21 Days of Halloween Day 15- Wolf Man

21 Days of Halloween Doodles Day 1: Wolf Out!

As I mentioned the other day, last year in mid-October I thought I'd challenge myself to post only Halloween themed sketches. I thought this year I'd see if I could do it for the whole month. Don't know if I'll make it so wish me luck!

Who's afraid of...

Still trying to sharpen my digital painting skills. I just recently learned that I had never loaded the drivers that came with my Wacom Tablet, and what a difference that makes! Suddenly the pen is pressure sensetive and tapers to beautiful points.
I had mentioned in a previous post about how frightened I was of wolves growing up, and the above image is another attempt to tackle some of those imaginary childhood demons. My daughter doesn't think this guy looks scary at all, but he sure freaks me out. The background was really more of an afterthought and isn't nearly as refined as the rest. Still, in my mind he's just outside of some middle age European village. Of course, wolves have to stay close to villages because that's where all the kids live...

Haunted Nonsense and Childhood Fears

I had planned on theming all of my October posts to darker imagery than normal. Unfortunately I just don't have it in me. I grew up drawing Disney and Garfield, and consequently my outlook is pretty sunny, if a bit sarcastic. So while I've occasionally created some pieces that are darker in tone, I haven't been able to produce enough scary stuff to post for a whole month. However I did discover a beautiful blog called Haunted Nonsense by artist Jesse E. Larson. To the cynical viewer, Mr. Larson's work may seem like just more gothic doodles from a Tim Burton wannabe (or an Edward Gorey wannabe, for the more mature cynical viewer). But there's a super slick sophistication to Mr. Larson's pieces that is really beautiful- the black and white pen and ink style reminds one of these other artists, but Larson's work is definately his own.

After looking at his blog, it really made me want to do something in that style. This was done really quickly (I'm sure Larson spends hours on his) and I intend no real comparison between his work and mine. Far from being some random doodle, this one sketch has been trying to come out for years! When I was a kid growing up in Southern California, I had a huge fear of wolves. I don't know what started it, but I was convinced that the creature pictured above was prowling around my backyard just waiting for the night when my parents forgot to lock the door. I had dozens of wolf nightmares, everything from being chased through my house by them, to being in an out of control shopping cart (how's that for a distinctly kid-oriented worry?) headed towards a back alley full of them , to being made to go out into our screen enclosed patio at night only to find that it was swarming with ravenous wolves. Anyway, as an adult I've vowed to myself to one day illustrate some of the mental imagery that so frightened me as a child- so far I've been unsuccessful at capturing the intensity of those fears. Funny that this 2 minute doodle does it so well.

If you'd like a peek at something that furthered this little phobia of mine, stroll on over to Kindertrauma, and check out the email I sent them a while ago.

Wolf Puppet Pt 2

Here are a few more sketches I did for the wolf puppet I talked about a week or two ago.

Just another way it could go. It's a bit more fanciful, and more clearly says "puppet" to me, though I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. I really like the subtle menace of my previous design, but I still want this puppet to be fun. Though I'm an adult now (mostly), my first design almost made me wonder if I'd be able to be alone in a room late at night with that thing looking at me. I'm interested in Jarrod's feedback on these new sketches.

Wolf Puppet Designs Pt 1

A few years back, I met an absolutely amazing puppet builder, named Jarrod Boutcher. Actually I only met him through his website, and email. A few months back, he ended up visiting Disneyland and spent quite a while in my shop watching me paint. But he didn't connect my name to our emails years earlier, and I had no idea who this guy watching me paint was. Thanks to my blog and a few comments he left, we eventually connected the dots and had a good laugh. Anyway, we've decided to collaborate on a puppet design, and I suggested doing some sort of Big Bad Wolf character. This undoubtably stems from my childhood terror/fascination with wolves. Below are several of the sketches I came up with. Most of them are not puppet designs persay, merely quick sketches to work out proportions and ideas. Jarrod is going to take what I've done and try and refine them into a workable design.

This final one in color at the bottom is the one I like the best.

The only addition I am thinking of is maybe some article of clothing or unique feature that makes this character a little more identifiable, a hat or scarf or something. I think I always like my animal characters to have a bit of anthropomorphism like that, like the clothes wearing critters in the Uncle Remus stories- it helps tie them down to a time period.

I don't know what the final result will be. Jarrod has amazing instincts when it comes to puppet design, and I've asked him to please feel free to make changes and suggest ideas. He says he's going to show the progress on his blog which is seperate from his site and you can see it here. Check both our blogs for updates.