ScOttRa Monster Art Convention Add

Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams

Bruce Campbell as Ash in Sam Raimi's 1987 "Evil Dead II"

Evil Dead II is among my absolute favorite movies of all time, and Bruce Campbell's over the top comic book come to life performance as Ash helps to push EDII up the list.

An interesting piece of trivia:
A glove belonging to the A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Freddy Krueger character can be seen hanging above the door of the Toolshed when Ash carves his girlfriends head with a chainsaw and when he's looking for the pages in the later cellar scenes. This was in response to the use of The Evil Dead (1981) on a television screen in A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

Ash is probably the single most requested portrait you guys have asked for...
Hopefully this was worth the wait.

To purchase print of this or any of my portraits please visit the store or simply click the button below.

Leatherface

Gunnar Hansen as Leatherface from Tobe Hopper's 1974 classic "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"

The first time I ever heard of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I had spent the night at my friend David King's house, and the morning after we were having an amazing breakfast, that included fresh fuit and freshly squeezed orange juice that his Mom had made. We were sitting on their deck over looking the Colorado National Park and as I munched I was looking through a copy of Hoberman and Rosenbaum's Midnight Movies (being fascinated with the amazing imagery of David Lynch's Eraserhead even back then) and I came upon the chapter about TTCM.

David's parents were very cool sci-fi/ horror folk, and David's Dad began to tell me all about the film, and how it was based on a true story. I went to bed that night with visions of lamps made from Human arms, and chairs made from bones. It would be another 12 years before I actually saw the film, and that first viewing is still among the most disturbing films I have ever seen.

An interesting piece of trivia:

After getting into the old-age makeup, John Dugan decided that he did not ever want to go through the process again, meaning that all the scenes with him had to be filmed in the same session before he could take the makeup off. This took about 36 hours, during a heat wave where the average temperature was over 100 degrees, with a large portion of it spent filming the dinner scene, sitting in a room filled with dead animals and rotting food. Edwin Neal who played the hitch-hiker claimed "Filming that scene was the worst time of my life... and I had been in Vietnam, with people trying to kill me, so I guess that shows how bad it was."

James Bond

Sean Connery as Ian Fleming's master spy James Bond - 007

I hope you'll forgive the brief indulgence, but I've always been a huge Bond fan and have always imagined doing a series of Bond villains as well as the different incarnations of 007 himself. And I couldn't let the Ian Fleming Centenary go by without finishing at least one Bond related piece.

Ian Fleming was born May 28th 1908, 60 years to the day before yours truly.

An interesting pice of trivia:
Fleming was the cousin of Christopher Lee. Who of course went on to play Francisco Scaramanga in the 9th Bond film: "The Man With The Golden Gun"

As always, you can order prints of this or any of my pieces by visiting the store, or by simply clicking the button below.

R.I.P. Stan Winston

I just heard the sad news that Special Effects master Stan Winston has passed away, few details are known at this time.

Stan's many credits include "John Carpenter's The Thing" "Aliens" "Pumpkinhead " "Edward Scissorhands" "Jurassic Park" "Terminator 2 "The Monster Squad" "Predator" and most recently "Iron Man"

R.I.P. Stan, and thanks for all the wonderful creature effects!

Inspector Dan Clay

Here's Tor Johnson as Inspector Dan Clay from Edward D. Wood Jr.'s 1959 Masterpiece: "Plan 9 From Outer Space"

Say what you want about Plan 9, but I've always loved it.

Tor was born Tor Johansson on October 19th 1903 in Sweden. He died on May 12, 1971 (My Wife's birthday) at the San Fernando Valley Hospital in San Fernando, California, from heart failure, at the age of 67. He was buried at the Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, California. You can visit his grave here.

An couple of interesting pieces of trivia:

The scar worn by Tor had to be moved every day, as it caused severe skin irritation.

Tor had a full head of blonde hair, but he shaved it to maintain an imposing, villainous appearance.

Tor's son Karl was a officer in the San Fernando Police Department during the filming of P9FOS and supplied the policemen's uniforms for the film.

By the way if you live in the Metro Are, be sure to catch Plan 9 this Saturday Night at 12:00 on Channel 20 Detroit on Wolfman Mac's Nightmare Sinema.

You can by prints of this (or any of my portraits) by visiting the store or by simply clicking this button!

Boris Skrulloff

In honor of Marvel Comics "Secret Invasion" I threw together this re-tooling of one of my Karloff portraits.

Enjoy!

The Gentleman

Can't even shout, can't even cry,
The gentlemen are coming by.

Doug Jones as The Gentleman from Joss Whedon's 1999 episode of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" entitled; "Hush"

Buffy the Vampire Slayer series creator wrote the episode "Hush" in reaction to people commenting that the reason for Buffy's success was the dialogue. Wanting to prove that there was more to the show, he created The Gentlemen, villains who steal the voices of the population of Sunnydale, rendering everyone in the town unable to speak.

And in so doing he created what in my opinion are the creepiest and most memorable of all the Buffyverse bad guys. Joss' efforts also paid off with both Emmy and Bram Stoker Award nominations.

In his script Whedon described them as ‘old, bone-white, bald – Nosferatu meets Hellraiser by way of the Joker.’

The 'Gentleman' make-up was designed by John Wheaton of Optic Nerve Studios and applied by Todd Mackintosh.

In a interview by Joe Nazzaro in Issue 66, November 2004, of Buffy the Vampire Slayer magazine Todd McIntosh, Chief Make-Up Artist, had this to say on creating The Gentlemen

I'd have to say The Gentlemen still end up being characters that everyone talks about, because everything about them was done exquisitely. They took time and were difficult, but they came together, and I have to say that the actor I did, Doug Jones, was absolutely magnificent in bringing it to life.

The elements of a make-up don't exist on their own, but when you've got an actor and a make-up coming together with a story that supports them, it's magic, and The Gentlemen certainly represented that to me.

I think there was a mutual respect between all of us that ended up creating that one stand-alone thing.

Doug Jones went on to portray Abe Sapien in both live action Hellboy movies,as well as the voice of Abe in the HB Animated films. He has also played The Silver Surfer in the last Fantastic Four movie, as well as playing both The Faun and The Pale Man in "Pan's Labyrinth."

If you are interested you can purchase a print by visiting the store, or by simply clicking the button below.

Munny Jason

Here's my first attempt at a Munny Doll for the upcoming Custom Toy Exhibition on Saturday May 31st 8pm - 10pm at Vault of Midnight.

I had originaly planned on doing a vampire, but when I opened the super secret surprise accessory and discovered an axe, well it just sort of created itself.



If you're in the Ann Arbor area be sure to swing into the Vault next weekend for the show.

Motor City Comic Con - Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who came out and made our first con such a huge success!

It was great to interact face to face with so many people, and get such a positive response. We were lucky enough to be included in Detroit Metromix's Con report; you can check it out here.

Here's a few of the highlights!

Nightmare Sinema's Wolfman Mac and Yours Truly

For those of you in the metro area there's some great news! Detroit once again has a Horror Host! Every Saturday night at Midnight "Wolfman Mac's Nightmare Sinema" will unleash zany antics and cheezy horror upon the Motor City... They were a great bunch of guys, keep your eye out for a brief interview with me that will appear on a future episode! Be sure to Check them out here.

The Skrulls have invaded!!!

A Meeting of the Minds

Fellow Scary Monsters Magazine artist and contributor Dr. Swave stopped by the booth to say hello!

Bernie Wrightson and Myself

The Avengers

And last but not least, I bought a ton of art, the highlight of which is these wonderful tiles of The Avengers by Jay Brant, be sure to check out his site.