Wednesday, October 31, 2007
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
I never got around to doing another Halloween image, like I wanted to, before Halloween, but I'm sure I'll get around to it at some point. Every day is Halloween at the Hall house. Marlena and I carved our pumpkin last night and are all ready to give away candy and watch some Halloween themed entertainment.
One of the vids we watch every year is this Donald Duck cartoon. Enjoy!!!
Thursday, October 25, 2007
HALLOWEEN WITCH!
Here's a little image I cooked up for Halloween! I really had fun doing this and I hope to come up with another Halloween image before the holiday hits.
I've included the original sketch below.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Labels: new art
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
GENRE-XPLOSION: SPOOKY HAUNTED CASTLE!
Genre-xplosion is a short, spoiler free introduction to some of the strange and obscure movies and comics that I enjoy. Some of them are brilliant masterpieces... some of them aren't. All of them are entertaining.
CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD (1967)
Spooky Haunted Castle
Directed- Harald Reinl
Written- Manfred R. Kohler, Edgar Allan Poe
STYLE: ****
SUBSTANCE: ****
BLOOD/GORE: ****
NUDITY: ****
Scale built on quantity, not quality.
SET-UP:
Count Frederic Regula (Christopher Lee) is sentenced to have a spiked mask (with a strangely silly expression forged on it) belted to his face and to be ripped apart by horses for torturing and killing twelve young virgins in his remote castle. Before the sentence is carried out, he swears vengeance from beyond the grave towards the Judge who found him guilty, and the thirteenth virgin whom escaped his torture chamber and turned him in. 35 Years later, Roger Mont Elise (Lex Barker) and Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor) receive separate letters from the long dead Count Regula asking them to journey to his castle to learn the secrets of their pasts.
SEX AND VIOLENCE:
Featuring no nudity (unless you count Karin Dor's cleavage) and very little blood (of which was green), this is really the kind of rare horror movie that can be fun for the entire family.
THOUGHTS:
I can't begin to tell you how much I love this movie! It is just really, really FUN! Based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (there's both a pit and a pendulum in this flick and that's about as close as it gets to Poe's original work), Castle of the Walking Dead is one of those atmospheric movies that just sticks with you long after it's over. From the richly colored visuals to the bombastic 60's instrumental score, to the various skulls, spiders, vultures, scorpions and amazingly creepy old locations, this flick is a treat for the eyeballs and the kid buried deep inside you. The characters are interesting and well portrayed (even when dubbed) and the story is a non-stop thrill ride through a gloomy haunted landscape... and seriously, who does not love Christopher Lee?
The overall plot of the movie may be a bit predictable, but there are enough twists and turns and the movie moves at such a rate, that it never stops being enjoyable. If this sounds like your type of movie, I suggest you check it out.
CASTLE OF THE WALKING DEAD (1967)
Spooky Haunted Castle
Directed- Harald Reinl
Written- Manfred R. Kohler, Edgar Allan Poe
STYLE: ****
SUBSTANCE: ****
BLOOD/GORE: ****
NUDITY: ****
Scale built on quantity, not quality.
SET-UP:
Count Frederic Regula (Christopher Lee) is sentenced to have a spiked mask (with a strangely silly expression forged on it) belted to his face and to be ripped apart by horses for torturing and killing twelve young virgins in his remote castle. Before the sentence is carried out, he swears vengeance from beyond the grave towards the Judge who found him guilty, and the thirteenth virgin whom escaped his torture chamber and turned him in. 35 Years later, Roger Mont Elise (Lex Barker) and Baroness Lilian von Brabant (Karin Dor) receive separate letters from the long dead Count Regula asking them to journey to his castle to learn the secrets of their pasts.
SEX AND VIOLENCE:
Featuring no nudity (unless you count Karin Dor's cleavage) and very little blood (of which was green), this is really the kind of rare horror movie that can be fun for the entire family.
THOUGHTS:
I can't begin to tell you how much I love this movie! It is just really, really FUN! Based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" (there's both a pit and a pendulum in this flick and that's about as close as it gets to Poe's original work), Castle of the Walking Dead is one of those atmospheric movies that just sticks with you long after it's over. From the richly colored visuals to the bombastic 60's instrumental score, to the various skulls, spiders, vultures, scorpions and amazingly creepy old locations, this flick is a treat for the eyeballs and the kid buried deep inside you. The characters are interesting and well portrayed (even when dubbed) and the story is a non-stop thrill ride through a gloomy haunted landscape... and seriously, who does not love Christopher Lee?
The overall plot of the movie may be a bit predictable, but there are enough twists and turns and the movie moves at such a rate, that it never stops being enjoyable. If this sounds like your type of movie, I suggest you check it out.
Labels: genre-xplosion
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
NEW COMICS FOR 10/24/07
These are a few of the comics coming out tomorrow that caught my eye.
