CREATURE FEATURE 2013: "IT'S ALIVE! ALIVE!"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM STRANGE LABORATORIES!

As a kid, I was OBSESSED with monsters, aliens, and ghosts-- pretty much anything and everything that could be classified as occult or supernatural was researched, read, and retold, all throughout elementary school. During this time, I discovered a line of classic Universal horror characters in the same scale as my beloved GI Joe and Star Wars figures. I'd seen a Frankenstein first, then a Dracula. In the days before The Internet, I was never able to track down the name of the line. 

Fast-forward 10 years. McFarlane Toys-- my favorite company at the time-- began putting out playsets in the 4" scale loosely based on classic Universal horror. This time, I didn't miss my chance. They're treasured parts of my toy collection, and I still use them as backgrounds to this day. 

While I have a soft spot in my heart for all of the sets, my favorite from the first series (and the first set I bought from the line) was Frankenstein's Monster. Packed with detail and crammed with accessories, it's one of the coolest toys of all time. 

Here, my original creation Dr. Clockwork stands in for Dr. Frankenstein. The original McFarlane Dr. Frankenstein is kinda cheesy, in that very mid-90s "grim & gritty" style. While I loved the concept of a  cyborg doctor who experimented on himself, the ponytail and goatee had to go. Dr. Frankenstein builds monsters... he's not fronting a 90s alternarock band.

While there were literally thousands of ways I could've approached the piece, I ended up creating a straight-up homage to McFarlane's bad-ass original. Part of its appeal was that head sculpt, so I opted to keep it and put it on a new, super-articulated body (from an Absorbing Man). The crooked line of stitches across the abdomen was another detail I always loved about the McF original, so I lifted them and Frank's "Undead Mint" color palette. 

It's a mint you don't want to eat, kids.

The Monster's neck bolts are made from real screws, provided by a GI Joe. They were one of the final additions to the piece, at the suggestion of a friend who stopped by The Lab. He said that it wouldn't be Frankenstein's Monster without them, and I agreed. 

CREATURE FEATURE WILL RETURN FOR HALLOWEEN 2014, WITH MORE TRICKS AND TREATS... UNTIL THEN, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

CREATURE FEATURE 2013: WALKING DEAD

Halloween is bigger than Christmas at Strange Labs, so, to commemorate, every post for the rest of October will be spooky, scary, creepy... and maybe, just maybe, a little celebratory-- THIS MONTH MARKS ONE YEAR SINCE STRANGE LABORATORIES HAS BEEN ONLINE!

Created and shot before my extensive use of dioramas and sets, I always felt my Unmensch deserved a better series of photos than what he initially got. While I've kicked around ideas of doing one more to complete the "trilogy," I still consider this guy to be my definitive statement on the undead.

Image from camera recovered at abandoned German facility

Image from camera recovered at abandoned German laboratory

TOP SECRET: CLASSIFIED IMAGES FROM MISSION DOSSIER, CODENAME: LAZARUS

Photographs taken during American recon mission of secret underground German laboratories, where an experiment had gone horribly wrong. According to eyewitness reports, power in the facility was sparse, so many of these images are lit by a flashlight...

Interior, German laboratory. Subject found by tanks purportedly used to resurrect the dead

East wing hallway, leading to storage area of complex

Hallway leading to laboratory

A number of subjects were found throughout the complex, though no living were among them. It appeared as though all of the doctors, scientists, and personnel were overrun by the creatures in a matter of days. They posed a challenge for trained soldiers with machine guns. Unarmed civilians didn't stand a chance.

CREATURE FEATURE 2013: WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

One year ago today, I launched Strange Labs with a post about my custom, unnamed rookie Ghostbuster... it was fairly straight-forward, but laid the groundwork for where I am today. As a little celebration of the site's birthday, I wanted to revisit him... this time with a new mission, in new surroundings, with one very special guest...

"Rookie to Ghostbusters HQ. Either this is the place, or the set of Sanford & Son. No sign of whoever reported the disturbance."

"Heard something move inside... goin' in."

"This is nothing like the simulations... I don't remember feeling anything like this."

"Ghostbusters HQ to Rookie: Easy, kid. Probably fluctuations in magnetic fields."

"I don't see anything, guys... maybe a crank call...?"

"What do your instruments say, kid? Don't trust your eyes."

