Chow 178:: Hallowe’en special: Universal monsters

[Aly Fell]

ROUND #178:: HALLOWE’EN SPECIAL: UNIVERSAL MONSTERS

DESCRIPTION

UNIVERSAL MONSTERS

TWO WEEK CHOW

Was that the trees a rustling? Or the hinges on the gate? Something spooky in the shadows... IT’s ALIVE!!!!!

HALLOWE’EN, the old festival of Samhain is here and this is a two week ChOW! Take one (or more if you fancy) of the classic Universal Monsters from this list and produce your own take on them.

Dracula (1931) LINK
Frankensteins Monster/The Bride (1931/35) LINK LINK
The Mummy (1932) LINK
The Wolfman (1941) LINK
The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) LINK
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) LINK
The Phantom of the Opera (1925) LINK

And if you’re feeling inventive,

The Invisible Man (1933) LINK



Redesign them... Give us your version. Use the Universal interpretation as your inspiration or starting point, not the original stories, as Universal Studios gave them a unique twist, but feel free to explore the possibilities. However remember, this is a character challenge. There’s plenty of reference on the internet for all of these.



All the above are copyright UNIVERAL PICTURES
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DEADLINE
MONDAY, November 9th, 2009
Deadline is Monday, at 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
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FOLLOW THE TOPIC.

POST YOUR FINAL IN THE FINALS THREAD.

SAVE YOUR FILES IN THE FOLLOWING FORMAT. Chow##_Nickname
example: "CHOW#100_Oblio.jpg"

PLACE THE IMAGE IN A FRAME WITH YOUR NAME/TOPIC


(you can add CA logo, etc).


POST YOUR FINALS IN THE FINALS THREAD!
Remember to include your nickname in the file name.

About quality - as general rule: if your shapes and values are not decent - you are out. Watch proportions, perspective etc. we need perfectly readable shapes and coherent, consistent values.

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BE PROFESSIONAL - only finished and good quality entries will be taken to the poll. Daestwen and Poshspice will make the selection.
Please review these helpful reminders if you have not done so already.

ON GETTING TO POLL
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NEW ROUND RULE: WIPS PLEASE!
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SUBMISSION FORMAT REMINDER



PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR COPYRIGHT INFORMATION UNDER THE IMAGE IN THE FINAL BURNING THREAD SO I DON'T HAVE TO HUNT YOU DOWN LATER!

[DefiledVisions]

Woa what a great topic, thanks!

[LostFayth]

Shweeet!

[Photogr@fever]

I'm pretty new here and think this will be a great CHOW to start me off! Great idea!

[Undeadartist]

Hells yea! most def following through with this one

[Asatira]

This is awesome. I can't wait to see what comes up.

[Raffix]

awesome, i'm in

[hunchback]

gosh i guess im doing the hunchback O_O....

[LostFayth]

Sorry, I just had to put this up. Every year when Halloween is approaching I think of this video.

[Undeadartist]

i know this isnt the place to post videos but follow this link found it while was researching sorry for the post just seemed appropriate : D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQFPJusVhqw

[NPlaxco]

Are we tied down to the traditional sex of these characters? For example what would the acceptability of a Wolfwoman instead of a wolf man?

[Aly Fell]

For this brief stay to gender.

[The Whistler]

Daestwen, Posh, THANK YOU!!!!

Oh gosh, I feel like a kid in a toy store, which one(s) should I choose? I'll probably end up doing it (or them) next week but can't wait

[Wiggers]

Great idea!!

[LORD M]

I'm sold on the The Invisible Man. Saw the movie from 1933 some years ago, god I loved it.



Ok my Invisible Man turned into a blood-sucker instead. This is how it's so far. Gotta do some brainstorming on the clothes now and hope for the best. I wanted it to look like he's leaning forward, but he looks like a dwarf right now, so I gotta try and fix that somehow.

[Telefunker]

Quite a few to choose from. I think I'm going to be in this week. I was trailing in too late to finish my submission for last week.

[Helltroll]

I'm starting off with the Phantom of the Opera, might do Drac later (the inner Castlevania fanboy is calling!)