Crawl Space is a new ongoing, no holds barred, horror anthology of short stores with a great artist and a great writer. It's the kinda thing I've always wanted to be involved in. I'm jealous as all hell. The first story is about porn star zombies... what a way to kick off a series. I'm really looking forward to this if you can't tell.
Dean Yeagle is amazing. Don't miss out on this art book.
Neozoic is a new comic from a new publisher that has some really interesting projects.
I didn't even know this existed! Probably too young for me, but how cool is it that there's a Shaun the Sheep comic? Who doesn't love Shaun the Sheep?
I've never bought any of the Hack/Slash books, even though it seems like it would be right up my alley. At face value, it looks a little too much of a parody for my liking, but that's without reading any of them. Their new artist, Emily Stone, is really good (and super nice too) so I'm planning on picking it up and finally checking it out.
I've heard that She Hulk is an amazing book, but I never bought it. Peter David takes over with this issue and that sounds like a good jumping on point for anyone, like myself, that was hesitant.
Cool beans! A new Spirit Hardcover of collected material from the original series. This is a "best of" so it's not in chronological order, but I don't own any of the old issues so this will work out pretty good for me.
More collected Spirit action, but this time it's from the brand spankin' new series. If you have not been reading the new series, I highly recommend you check out this hardcover. It's great stuff.
I love the Flash... I love Mark Waid on the Flash!
Did I mention I love the Flash. This 80-page giant collects a few Silver Age Stories. Weee!
Crawl Space is a new ongoing, no holds barred, horror anthology of short stores with a great artist and a great writer. It's the kinda thing I've always wanted to be involved in. I'm jealous as all hell. The first story is about porn star zombies... what a way to kick off a series. I'm really looking forward to this if you can't tell.
Dean Yeagle is amazing. Don't miss out on this art book.
Neozoic is a new comic from a new publisher that has some really interesting projects.
I didn't even know this existed! Probably too young for me, but how cool is it that there's a Shaun the Sheep comic? Who doesn't love Shaun the Sheep?
I've never bought any of the Hack/Slash books, even though it seems like it would be right up my alley. At face value, it looks a little too much of a parody for my liking, but that's without reading any of them. Their new artist, Emily Stone, is really good (and super nice too) so I'm planning on picking it up and finally checking it out.
I've heard that She Hulk is an amazing book, but I never bought it. Peter David takes over with this issue and that sounds like a good jumping on point for anyone, like myself, that was hesitant.
Cool beans! A new Spirit Hardcover of collected material from the original series. This is a "best of" so it's not in chronological order, but I don't own any of the old issues so this will work out pretty good for me.
More collected Spirit action, but this time it's from the brand spankin' new series. If you have not been reading the new series, I highly recommend you check out this hardcover. It's great stuff.
I love the Flash... I love Mark Waid on the Flash!
Did I mention I love the Flash. This 80-page giant collects a few Silver Age Stories. Weee!
Monday, October 22, 2007
HAPPY HILLBILLY!
Finally getting caught up enough to do a few doodles. Here is a happy guy I colored up in Painter.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
HELLBOY 2 PRODUCTION SITE
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
HAUNTED FIRE STUDIO!
As some of you may have already noticed, we have changed the name of our main site from Blue Sky Comics to Haunted Fire Studio. There are many reasons why we did this, most of them focus on the fact that Blue Sky Comics, just didn't suit what we were doing anymore, I came up with that name in the 90's when I was all gung-ho about self-publishing and was wanting to publish my own comics. Several years later I realized, if you have the opportunity, it's always better to spend someone else's money and take advantage of their knowledge, than put your own neck on the line when starting out. Luckily, I was given that opportunity.
I also met my lovely wife, so now there is more than just me.
So now the main page will show off the work our studio has done for other publishers. We plan to have a mini-site built for every story of ours ever published with concept art and free previews and other fun stuff. We've done a lot more work that I realized.
So thanks for sticking with us as we continue to grow and evolve onto bigger and better things!
Monday, October 15, 2007
CONGRATS CHRIS!
Congrats to my good buddy Chris Powell for becoming a part of the CBDLF board of directors!Win one for the little guy Chris!
(Sorry about the 2006 x-mas photo, I'm too lazy to find a more current one.)
Friday, October 12, 2007
MONSTERHEAD
Here's a quick little doodle of some kind of happy monster. It's the first time I've put pencil to paper in several months and it felt good.
I'm going to the art store tonight, because I need some softer pencil lead. I enjoyed drawing this, but it didn't flow the way I wanted it to with my HB lead. I had to fight for thick lines and they just ended up scratchy.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
EVIL DEAD AND JOHN BOLTON
Way back in 1992, John Bolton painted an amazing comic adaption of the movie Army of Darkness through Dark Horse Comics.
Now, to be released January 2nd 2008, he is painting an expanded version of the first movie Evil Dead, with extra scenes explaining what happened to Scotty when he went out into the woods.
I couldn't be more excited!
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