Hey gang, I recently finished another monster sketchcover. This time I drew “The Creature From The Black Lagoon“.
He’s probably my favorite of the Universal Monsters, but other than drawing him as a “Scared Silly” cartoon I’ve never actually drawn or painted him before- until now!
Sketchcovers are comic books (or magazines, zines, etc.) with a cardstock cover attached that you can draw on. Several different titles, styles, sizes, paper stock, and all to choose from. Usually they just have a masthead/logo on the front, and can be one or two sided, or have a blank designated area to draw on.
Like most of my drawings, I started off with pencil on the front of a blank Image Comics “Creature From The Black Lagoon Lives!” sketchcover comic.
I “colored” it with a variety of grey markers. I then used a black Pigma Migron pen for the linework.
For the white highlights I used a Gelly Roll pen and Prismacolor pencil. I then sprayed the cover with some Krylon Workable Spray Fixative.
For the back I did the same, yellow #2 pencil and grey markers.
I have a variety of Copic markers, Ohuhu markers, Touch New markers, Weisbrandt markers, Letraset markers, and Prismacolor markers.
I used the 03 Pigma Micron pen for the linework, a 10 Gelly Roll pen for white highlights and bubbles.
My wife usually buys them, pencils, and markers for me for my birthday and as Christmas stocking stuffers.
I finished up the highlights with a white Prismacolor pencil, and did a bit a of blending with it. Sprayed it with a light coat of fixative when done.
I’ve got a couple more blanks to work on, including a Mummy one that just came out this week.
You can see how I drew my “Frankenstein” sketchcover here…
…and my “Dracula” cover here.
The iconic “Gill-man” was designed by Milicent Patrick, an animator, actress, model, costume designer, children’s book illustrator, makeup artist and special effects makeup artist. Bud Westmore (of the Westmore family dynasty of makeup artists) was the head of the make-up department at Universal and got the on-screen credit, but the Gill-man/Creature was Milicent’s “baby”.
Author Mallory O’Meara, author of “shines a light on the previously-untold story of Milicent Patrick. You can watch a video with Mallory and ACMI assistant film curator Maria Lewis here.
“Film History: The Uncredited Life of Milicent Patrick” article by Abby Brenker is also very informative.
“Creature features: how prosthetics bring fantastic characters to life” article.
A video interview with Doug Jones on movie “The Shape of Water“.
Be sure to check these books out!
Oh, and I found out that I’ll be a part of another MSCA art show out at Germantown Community Theatre this fall. It’ll be another Halloween themed show to go along with their production of “Mary Shelley’s: Frankenstein“. Yep, Frankenstein was created by a woman, and considered to be one of , if not THE first sci-fi novels!
Hope you can make it out to GCT for the Frankenstein/Halloween art show and this year’s Monster Market– scare ya there!
Lin