Category Archives: markerworks

Whosever Knows Fear …

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… Burns at the Man-Thing’s Touch!

That’s such a great tagline.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m fond of the Man-Thing. He’s got a great design. He’s big and shaggy and mossy and he has a face that looks like no other creature out there. One of the reasons I’ll probably never get around to seeing the movie is that they changed his look. (The general consensus that the movie is lousy wouldn’t stop me if the design had been correct.) It’s unsettling more than terrifying. You don’t worry that he’ll eat you. He hasn’t got a mouth. How could he? But if he’s not going to eat you what the hell will he do?

Man-Thing is one of those Marvel comics characters that has never managed to sustain his own series for very long. The reason is pretty obvious. He has no personality. He’s mindless. While he was originally a human being that human is so far gone as to be superfluous. Man-Thing doesn’t change back to his original human form. And as the Man-Thing he doesn’t think or plan or hunger. He doesn’t want anything, not even to be left alone. That would be too abstract of a thought. He’s an empathic creature and reacts to strong emotions. Some emotions rile him up. Rage and anger cause him pain and he’ll strike out. And fear? He really doesn’t like fear.

Tusks and Teeth

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Another marker drawing. This time with a black base drawing done before I moved on to color. Sometimes the black improves a drawing, defining and making parts of it pop out better. I don’t know that it made much difference here.

A Modern Deucalion

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This is my attempt at representing Deucalion, Victor Frankenstein’s first creation, from Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein trilogy. Deucalion has named himself after the son of the mythical titan, Prometheus. Koontz’s story isn’t a sequel to any specific version of Frankenstein; neither the original novel nor any of the multitude of plays and films that have been inspired by it. Deucalion, rather than being hideous at his awakening as in the novel (and most of the movies), was apparently very handsome. His facial scars are the result of Frankenstein’s attempt to destroy him after he rebelled against his creator. A Buddhist monk added the tattoos to distract from the scars.

Behold, the Toxic Avenger!

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Since my first marker sketch made me think of the Toxic Avenger I thought I’d go ahead and try to draw the fellow. I still haven’t seen one of his movies so I can’t say whether or not I’ve succeeded. I did have fun doing the drawing so I don’t mind.

The Other Frankenstein Monster

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Frankenstein’s Monster has come to be depicted as a patchwork horror, a creature crudely stitched together seemingly at random with odd bolts or wiring sticking out of him. While I think that’s rather far from how Shelly actually envisioned him I have to admit it’s a fun pattern to try to invent new variations on. I did an earlier version of this fellow as one of my first contributions to A Patchwork of Flesh. I do like this design. It’s a variation on the hulking creature of the movies without (I think) referencing any specific version.

Pretty and Pink

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You’ve probably noticed that I draw a lot of monsters. When I’m sketching I tend to draw monsters to begin with because –

A) I like monsters
B) They’re fun to draw
C) If I make a few mistakes and the monster’s features end up lopsided who is to say that I didn’t do that on purpose? Monsters are supposed to be ugly.

Once the monsters are out of the way I try to draw something challenging, something, someone … pretty. It’s nerve wracking.