Michael Myers in ink

 

Michael Myers of "Halloween." Micron pen (.05) Pentel Pocket Brush Pen and Sharpie roller pen (.05) in a Daler Rowney sketchbook (5.5" X 8.5"). Art by Coyote Duran

It's October, kids, and you know what that means! Horror movies! And what better film to represent my favorite holiday (and my wedding anniversary!) than "Halloween"!

Now I'm sure you all have your favorite version of the original concept (mine is Rob Zombie's 2007 reimagining) or sequels (of which most have been retconned out of existence...with the exception of "Halloween Kills," which is coming out this Friday! I'll be firing it up on Peacock!) but I believe we can all agree on one thing: Michael Myers is and will always be one of cinema's most frightening and prolific murderers. Relentless, unfeeling and ice-cold with a soul as black as his eyes...

That said, October is also an equally fun time for us artists, whom participate on different levels (some daily - bless their hearts! - some sporadically - like Yours Truly!) in something we call "INKTOBER"!

Yes, Inktober. A month in which we grace paper, sketchbooks and the internet with scribblings of the inky persuasion. So, I combined two loves - horror and art - for my initial foray this year, an ink drawing of "The Shape" himself (done in .05 Micron pen, Pentel Pocket Brush pen and .05 Sharpie roller pen in a 5.5" X 8.5" Daler Rowney sketchbook)!

(It didn't even hit me until know that this is the second John Carpenter character - here's the first piece - I've rendered this year. That's pretty neat, man.)

If I can make the time (my plate is delightfully getting fuller, especially with cartooning commissions on which  I've been regularly working!), I'll do my best to get out some more "ink-only" pieces to share with you fine folks before the month ends.

Snake Plissken in ink

Snake Plissken. Ink on 5.5" X 8.5" sketch paper. Art by Coyote Duran

"Some people think you're already dead, Snake. Some say you never will be. Though you may have survived Cleveland. You may have escaped from New York. But this is L.A., vato! And you're about to find out that this fucking city can kill anybody!"

- Cuervo Jones, "Escape from L.A.," 1996

OK, so maybe the aforementioned quote isn't from John Carpenter's widely preferred movie of the two (the first being 1981's brilliant "Escape from New York") but, damn, it's a terrific line (delivered by Georges Corraface as the film's big bad Jones) that sums up just another obstacle that gunfighting antihero Snake Plissken must conquer in order to serve the whims of his country.

As someone who has an animal-inspired name, I've always loved Snake for his doggedness, moral code and disdain for...well, everything. So while at my late-night Joe job, small Daler Rowney sketchbook (5.5" X 8.5") in paw, I sketched this out within a day.

For the uninitiated, this Daler Rowney sketchbook is amazing but limited (but not in a bad way!) because it doesn't have a vellum-type surface, so standard graphite (in my case, I exclusively use 2H sticks in my leadholder) is a little more difficult to erase. So I did my layout with a Staedtler Mars non-photo reproducible blue pencil. It worked great and I could erase my numerous flubs as well as my finished lines once my initial ink "wireframe" was completed, prior to hammering in the blacks (Sharpie thin stick pen and Pentel Pocket Brush Pen).

Snake Plissken. Ink on 5.5" X 8.5" sketch paper. Art by Coyote Duran

If nothing else, if Carpenter and Kurt Russell offered their stamps of approval, that would be enough for me.

Welcome to the human race...

Questions? Comments? Complaints? Commissions? Hit me up at artofthepaw@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @CoyoteDuran, on Instagram @CoyoteDuran and on Facebook @CDCreationNation.