knows? I've gone ahead and added the vector version next to the pencil one for comparison sake. 

Ghostly Rex

Ghostly Jake

Ghostly me

Ghostly Brock

Those are the individual versions. I think they came out quite well, all things considered. Here's what they look like in a set with a background (this is also the image which ended up being on the shirt).

Hitchhikers

Yeah, I think it's pretty great. Don't know about you, but I do. The coloration ended up being a little different than I'd wanted/expected, but it's not terrible and sort of has the look I wanted. 

Oh, hell, okay. Here's the one that I didn't like very much...

Rejection!

Yeah, it's a pretty poor bit of photo manipulation. May have been an off night, maybe it was just a stupid idea to begin with. Probably both. Maybe I just suck at it? Yeah, it's probably that one. Just know that the elements are there for something not quite so terrible. Maybe. 

So that's it for now. Some lovely character and vector art. Oh, and as a bonus, since almost no one ever sees my blog, I'll post some bonus art that I did for this. Enjoy!

It's bonus, so just deal with it. 

Now this one, I did it as an afterthought. I did the sketch first and was like...oh, I have three hours to kill here at work, so I'll just bang it out. In the end, obviously it falls apart on many, many levels...most notably the shadows which...ugh. Went way further than they should have. Still. I got all the way through the inking stage. Go me. 

"It's her own fault I didn't save her." 

                        - Tom Stewart