Got silhouette design so far

[Freedezigner]

Frankenstein The Bride.
What do you think can she look like this?

[Gavage]

Tempting!

First sketch for The Invisible Man. Thinking it's too close to the original at the moment but I will probably retain the smoke idea.

[AhChu]

Halloween special, oh hell yea! I'm going to throw in for Creature from the Black Lagoon & Wolfman.

[Pixeltuner]

Oh yes

[Aly Fell]

Careful chaps, this isn't the lounge. Try to keep posts relevant to the brief please.

[AestheticMachine]

sort of a vampire-y looking black lagoon creature, i think. wanting to organically incorporate some classic 'dracula' features. not sure if i want to actually put in a background, and the head is getting a little snakey. crits and suggestions welcome!

[Terminalfears]

I can only hope to do this justice :o

[etchesofthesun]

Hi, Im just wondering how much freedom do we have in the redesign? I mean do they still have to resemble the Universal interpretation? Or can we just go nuts? For example, could i do a Pirate Dracula? Or maybe the wolfman playing in a rockband?- Cus he looks a lot like Brent from Mastodon..lol Thanks

[LORD M]

Hey thanks a lot for the critique, Arthur 'Two Sheds'. Now it's looking much better!

I really like your Quasimodo, but maybe you should have his eyes open, looks a bit like he's in a trance or meditating right now. And nice touch with the jester-hat.

[Irrlaeufer]

I started off with a huge canvas size this time. It really got frustraiting last week when i ended up using 1-pixel brushes in order to work on the details because the canvas was kind of small. I only painted in grayscales so far because i'm trying to get some proper values this time. Plus I try to work with foreground and background since I want to have something going on in this picture

[mongreldesigns]

Do different characters have to be in the same composition? Or could I submit a separate one for each?

A first set of sketches for the big three.

[Photogr@fever]

okayyyy, so frankenbride...
I wanted to make her look a bit more modern and 'beautiful', the original bride is so old fashioned (not that that's a bad thing), I fancied making a younger bride; I don't know, it's still really close to the original, but hopefully not bad for a first timer!

[Adam Schumpert]

Hi, Im just wondering how much freedom do we have in the redesign? I mean do they still have to resemble the Universal interpretation? Or can we just go nuts? For example, could i do a Pirate Dracula? Or maybe the wolfman playing in a rockband?- Cus he looks a lot like Brent from Mastodon..lol Thanks

Usually CHOW has been pretty accepting and open to each artist's
interpretation of the brief, which has allowed us all to push ourselves
creatively Also I don't claim any official authority to interpret
the brief only Posh and Daestwen can give you an official answer about
the brief or rules of CHOW

That being said...
What I took the brief to mean was that we are to redesign
these classic characters not rewrite who they are. What I mean is that from
a visual design point of view we should all push as far as our hearts desire
but the end result should still be the same character. Count Dracula should
be recognizably Count Dracula... Frankenstein should be obviously
Frankenstein... etc...

Think about it this way, there is a huge difference visually between Dracula
from 1992's Bram Stoker's Dracula and 1931's Dracula that Posh posted
above, but both are still Dracula. That seems to be the challenge for this
CHOW we aren't coming up with new characters but reinterpreting classics.


Now as far as what I would think we could push... other than visual design I
imagine time period could be played with quite a bit. After all with just a little
tweaking the story of The Wolfman, The Invisible Man or any of the other
really could be brought to a modern day, taken back to the darkages, or
even set in a futuristic setting. However IMO I would really try to hold onto
the fact that these are Horror genre characters so they should feel more
horror than scifi or fantasy. However changing Dracula from an
Eastern European Noble to a pirate or the Wolfman to a rock-star might be a
bit of a stretch imo.

And actually all of these characters have already been reinterpreted in one
form or another over the years. You can easily find may different versions of
them all online. So the question is if you where deciding what Frankenstein or
Quasimodo or etc... looked like how would they look.

Anyway that is just my take on the brief which Posh or Daestwen are more
than welcome to correct in anyway.