The Wailing Widow

I don't normally do horror type shoots, not that I don't like them, but they do fall outside the mythology that underlies everything I do (it's long and complicated so I won't go into just what that mythology is) although that's not the real reason I don't do them. I don't do them, because they're really fucking hard to effectively pull off.

I've written and re-written this too many times trying to make it concise and simple, but I really can't. So I'll just try this, for me horror is about setting a scene, it's about angles and lighting and the right environment, the right pose - if any of these are off, it doesn't work (again, at least that's how it works for me). So keeping that in mind it's much less fun of a process than my usual shoots and it becomes work, sometimes stressful and frustrating work.

However, this last shoot, which I'm calling the Wailing Widow turned out much easier than I had expected. I think because I warned the model that it might not be fun but actual hard work. However, after a few set up shots (in order to make her look like she was floating) it went really smoothly. I think because the makeup itself was pretty creepy and processing the shots in a high contrast black and white really helped. A lot of the pictures were cool, but once I processed them, they looked amazing - doesn't always happen, but it's so awesome when it does.

The makeup and character was heavily inspired by the MMO The Secret World, there's a couple characters that it comes close to looking it and I plan on doing a few more inspired by that game.

The story behind the Wailing Widow is that of an undead widow. While living she lived an opulent life with her husband in a mansion on a clifftop over looking the sea during the 18th century. He ran a fleet of ships that imported and exported goods around the world and would often be gone for up to a year at a time. Eventually there came a time when he simply never returned home and his wife, having already fallen ill, began a slow decent into madness as the years went by.

She would sit and wait for her husband to return every night while the house staff slowly plotted against her, growing frustrated as the money began to run out and resorting to slowly stealing everything in the house.

Finally, penniless and living in a massive empty house, she wandered the halls in sorrow until she finally died. It was some time before her body was even found.

She continues to haunt the hallways of the house on the clifftop where she once lived, assuming any who enter to be more thieves looking to steal from her.

Demons in Ugly Christmas Sweaters 2017

I started this a little earlier than usual this year, normally it's a little tricky to time since I'm coming off an extremely busy Halloween and pretty run down - but this year I was ready and jumped right into it about a week after Halloween having planned everything a little more in advance rather than leaving it to the last minute.

 After a hard day of killing elves, dwarves and hobbits, this jolly Uruk-hai enjoys a big stein of eggnog and group singalongs around the fire.

 This fellow hopes you won't have a blue Christmas, so long as you OBEY and CONSUME!

 This little lady enjoys animated Christmas specials, snow angels and crashing Christmas office parties.

If you like homemade fuitcake, Christmas in the Stars: The Star Wars Christmas Album, and wreaths made from stuff lying around the lawn, you'd enjoy spending Christmas with this one.

In between devouring the souls of the innocent, this Wailing Widow likes to take a moment every December 25th to decorate a tree with the bones of her victims.

Universal Monster Queens

I had this idea a few years ago, but it was too last minute to pull it all together. The thought came back to me this year, but to simplify it to a much more manageable level. Rather then juggling schedules of several models, I went with just one and a blue screen. I really only had to create a couple new prosthetics, the costumes were pretty simple - so it was a much more doable thing this year.

The idea wasn't to just genderswap the original characters, but to come up with a whole new plot/idea for the characters and still keep the shoots relatively easy to do - since I was already insanely busy this month.


DRACULA. Plot: "A wealthy Transylvanian family is attacked and brutally murdered, the only survivor is their eldest daughter who seeks out an ancient evil to exact revenge on her family's murderers.

This comes at a price and soon takes it toll on her, warping her into an immortal monster with a thirst for blood."

This one was pretty simple, I already had the fangs made and a vampire brow, so it was just a matter of finding a dress - which we did with this and a couple other shoots in one shopping session. 
 

FRANKENSTEIN. Plot:"After his wife dies in an accident, Dr. Victor Frankenstein embarks on a journey through the darker side of the medical world to find a way to bring her back to life.

He begins to realize that his newly resurrected wife isn't exactly the same person she once was, slowly manifesting bizarre abilities and the power to control the dead."

For this shoot I had to make the brain/skullcap piece, something I've never really made before. It was a little tricky at first thinking the best way to approach it and have it blend in. In the end, simple worked best, it's really just a cap, runs along the brow and above the ears, the edges were all covered with fake hair and the brain was given a coating of blood slime.

There was a Y scar on her chest, but it doesn't really show up in the wide shot. You can sort of see it under the letters in the head shot. Pretty happy with how it worked, it's a difficult and often goofy looking kind of makeup, bit in this case I wasn't overly concerned if it came off a little campy.

THE INVISIBLE WOMAN. Plot:"A young woman backpacking through Europe is kidnapped and sold by Human Traffickers for bizarre medical experiments. For months she endures seemingly endless torture at the hands of a demented doctor to finally wake up one day realizing she is totally invisible.

She uses this to her advantage as she one by one terrorizes and kills her captors."

This one was a bit of a joke. I had the intention of releasing one shot a week for the month of October this year (2017) and the last week was only a couple days, so rather than do a full blown makeup job, I just spent an hour or so doing a little photo shopping instead.

THE MUMMY: Plot:"Queen Kamilah is overthrown by her people and sacrificed as an offering to the gods. Once in the underworld, Kamilah makes a deal with Osiris and Set, the gods of the underworld and chaos. for the souls of all her followers.

Set returns Kamilah to life as an undying monster to slaughter the followers that betrayed her."

Very simple, but it was pretty effective looking. Just a simple half-face normal/mummified face, some gauze to wrap her up and I figured she could use a weapon since I already have a scimitar.

THE WOLFGIRL. Plot:"A Cryptologist travels to Romania to uncover rumours of wild animal attacks and finds herself caught in the middle of a war between two rival gypsy families.

She soon tracks down the beast responsible for the attacks and barely survives the ordeal, only to wake up and discover she herself has become the beast.

On the next full moon she finds herself amid a massive war of werewolves as the gypsies all turn and she fights not only survive the night, but keep alive the one person she discovers is the key to stopping the curse."

 Pretty simple, just used prosthetics I already make, got some monster claws (those were a bugger to apply, but once on they were on there good), and a little fake hair.

Cesky Demon

This shoot went through a couple variations before I finally got around to actually sculpting the prosthetics and settling on a design for the overall look.

I had thought about more of a dreadlock look to the hair, but just didn't have the time or energy to attempt that, so while the braids were much more simple, they also made it easier to attach it all.