Strange Things Art to make your skull gears turn.
The Candyman can! You better believe it!
CANDYMAN! With his gooey Laffy Taffy face!
He’s something that the kiddies cheer with joy when they see him! Always dreaming of those delicious ring pops!
Candyman started out as a Mr. Potatohead type idea, but then turned into something much, much more horrific as it progressed. I think the colors made it that much more disturbing.
Good Lord. He’s tough to look at. Is that a mask? What’s in his mouth? Why is his brain exposed? Why is his brain on fire?
I was on a roll this long Labor Day weekend. I pumped out two sketches that I was happy with. I can’t say this enough: See your projects through to the end. You never know how they will turn out. Like this one for example. I had no expectations for this to become anything. But I said, “heh, you know what? I’m gonna keep going with it!” And I did. And this charming monstrosity is a result of that.
Had a lot of fun fooling around with design elements in Adobe Illustrator. The little halftone rosy cheeks. The pin stripes on the arms. The grunge on the thought bubble. I’m enjoying experimenting with design elements with illustrations lately.
The digital “inking” of this (by that I mean painstaking pen tool work) was a pretty fun trip. I’ve noticed I can pump out pretty detailed stuff in a short amount of time. Which is excellent! Means I can get onto the coloring, which is usually my favorite part if I can find a halfway decent palette.
Chose this palette sort of by accident. Laid down some block colors just to get the vectors down. Then I realized I kind of enjoyed how it was looking, especially with the face. The white highlights on the yellow gave it a melted wax or lard feel. Made it even more gross.
Made the halftone cheeks red to pop and added some red in the slime of his mouth. Candyman really came together with the pinstripes and the colored speckles on his face, in my opinion.
Truly the stuff nightmares are made of. Candyman is available on Redbubble and Society6 right now. He’ll be added to DBH soon, hopefully.
Check it out some detail shots and some products below.
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