"Pretty far into the facility now, HQ. I'm getting readings, but haven't seen or heard anything!"

"Power's out, guys. Repeat, there has been a power outage--"

"Hold on, kid! Get ready!"

"False alarm, HQ. Power's back on... trigger finger still itchy, though. Gave me a pretty good scare--"

"Uh-oh. Looks like I spoke too soon!"

"Ghostbusters HQ! Ghostbusters HQ! I am engaging the entity!"

"Move quick, boy! Shoot and throw the trap like I showed you!"

CREATURE FEATURE 2013: "THE ANOMALY"

THE ANOMALY

On October 4th, Strange Labs had the pleasure of being a part of Mysteries of the Unexplained, a group art show featuring artists from all over South Florida. In addition to being Halloween-themed (my favorite holiday), what made it even more rad was that my work appeared alongside extremely talented, local creative types like my friend Baghead (https://www.facebook.com/bagheadart)

Once I read the theme for the show, the concept for "The Anomaly" arrived almost instantaneously. I'd been experimenting with glow-in-the-dark paint, as well as the subjects of astronauts and rockets for some time, and it actually ties in with a much larger concept, to be revealed later this year and going into 2014. 

Like all of my other work, it began with toy pieces (an old Star Wars figure, GI Joe bits, a 3.75" scale skull from a playlet, etc.), then evolved from there. The initial plan was to display the actual figure at Bear & Bird, but they needed something hangable, so the concept was reworked. Instead, the figure was shot in front of a diorama, then printed 8" X 10" and framed. While not my original intention, it produced what I envisioned in my mind, all without having to worry about the lighting of the piece or if the ghostly effect was going to work. 

It is, forever, bathed in the creepy, ethereal glow. 

Mysteries of the Unexplained runs through November at Bear & Bird Gallery. For more info, please visit:

http://www.bearandbird.com

http://tatescomics.com

If you can't make it down to the Sunshine State, Bear & Bird also put up a flickr gallery! HUZZAH FOR TEH INTERWEBZ!:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bearandbird/sets/72157636226967565

"The Anomaly" is #94 in the stream

GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED 2: BOSS OF BOSSES

This past summer, I had the honor of showing in my second CustomCon this year. This one was extra special for me because it was hosted at Joe Acevedo's site, where I first stumbled across the show in its infancy. At that moment, it became a dream and goal to be in a CustomCon. To be fortunate enough to be in two was unthinkable at the time, so I'd like to thank Joe again for hosting all these years. 

Definitely check out his site and show some support when you have a sec. There's a TON of material to go through: http://www.joeacevedo.com/

My second entry into CustomCon is a continuation of the first: GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED.

The Dark Knight has THE best rogues gallery, and I knew after the first series that I was going to have to work on all of his major foes. Work on series 2 began while Gotham's Most Wanted series 1 was being submitted.

Black Mask made his impression on me very early. A lot more obscure than The Joker or Scarecrow, I first remember seeing him wearing an orange, pin-stripe zoot suit and an expressionless wooden mask, made from his father's coffin. While never a fan of the orange suit, that creepy, unfeeling face seered itself into my brain. 

One of the more complex pieces from Gotham's Most Wanted 2, Black Mask is a combo of Indiana Jones and GI Joe parts, with random bits like rubber bands. Nowadays, BM wears a black skull mask, but I've worn out that road, and I find the more humanoid appearance to be way more disturbing, for some reason. Much more of a gangster than a traditional super villain, his wardrobe reflects this... he almost reminds me of Sonny Corleone from the first Godfather.

In the Gotham's Most Wanted continuity, Black Mask desires to be the Boss of Bosses in Gotham City, as well as the rest of the Eastern Sea Board-- to do this, he's willing to step on the toes of the Maronis, Rupert Thorne, and the Falcones. Truly a criminal with no honor, Black Mask is finally the gangster worthy of the town...

NEXT TIME: THE ANOMOLY

GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED 2: THE TWO FACES OF JUSTICE

Harvey "Two-Face" Dent has always fascinated me, even as a kid. Before his appearance in Batman: The Animated Series, my first exposure to the character was from The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, a sort of "Greatest Hits" compendium my Mom bought me when Tim Burton's Batman first came out. I even remember thinking how cool it was that Harvey Dent was in the movie, and always wondered what Billy Dee Williams would have done with him, had he been given the chance...

