The Shining

Here's The Shining. Another movie that's been done to death. I wanted to go with something that had the movie's stillness and suggested its focus on interiority/exteriority. I've seen some really cool looking art about this movie that focuses on the axe. To me that seems wrong. Quiet, foreboding, creepy. This is a movie about a man trying to fight off insanity. Of these two preliminary sketches I wasn't sure, but one I worked them up to finaler sketches I could tell the hotel would be a blast to draw.

Lolita

I'd never seen Lolita before. It's about a man who pursues a relationship with a teenage girl. I ended up reading a lot about the book and how Kubrick went about adapting it. The more I pay attention to Kubrick's movies though the more impressed I am by his ability to build a narrative without moralizing. Lolita is a pretty disturbing movie in a lot of ways, but the characters are interesting and the story builds them very well. Still a real creepy movie. I should read the book. It seems like Nabokov inspired bits from a lot of fiction that I like. Oh, and here are the preliminary sketches.

Barry Lyndon

So I've got another Kubrick piece. The long, beautiful, dull, tragic Barry Lyndon. Barry Lyndon is a period piece (mostly in the 1770's) about a young lower class Irish man's ascent to and eventual fall from aristocracy. It is clear from the outset that this movie is heavily influenced by painting from the time.

I mean just look at this still from the movie. So clearly composed as a painting. This is a little more Caravaggio than most of the film, which Kubrick has said is made to look more contemporary to artists like Watteau and Hogarth (apologies for the awful color on the Hogarth) 

The thing I really did enjoy about this movie though was the subtle undermining a lot of the normal period drama beats. Kubrick subverts the whole thing with a deeply ironic narrator and characteristic grimness. These elements reveal the artifice behind the lavish settings and characters to expose a real human tragedy.

So I made a lot of sketches, but many of them stuck pretty close to things I've seen a lot or these types of paintings. Stuff that would work, but didn't necessarily betray the underlying tone of the movie. I decided to subjugate that approach with more of my own interests and tendencies and came up with this.

This idea did a better job framing the classical painting composition within a more modern discomforting treatment. It suited the tone of the film much better. And apart from a few little tweaks with color and composition I stuck pretty close to this. I spent forever drawing that type perfectly, but then abandoned that for the stand-in type I did with a dip pen that's in the final. Too many words.

Comic Characters

Been doing some storyboard work, so I've just got some sketchbook stuff. Characters from comics I like. Had another I liked, but it got ruined, so just Die Hard from Prophet, and Hellboy from Hellboy. You get it.

Quick Doom

Here's Doom. The mask is the man. Might mess with the colors more later.

Edit: Remember how bad that looks? Spent another couple hours and made it anew. This is better. This color is still a little funky, but it has a more serious villain vibe, and it does a lot better job stressing the difference between Dumile and the character DOOM. At least I think it does.

Edit: Made some more minor changes.

Full Metal Jacket

Hey. Another Kubrick piece. This time Full Metal Jacket. I'll go back to some earlier stuff next. Maybe The Killing because if I recall it's really good. Full Metal Jacket is actually really good too. I liked it a lot more than I remember. Maybe it's just because I paid closer attention this time, but it is a really upsetting movie. It is structurally weird and stuff, but that somehow builds the impact of the story well. It's hard to come out of this movie thinking war is awesome. A lot of war movies, even some of the good ones,  claim authenticity but end up feeling like ads for the marines. Full Metal Jacket takes people, puts them through a specific military culture, and observes the way that divides and effects them. Sketches!

I liked 2 and 3, they felt uncomfortable like the movie while dealing with the conflict between war and people. But #2 felt more specific to the FMJ. Less heavy handed. I do want to split a drawing right down the middle one of these days though. Anyway I did a bunch of stuff and here's the final. Ended up using a less limited palette on this one to better suit the film's atmosphere.

Back Home

I went to ICON8 in Portland and it was really very cool. If you're considering going to it in the future I would recommend it; I met some very cool people and learned as much as you could hope to at such an event.

Anyway travel was a monster somehow, and although I was able to keep up an OK pace on comics work I didn't get another Kubrick piece done yet. Unless a ton of other jobs pop up I'll have one on Monday. So I'm done traveling, back in New York. Here is a horse to commemorate the occasion. The color on these is always pretty slapdash. Maybe I'll go back and fiddle with it more.

Oh also my favorite people I drew at Icon ripped from a few pages in my sketchbook. If you recognize yourself let me know.