Happy Halloween

The Great Pumpkin Sketches On Cardboard

It’s Halloween again so that means some custom holiday cards. Last year I went with the Shadow Nightmares sketch cards and I decided to continue with some sketch cards this year, but I did a 180 degree turn going from scary to fun characters. This year I am going with the greatest Halloween special ever, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.  

I only did two cards this year: 

Do you have to ask? Of course the moon glows.

Garbage Pail Kids Friday Nightmare On 13th Street

Over the past couple of months Topps’ has had some online exclusive GPK cards. Most have been political and I wasn’t interested in them but in between the run up to the election they have released some based on television, music and movies and that’s where my attention lies.

 

Shortly before Halloween they released a horror movie inspired exclusive set and two caught my attention, cards based on Friday The 13^th and Nightmare on Elm Street. I put in my order and waited, turns out there had been an error somewhere in the system and I was charged but my order wasn’t actually ordered. In between getting ready for my move I contacted Topps’ customer service and I was worried they would just refund my money, which I was not too keen on because each set was selling on the secondary market in the $15-20 range and I spent $20 on both sets through Topps’ website. The customer service department ended up taking care of me and got my cards sent out so I appreciate that greatly.

Sketch Cards On Cardboard

Halloween is finally here and that means it is time for my scary custom cards to make their debut. This year the theme is Shadow Nightmares and I created sketch cards using shadows and a single background color only. I made six cards in this style and I made three other cards in different styles.

As you can see, this year's cards are based on some of the scariest horror films of the modern era. Going down the list they are:

Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street.

Leatherface from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 

Damien Thorn from The Omen

Jason Voorhees from Friday The 13th

Jack Torrance from The Shining

Norman Bates from Psycho

Here is what the backs look like. Each character is listed and the movie name appears on the marquee at the bottom.

Additionally I did a Pale Man from Pan's Labyrinth and a Jack-O-Lantern based on Freddy Krueger.

With the Jack-O-Lantern I played with glow-in-the-dark paint so the background glows. It didn't scan very well but it is bright yellow and glows nicely. Once I felt comfortable with the paint I decided to make one more movie character card using glow-in-the-dark paint.

The final card of the evening is the last sketch card I did and is one of my favorites, Dr. Jack Griffin, otherwise known as the Invisible Man and he glows.

Glowing in darkness

Glowing under a black light

It Is All Hallow's Eve Eve

Tomorrow is Halloween, that means it is time for my custom scary cards. Three years ago it was a Ghost Adventures theme, two years ago it was Bela Lugosi and last year it was Boris Karloff's turn but this year I went a different way. The theme this year is Shadow Nightmares On Cardboard and the cards are physical.

Boris Karloff On Cardboard

Over the last four years I have been posting custom horror related cards on Halloween night, it began as part of Thorzul’s Nightmare on Cardboard contest but after I won in 2012 I decided not to sit back in 2013 and just be a spectator for the contest and the contest is no longer being held.

 

I still felt the itch to make some spooky cards even though I was not going to enter them in the contest just to keep up posting on Halloween night. I ended up designing cards based around one of my favorites shows Ghost Adventures, last year I decided to go with one of the best, and original, horror film villain in Bela Lugosi. This year I am following that up with Boris Karloff.

 

Boris Karloff was born in London, England as William Henry Pratt in 1887. When he began as a stage actor in Canada in 1909 he changed his name to Boris Karloff. He ended up in Hollywood about 10 years later and during his early career he appeared in 45 silent films before the introduction of "Talkies" by the time he passed away he had appeared in over 200 movies and television shows with many of his famous roles in the horror genre.

 

I decided to make each Boris Karloff character correspond with a card design that was released the same year as the movie.

 

1931 W517 Frankenstein's Monster From Frankenstein

1932 US Caramel Imhotep From The Mummy

1953 Topps Dr. Jekyll From Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

 

 

1963 Topps Dr. Scarabus From The Raven

1966 Topps The Grinch From The Grinch

HAPPY HALLOWEEN





Bela Lugosi On Cardboard

Over the last four years I have been posting custom horror related cards on Halloween night, it began as part of Thorzul’s Nightmare on Cardboard contest but after I won in 2012 I decided not to sit back in 2013 and just be a spectator for the contest.

 

I still felt the itch to make some spooky cards even though I was not going to enter them in the contest just to keep up posting on Halloween night. I ended up designing cards based around one of my favorites shows Ghost Adventures. This year I decided to go with one of the best, and original, horror film villain in Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi began acting while a teenager in Hungary prior to WWI. Following the war he made his way to the U.S. where he started acting in plays before landing the lead role in the movie Dracula in 1931. For the next twenty years it seemed like every horror flick had either Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff in the leading role but by the 1950s things had cooled off for both actors.

 

In the early 1950s Lugosi had health problems and was in and out of drug rehab he eventually met the very unique Ed Wood who cast Bela in many of his low-budget films like Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space (possibly the worst movie ever made).

 

I decided to make each Bela Lugosi character correspond with a card design that was released the same year as the movie.

 

1931 Dracula

The Count Dracula card is based on the 1931 W517 Babe Ruth card

 

1932 White Zombie

The Murder Legendre card is based on the 1932 U.S. Caramel Babe Ruth card. I actually had to colorize Bela’s character because it was originally B&W and the card illustrations are color.

 

1939 The Son of Frankenstein

The Ygor card is based on the 1939 Play Ball Ted Williams card

 

1948 Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein

The Dracula Is Watching card is based on the 1948 Leaf Pirate Cards layout. This is another one where I colorized every element in this card and then added filters to look like an illustration.

 

1959 Plan 9 From Outer Space

The Ghoul Man card is based on the 1959 Topps Hank Aaron card. This image was originally colorized in the 1950s so it was pretty bland and washed out so I brightened up the colors to a more lifelike color palette.

 

 

I had a lot of fun with this set and I had wanted to do more but it took me about 4-4.5 hours to colorize the three images that I altered and put everything together. Fortunately these early card designs  are quite basic so building the template took only a few minutes to complete.

 

 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

 

 

 

Ghost Adventures On Cardboard

The last couple of years I took part in Thorzul’s Nightmare on Cardboard contests but I didn’t have much time to work on any Halloween themed cards this year so I planned on skipping the contest. Tonight my kids decided they didn’t need mom and dad with them when they went trick-or-treating so I sat back to watch the Ghost Adventures marathon on the Travel Channel. Because I have posted my contest submissions for the last few years I wanted to do something so I decided to make up some cards, even though I missed the submission deadline I wanted to post something up.

 

This year’s theme was “Fear the Fleer”, anything Fleer from any year. I made cards for the Ghost Adventures television show based on 1987 Fleer Football Live Action insert, 1986 Fleer Basketball, 1984 Baseball, 1982 Fleer Baseball and 1961 Fleer Basketball. I just had to include one with Aaron’s scared face, if you watch the show you know the face.

 

1986 Fleer Basketball Zak Bagans

 

 

1984 Fleer Baseball Nick Groff

 

 

1982 Fleer Baseball Aaron Goodwin

 

 

1987 Fleer Football Live Action

 

 

1961 Fleer Basketball