...alright, I lied! Melon Head didn't say anything. Have you looked into that cranium?! If he said anything, it'd be something like, "Ghuuurk...nnnghaaack....BWEGH!"
I picked up this nasty little zombie bust at Quarantine Studios table at Wonderfest this year. Sculpted by the maestro of the macabre, William Paquet. I hadn't seen it before, and I picked one up on the spot. The bust is about 5 3/8" tall, so I'd say somewhere between 1/6-1/7th. scale range. Cast in cold cast porcelain, I believe. It was a pre-paint, so I had to strip off the factory finish, give it a nice clean up and primer for some beauty shots. I'm gonna' love painting this bastard! So feast your eyes on this quickly spoiling stiff before he liquefies into a stinky pool, and by all means...
...have a HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
This piece is called, Ba'al Ball, sculpted by artist Calvin Lo. Calvin studied sculpture under the tutelage of master sculptor, Simon Lee, and has amassed quite the cool menagerie of demons and creepazoids under his Impulse Refinery banner. When I asked Calvin how he'd like me to paint the piece, his only request was that I keep in mind that the character was "from Hell".
The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Hell is Wayne Barlowe's Inferno and Brushfire volumes. One piece in particular titled, "Watchtowers" gave me pause, primarily because I felt that the unnerving, unblinking, singular eye that's embedded in each those watchful spires would work perfect for the cycloptic Ba'al Ball. So I made an attempt to use what I thought were some of the colors that Barlowe may have used to paint that piece, and other color themes seen throughout his Inferno series. Initially I wanted to paint the bust in very dark and ashy colors, but this more fleshy crimson look prevailed.
I can't think of an image that's more synonymous with Halloween than a pumpkin with an evil grin carved into it's thick hide. Here we have a ghoulish gourd that's boasting a grin that would peel the pants of Father Merrin and send him careening down a flight of stairs. This jack-o-lantern has teeth that look quite a lot like shark's teeth, and only an artist like Paul Komoda would think of something like that. As I understand it, Paul sculpted this piece a decade, or so, ago. It is not a production piece. My friend Norman Meyers asked me to paint this so that he could have it to display at this years Son Of Monsterpalooza show in Burbank, CA., and I was happy to oblige, of course. it's October, it's Paul Komoda, and it's awesome.
** I learned a bit of information from Paul about this piece. It was sculpted by him while he worked at Art Asylum on a project called, "Psychopumps" that featured three pumpkinheaded robots. Here's some artwork by Nelson Acencio:
