Drawing

Harryhausen

Ant Mercer Drawing, Illustration , , , , ,

HarryHausen.

 

Ray Harryhausen’s films left a deep impression on me as a child—those Sunday mornings watching Jason and the Argonauts, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, or Clash of the Titans became formative visual experiences.

 

The creatures, movement, and atmosphere still sit somewhere near the core of how I imagine and make images.

 

This series began during the lockdown, with a drawing of Calibos from Clash of the Titans. Since then, I’ve returned to Harryhausen’s world again and again, building a loose collection of drawings and paintings that pay tribute to his iconic stop-motion creations. The project is ongoing—I’ll add to it each time a new figure or moment insists on being drawn.

 

Dawn of the Dead

Ant Mercer Drawing

I had a very quick turnaround on a storyboard project (here) which was a mix of live action and an animation sequence so I had to make sure that there was a distinct difference between the live action scenes and the animation. Due to the rapid turnaround and that the animation was still in the process of designing the characters, I had to wing it.

..and I accidentally came up with a couple of nice Kevin Dart-esque looking boards which I was quite pleased with. Colour shapes with quick suggestions of expressions and clothing and whatnot.

So I thought I’d try it out in a sketch that I had loitering on my desktop. I’d been playing around with Krita – a new release and the brushes are amazing. I was doing a full painting, but quickly pivoted to trying out the same techinique and figured I’d use the creepiest zombie from DOTD that Hare Krishna guy who goes after Galen Ross in the back room.

And an old picture from DOTD for good measure.