Completed in Summer 2013, his piece was extremely straight-forward-- a Men In Black 3 figure topped off with a third party head, with a paint job inspired by The Animated Series. Harvey's rocked a lot of looks, from gaudy stripes to even worse animal print (*COUGH*BATMANFOREVER*COUGH*). The clean, black-and-white aesthetic was it. 

In the Gotham's Most Wanted universe, Harvey Dent is very much the same flawed, tragic man revealed on The Animated Series and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy... by far the best treatment of the character so far. I may revisit D.A. Dent in the future, but only to make a direct adaptation of Aaron Ekhart's take from The Dark Knight, probably using the same recipe...

GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED 2: ASHES TO ASHES

There's something about saboteurs. As a kid, one of my favorite GI Joe figures was a mercenary/saboteur/man of mystery called Firefly (ironically enough)... to me, he was kinda like the Boba Fett of COBRA. Years later, I found out about the Batman villain of the same name via Batman: The Animated Series and immediately developed an inexplicable fondness for him. Aside from the jetpack some incarnations of the character wear, I find Firefly to be one of Batman's rogues most grounded in reality: A pyromaniac obsessed with reducing Gotham City to ashes.

Firefly was one of those pieces that just immediately came together. Once I saw the head from a GI Joe movie Viper figure, I knew I had my "realistic" version of Firefly's helmet, and everything else fell into place. His upper body is from a GI Joe 25th Anniversary Ace figure, with Jungle Duke legs. As always, the accessories (TINY tools!) came from my Graveyard and were hand-weathered. 

In the Gotham's Most Wanted 'verse, Firefly is pretty much the same down-on-his-luck-FX artist-turned -villain. Just like the Spider-Man villain Mysterio, the special FX angle always fascinated me about the character, and endeared him to me, since I've been obsessed with visual FX all of my life. I didn't want to make him too tech-savvy, so I ditched the jetpack. I figured Firefly would mainly rely on gunpowder, grenades, dynamite and well-planned getaways to evade capture.

Perhaps his luck as run out...

GOTHAM'S MOST WANTED 2: THE MAN WHO BROKE THE BAT

                                                 
The Knightfall storyline happened when I was a kid, so I totally fell for DC's media blitz surrounding Bane's maiming of Batman. To me, the most interesting thing about Bane is that he bested The Bat... and that's about it. The Bane I grew up with was an overgrown wrestler in a luchador mask with a perpetual case of 'roid rage... then Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises happened. 

It was the partnership between Nolan, Goyer, and Tom Hardy that yielded what is, for me, probably the best portrayal of Bane ever. Hardy's Bane is a terrorist mastermind, killing thousands of innocent civilians when he bombs Gotham City and causing thousands more to suffer via an economic crisis-- things Ra's al Ghul, Scarecrow, The Joker, and Two-Face could not do in the previous Nolan films. 

He was finally more than a grunting buffoon (as depicted in Schumacher's travesty Batman & Robin) or a Latin stereotype that was vaguely Mexican, Cuban, and Puerto Rican (every cartoon ever), all at the same time...

My favorite costume from The Dark Knight Rises is the first one we see Bane wearing, just before crashing the plane. I had been wanting to make that specific version for a while, so when I saw the Roadblock figure from the GI Joe: Retaliation line, I knew I found my base. Topped off with a third party custom head, and The Man Who Broke The Bat was complete. The very definition of an LBC for me, but still perfect for the character and, like, 98% on-model.

Before creating this Bane for Gotham's Most Wanted 2, I made another version that I absolutely hated. Also inspired by Tom Hardy's Bane, but not nearly as successful, I ended up disassembling the piece and using him elsewhere...

Looking at the piece now, it's not the worst I've ever produced (that would be the customs I did at 9-10 years-old), but, at the time, I wasn't happy. In retrospect, I should have removed the straps that went over his ears and just kept the one going between the eyes, but make it a little wider. I do love the paint on the piece, though, and feel he does have that creepy, thousand yard stare...

Bane here kinda breaks my established aesthetic for Gotham's Most Wanted, but I don't really mind. I really wanted a good Tom Hardy Bane in my favorite costume, so that won out. Theoretically, in the 1940s, the outfit I used was available, so it still kinda works. Well, that's how I explain it away...