August 2016 – Page 3 – Grimmleigh's Lab

Hellboy Featured in this Month’s Lootcrate!!!

Ugh. I really, really hate Lootcrate. You never have any idea of what you’re going to get. You might get a cool Funko POP! figure, or a cool and unique Power Rangers shirt. There is usually a pretty nifty thing or two in each box, but the rest of the stuff? Pretty much landfill.

mignola-header — “Mike Mignola drew me, which makes me cooler than most people will ever be.”

But this month Lootcrate has an anti-hero theme, and Hellboy has been promised as a featured item. I FREAKING LOVE HELLBOY. Mike Mignola is one of the Holy Three, guys. And there might be a super-cool Hellboy something or other. Or it might be Hellboy toilet paper. I am really super torn on this one.

Interested? Braver than me? Here is the link to the August Lootcrate. If I were a braver man, kids, this wouldn’t even be a hesitation on my behalf. I’ve been burned before on these things… The whole shebang shuts down at 9pm PST on August 19th.

Some day, just for fun, I will tell the story of when I met Mike Mignola. Seriously, one of three times in my life that words wouldn’t come out of my mouth. But that is a story for another day.

Uncategorized

Guillermo del Toro Exhibit at LACMA

Guillermo del Toro has directed some of my favorite movies in the horror movie genre. His style blends iconic gothic imagery in the classic Hammer horror style with a vivid love of color and fairy tales. Pan’s Labyrinth, the Devil’s Backbone, and Crimson Peak all deliver plenty of scares, but immerse you in such beautiful landscapes that you almost forget to jump when the monsters come out.

ex8194_crimsonpeak — Film Still from Crimson Peak, 2016 c Legendary/Universal

Guiellermo del Toro’s work has been a huge influence on me as an illustrator. His movies have an extraordinary visual narrative to them, and I swear visually creative people are seeing an entirely different movie than your standard film-goer. I have spent many hours in slack-jawed reverence over his Cabinet of Curiosities book, just studying a master at work. To be able to see the man’s work in person would probably reduce me to tears.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has collaborated with del Toro to showcase an assortment of artifacts from his personal collection; del Toro has been collecting memorabilia from horror movies made over the past century, as well as sketch pages and artifacts from his own films.

The layout of the exhibit is like a maze, with props from Hellboy displayed nearby wax statues of Frankenstein’s monster. Each section of the maze is laid out thematically, and del Toro’s personal touch is apparent throughout. Just thinking about this collection makes my head spin!

Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters runs at the LACMA until November 27th, 2016. Look for me desperately trying to hide behind the Boris Korloff bust… I just want to live there…

For more pictures and information, check out this article on Make-Up Artist Magazine.

Uncategorized

A Wild Grimmleigh Appears!

Capitalizing on popular culture again? Yup. My new book, Grimmleigh’s Beastly Oddities, is available now on Amazon. It’s pretty spiffy. It’s also wildly entertaining. Sure, I’m biased in my praise, but my mom says it’s pretty cool, too.

Barnyard — Yeah, that’s the Lone Rooster of the Apocalypse. He’s the first freaking page.

What makes this book different from all the other self-published coloring books out there? Well, I could go on and on about how I make it different, but if you know me that goes without saying. What makes this special, unique, and shiney is the stories. Yep, each and every creature in the book has a story. Sort of. Here’s the text for the Lone Rooster:

“There it was. The beast we had been tracking for nearly a week, just sitting, happy as can be on a rural fence post.I reviewed the team, and let out a heavy sigh of relief. I was surrounded by some of the finest men and women the Institute had to offer; our success was not only assured; it had been prophesied in at least seventy-two of the last eighty Outcome Rituals that had been performed prior to our departure.

I signaled the team; Vasquez was the first to jump into action. She made it about 30 feet towards the objective before it fixed its eyes upon her. And then? All hell broke loose. I stood stunned as my team broke formation, staggering about and screaming. The finest men and women I had ever served with were rendered useless in seconds, with just. One. Look.

I awoke some time later, wearing a gingham dress with a potato in my mouth. I glanced to my left, and there was Vasquez, dressed in denim coveralls and merrily hacking away at some weeds with a hoe. She looked up at me and smiled; a dead, vacant smile. She had a piece of straw clutched in her teeth.I ran. I’ll admit it. I ran faster than I had ever run before.”

That, my friends, is one chillingly terrifying rooster.

Grimmleighs Beastly Oddities is available now on Amazon.