Tea at Auntie's

It is with only mild revulsion that I have the pleasure of welcoming the latest guest to Monsterosity: Fiona Sansom, who obviously suffered some trauma as a child. Thanks Fiona for the charming picture and the monstrous facts.

Click on the picture for a better look, as long as you haven't eaten too recently.

Christmas comes earlier every year....

And here at Monsterosity we see nothing wrong with ramping up for Christmas in August, so let's get into the festive spirit with this wonderful guest monster from Bob Rissetto! Yes kids, it's a Zombie Santa, so you'd better be really good this year.

Click on the image to get a better look at the grateful undead.

Many thanks to Bob for the image, and to both Allan Sanders and Bob again for help with the monster facts.

Lighting in passes

This is a handy little technique for dealing with multiple light sources, it originally comes from 3D and compositing for film, but I've adapted it to 2D and Photoshop. It works very well in the right situation. Follow the link below for more:

Lighting in passes

Master, ve have a guest....

I am thrilled to welcome this monstrosity from the lab of Dr Uli Meyer, I think he's called Igor. We love having guests for dinner here at Monster Mansions. Thanks to Uli for generously donating this creature.

Click on the image for a closer look.

That Unhealthy Glow

If you've ever wanted to know how to deal with luminous warts, then this is definitely the man to ask. Gamma Ray can in fact give real world advice on a range of health problems: from unwanted limbs suddenly appearing, to unexpected mutations and strange glowing lumps taking over your head.

Click on the image for a better prognosis.

The Monster Makeover

If you would like to have skin as good as this, I've created a quick tutorial explaining how Katie achieves that cracked green look. If you get off on blending modes and other Photoshop nerdyness this is the ideal way to waste fifteen minutes of your life. Follow the link below.

The Monster Makeover

And also, a big thank-you to the guys at Drawn! for featuring the blog. That made my day.

Look who's come for dinner

I'm delighted to introduce the blog's second guest, from Jonathan Cusick we have Monsanto Man. He was born one stormy night in the allotment, and is definitely not organically grown.

Click on the image for a closer look at the future of food. Muwahahahahaha.

And just for the record, if Monsanto wish to sue, we'd love the publicity.

How to paint the lazy way

As another look behind the scenes, I've created a very quick walkthrough for the Rufus and Rex image, specifically how easy it was to paint that floor. Digital makes perspective a doddle really, this is a quick trick to deal with simple one and two point perspective in Photoshop. Three point perspective is more tricky, so when I need that I usually set up a block model in a 3D package, which is how I did it in Lullaby Leslie.

To see the walkthrough, click here.

That (fatal) feminine touch.

Meet Katie, she's no friend of mine, or anyone's for that matter. She rarely gets to know people for long enough to make friends. You'll need to click on the picture to get a closer look at her. Just don't get too close.

She's just borrowed someone's eyes for a minute. To see an alternative picture of her, minus the eyewear, click here.

Guest Monster The First

I'm delighted to introduce the blog's first guest, the offspring of Allan Sanders and a gallon of toxic waste. Meet Vernon, he's lovely. You'll need to click on the picture to really see that texture on his skin. Best not touch it though, it's corrosive.

Behind The Scenes part 1

As a first look at the how-to-draw-a-monster part of this blog, here are the preliminary sketches for a couple of the images. They were both done pretty quickly in Sketchbook Pro (under an hour for each drawing), and luckily captured exactly what it was I was after.

The concept and the characterisation is really all I care about with these monster pictures. Rendering is easy and just a matter of time, but without that first spark of character the painting has no life, and no purpose. The sketches tell me right away if the image has what I'm looking for.

Ruthless Rufus. (And Rex).

Here is the latest addition to the Monstertorium, a particularly nasty pair of, well, things. Don't forget to click on the picture to get a good look at the blighters.

In the coming days I might post some "making of" stuff. Just to lighten the mood.

Big thanks to Allan Sanders for facts 1 and 2.