GROSS ANATOMY (part 11)

Welcome back, righteous reader of the ribald! I assume you survived Halloween? Well, I have another little treat for you on this blustery day of the dead. If you've been following the blog lately then you know I seem to do just about everything except draw these days. It's true. I enjoy spending my time pursuing other obsessions and occasionally I like to sit in an upright position for months at a time. But recently the Olympia Film Society commissioned me to draw the poster for their annual trash movie marathon All Freakin' Night and this event is simply too cool to pass up! So pour yourself a goblet of rotgut and grab your bag of candy because for this installment of Gross Anatomy we shall thoroughly deconstruct my latest abomination...

I started out mindlessly scribbling on scraps of paper as usual. At some point this little vampire dude made an appearance. I may revisit him at some later date. I like his style.

Eventually this crude motif emerged from the scribblings and caught my attention. This is a play on something I probably saw in Mad Magazine as a kid or maybe one of those Bill Elder postcards from the 50's. Regardless, I really liked this idea of self-mincing in a meat grinder as an obvious symbol of the cinematic grindhouse tradition. Well, and there's that great Judas Priest ditty...

Now I'm getting somewhere. I took the grinder motif and ran with it as I formatted all the poster information in this very rough sketch. That weird robotic face under the grinder on the right is actually a tape deck dripping blood (or toxic monster goo) which is one of my favorite scenes from The Being!

Once I nailed down the imagery I wanted to use, I transfered the basic layout onto illustration board freehand. I use pencil to make sure I can accommodate all the relevant information once I start inking and get carried away. The pencil sketch helps curb my enthusiasm for more detail and more imagery. More! MORE! MORE!!!!

Click on the eyeballs for a better view.

Here it is! Heavy on imagery but I think I still managed to maintain a relatively legible flow for the eye. Those of you who are professionally trained may note that this very clearly does not abide by the "50/50" rule. In other words, there is an unbalanced black to white ratio which is apparently something of a graphic design no-no. Whatever. This works for me. I hear these flyers have already popped up in Seattle and Portland so hopefully I'll see some of you on November 20th at The Capitol Theater. I'll be the creepy drunk guy in the back row. I've asked that this original art be auctioned off with proceeds to benefit the Olympia Film Society so check their website for details as the date draws closer.

Until next time, remember...
"Grinder is looking for meat! Grinder wants you to eat!"