Hideous Visage

This was painted for the inside cover of the latest issue of the premier Hammer mag Little Shoppe of Horrors! Throughout most of the film the creature is kept hidden until the finale when Valerie Spalding ( Jennifer Daniel) is trapped in a room with the hideous Reptile.I lifted her hairline and focused on the symmetrical facial design of the monster . If you want to impact horror on a viewer it's a good idea to choose a directly frontal shot ( which particularly works for something like this I feel). I was also torn between showing Valerie's horror stricken face and not . I chose to let the upturned hand indicate the horror so we could focus on the hideous visage.Naturally I ran across the perfect reference shot of Ms Spalding after the art was done.:)

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Little Shoppe Of Horrors

Issue 22 of the brilliant Hammer Horror mag Little Shoppe Of Horrors is available now - this highlights Hammer's groovy 1970 Drac flicks! I must backtrack though to 1979. I was at my first fantasy convention - Terence Fisher in attendance - yep I'm that old .:) I was rummaging through the dealers room - I'd already bought a set of Twins of Evil front of house stills and a Vampire Circus quad poster - when I cam across a couple of very early issues of LSOH. A quick scan alerted me to the fact I needed these. I think I was thrilled to see such top quality artwork being used. I decided there and then I'd draw up some pieces and send them on ( ah to be 14 again:). Of course I never sent my crude attempts at drawing Hammer scenes - but the fire had been lit.

Fast forward a number of years - I meet my great artistic pal Neil Vokes ( http://vokesfolks.blogspot.com/) - Neil suggested me to Dick Klemensen and childhood dream came true. I drew up an Ingrid Pitt from Vampire Lovers and Maddie Smith from the same film. I've been fortunate enough to be in every issue since and trust me the artistic competition is daunting ( we are talking Bruce Timm for instance!!) - knees start wobbling.:)

Below you'll find the first of a number of LSOH pieces I'll be sharing. I pencilled Caroline Munro twice - you can see which one I submitted. I actually think the piece not used had the better idea - but the likeness worried me.

You can get LSOH at http://www.littleshoppeofhorrors.com/ and from next issue , Diamond won't be distributing it - so Dick's website is a must.

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