Amidst other projects (upcoming strips for Back From The Depths, Dogbreath & Zarjaz), I'm working on a strip I'd like to submit to another Future Quake Press publication, 'Something Wicked'. It's an annual horror anthology, and the most recent issue has just come out, so this won't see the light of day for some time - but that's fine, I've got enough on just now!
I'm adapting a short story I wrote last year, and it's a gothic Victorian setting. Don't want to give too much away at this stage, except for the fact that it will feature a (hopefully) disguting vampire-type creature!
These sketches were done last night, and I was trying to explore ways of redesigning a vampire, coming up with a new look for a classic monster. I want to make it genuinely scary, even though in the finished strip it'll probably only be half-glimpsed. Started off with pretty traditional vamps, then got to thinking 'what else has fangs in nature, and is utterly repulsive?' Well, spiders of course! Don't want to veer to far off course, but there may be some mileage in this...
Balls - I lost the post I'd typed when Blogger did soemthing odd. Anyway I'll try and bottle lightning again but no gauarantees ;)
ReplyDeleteOne way is the mouthful of teeth, which is always a winner.
You could also try a pointed tongue or a sharp bone spike emerging from the mouth. (Un)nature's drinking straw?
Also those nature photos you found might come up trumps.
Wll less bottling lightning and more trapping a fart in a jar. I'm sure there was another idea
Holy Mary's merkin that was a pain, Google has turned against me!!
ReplyDeleteThe missing one was taking inspiration from nature's other big bloodsucker - the leech. A man with a leech's mouthparts?
http://danator.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-i-learned-in-lab-class.html
Nice studies Matt. Looking forward to seeing more of this!
ReplyDeleteGood stuff Matt! I like the spider heads especially the ones at the bottom left, the teeth and all those eyes give you plenty of scope for creepy images
ReplyDeleteYup, second the vote for the bottom left ones, definitely. More please!
ReplyDeleteWow, thanks for the repsonse guys. The arachnid vamps have had the desired effect! Emps - yeah, mouthful of teeth occurred to me, but I have just read snippets of 30 Days of Night (the one that came with the dvd), and don't want to make them too similar to those. The freakish nature photos, yes, can probably derive inspiration from them. And I like your idea of the 'sharp bone straw'. If there was any justice in this world, you'd be employed at some dark fiction thinktank and paid millions for just coming up with this stuff!
ReplyDeleteI have volunteered for duty with the real-world equivalent of the group Ozymandias put together to scare the world into submission but they Fear My Might!! Also they might not exist and my screeds are piling up in some dust-filled office in Whitehall.
ReplyDeleteI quite liked the idea of the prehensile "sharp tongue" stroke feeding tube. You can picture some vile mutant vampire pinning someone to the floor and the tube stabbing out at their eyes or jugular vien.