OK, so aside from Dinosaurs, I have a bit of thing for Gothic Horror stories. No, no, no, not Gothic Romance… Never that. Gothic Horror! Turn of the century kind of stuff (the LAST century, not this one, geez). OK, so now that we’re talking about the same thing, I read a lot of this stuff. Short stories usually. And uh, well… I read them mostly because I like drawing monsters. Ahem, anyway, I just finished reading The Jewel of the Seven Stars by Bram Stoker… and it was pretty darn good.

Since most of this stuff isn’t a full on novel, I thought it’d be a lot of fun to try making cover illustrations for them instead of illustrations to fit in with the text (like I’ve been doing with Dracula). So far I like it a lot cause you can sum up the story in one image. Ah-HA! But there’s a catch!! You gotta make sure you don’t give too much away! Maybe TEASE the audience… make them WANT to read it…

Anyhow, here’s how the process went…

Background colour.

Add the red.

Now the black!

Three colours and you’re done? HA! This is the first time I’ve ever done a three-colour print. It could use a little tweaking here and there, but I think it turned out pretty great. Take a look!

Cardboard? HA!

And last I gave it a shot on cardboard. I don’t know what it is, but I love printing on cardboard. Oh baby. But I can only do it when I get to the end of a pad of paper. Ooohh, there’s always a catch.

I’m working on making the next few illustrations for Dracula… but “working on” implies “not done.” Which wouldn’t be ENTIRELY incorrect. Double negative? Confused?

Don’t be. Here’s some of my original sketches for this stuff… three pages worth from the first 40 pages of the book. I might have to omit one or two.

Hmm? Dark Edges? It's scanned out of a sketchbook, what do you want?

I think the top-left here is still the best drawing I've done of Dracula's face.

Process work? Sure, don’t mind if I do.

Oh goodness, here we have the third of my Dracula illustrations. Perhaps I should mention again how fantastic this book really is… It’s fantastic.

Right now I’m reading another story by Bram Stoker, “The Jewel of the Seven Stars.” Oh man, when he gets going, that man can really spin a yarn, if you know what I mean…

The second Dracula illustration… I’m not going in any particular order, just sort of doing them as they come to me. But seriously, if you’ve never read Dracula, you should really do yourself the favour of reading it. I think if I had read it back in 1897 when it came out, I would have certainly contracted the brain fever from terror. Oh MAN, it’s good.

And I really like the way it printed… oh it’s just so clean.

This is an illustration for Dracula, by Bram Stoker, with the corresponding excerpt from the book. It’s the first one that I’ve finished so far, but I plan on illustrating the entire book.

Oooh, stay tuned.