Vampira Vol. 13, Traumzeit-Dämonen (Dreamtime Demons) – The Making of a Pulp Cover Illustration
Detail
Bd. 13
“In diesem Augenblick materialisierte vor ihr etwas, das die Unwirklichkeit verdichtete: Ein gewaltiger über dem roten Sand schwebender Quader, der aussah wie ein Klotz aus tonnenschwerer Dunkelheit! Die ganze Schwärze des Universums schien an diesem einen Punkt zusammengeballt zu sein, in einen Würfel gepresst, dessen Kanten und Konturen geschliffen scharf wirkten.
Lilith stockte der Atem Alle ihre Sinne konzentrierten sich auf diesen Block aus Finsternis, aus dessen Unterteil plötzlich gezackte Blitze in den Wüstenboden stießen und Sandfontänen aufwarfen. Lilith wurde von ein paar der “elektrisch” aufgeladenen Körnern getroffen. Sie prasselten gegen die Hülle des Symbionten, der die Form eines rückenfreien, vorn aber bis zum Hals geschlossenen Catsuits angenommen hatte. (…)
Die äscherne Aura hüllte Lilith erneut ein. Eng anliegend wie eine dritte Haut, wenn man den Symbionten als zweite einstufte. (…) Zentimeter trennten Lilith noch von dem schwebenden Koloss, in dem sich – sie sah es jetzt deutlich – schreckliche, schemenhafte Gestalten tummelten.(…) Und wieder machte sie einen Schritt, den sie gar nicht wollte. Berührte noch nicht selbst, aber mit der äschernen Aura das Domizil der entarteten Wondjinas! (…)
Vor Lilith schnellte etwas aus dem dunklen Vorhang. Etwas, das wie ein narbiger, furunkelübersähter, eiternder Arm aussah, aber keiner sein konnte. Es war nur der Abdruck eines Dings, das dort, woher es auf Lilith zustieß, keine Form besaß. (…) Immer mehr Arme und andere, menschlichen Extremitäten nachempfundene Extremitäten stießen aus em nachtschwarzen Quader.”
From: Adrian Doyle (Manfred Weinland), Traumzeit-Dämonen (Dreamtime Demons) und Apokalypse (Apocalypse), Vampira Bd. 13 und 14, © Bastei
Ursprüngliches Titelbild von 1995
Ursprüngliches Cover von 1995
The original cover illustration for volume 13 of the horror pulp series Vampira from 1995 was based on a brief description by the editor: Australian outback, in the foreground the series’ protagonist, dressed in a black, back free catsuit, in the backgound a huge, black, hovering cube, sending flashes of lightning to the red desert below; in its inside shadowy demons.
What I had in my mind when I created the painting back then was a little bit of a mixture between Caspar David Friedrich, Edgar Ende and Kubricks 2001 (the black monoliths), a rather unspectacular, calm scene. The deep blackness of the cube was more important to me than the demons, and because of that I only hinted at them with a few brushstrokes.
I do like some things about the painting, but in general it did not turn out as I imagined, and the figure in the foreground has its weaknesses, too (a really big head, for example). The cube was digitally lightened for print, with the result that neither the monolith was black as it should have been, nor the demons became more recognisable (simply because i did not really paint them).
The new edition of the series in 2011 provided the opportunity to paint the same scene again with quite a different approach – less like a Caspar David Friedrich painting and more dramatic, the flashes of lightning more vivid, the cube much closer to the foreground and really black, but without making the demons disappear in this blackness.
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- Erste Skizze
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- Vorzeichnung
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- Vorzeichnung
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- Vorzeichnung, auf Malkarton übertragen
The pencil drawings are DIN A4; the finished drawing was enlarged and transfered to painting cardboard (40 x 55 cm). For the first, rather sketchy colour layer I always use acrylyc, basically to try different colours and to define light and shadow.
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- Beginn der Acrylfarben-Untermalung
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- Acrylfarben-Untermalung, zur Hälfte fertig
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- Arcylfarben-Untermalung, fertig
After I had finished the acrylic layer, I did not like the demons’ claws anymore and changed them to more human looking hands, using my own hands as a reference.
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- Referenzfoto für Hand
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- Vorzeichnung für Hände
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- Neue Zeichnung der Hände auf Malgrund übertragen
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- Neue Acryl-Untermalung der Hände
On top of the acrylic paint came two complete layers of oil paint plus additional details. For the “ashlike aura”, as it is described in the novel, and the sparks of light I used toothbrushes. The last step was to paint the whites cores of the lightning flashes.
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- Erste Ölfarbenschicht, zu einem Drittel fertig
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- Erste Ölfarbenschicht, Detail
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- Erste Ölfarbenschicht, fertig
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- Zahnbürsten zum Sprenkeln
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- Zweite Ölfarbenschicht, Hintergrund fertig
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- Blitze
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- Fertiges Bild
Detail
The pulp novel was published on october 18.
Title Page for the Pulp Series 2012 – Das Jahr der Apokalypse, 2011
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- Bleistiftskizze
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- Fertige Zeichnung
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- Gedruckte Rotaseite
Maya vignettes
2012 – Das Jahr der Apokalypse (The Year of the Apocalypse) is an adventure/mystery pulp mini-series published by Bastei since September 6, 2011. It deals with the apocalypse allegedly predicted by the Mayan calendar.
To create the ink drawing for the interior title page (The so called “Rota-Seite”) I was given a series synopsis, a list of possible subjects and a few compulsory subjects: the Maya plaque and stele, the Easter Island statue and some Central American pyramids (I chose Uxmal and Chichen Itza). The first sketch was improved according to further suggestions by the editor, Michael Schönenbröcher. The vignettes are used as chapter headers.
More information about the series here
More pulp series title pages here .
Rota-Seite: © Bastei-Lübbe
Illustrations for Die Herren der Zeit (The Lords of Time) by Helmut W. Pesch, 2000
The novel, published in paperback by Bastei Lübbe, is the sequel to The Rings of Power – not quite so close to the Lord of the Rings as its predecessor (in the second part there’s a lot of time travelling going on), but still with substantial and, as in The Rings of Power, deliberately used Tolkien reminiscences.
The original drawings are missing, therefore I scanned the book pages.
Illustrations for “The Alchemy of the Throat” and “The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins” by Brian Hodge, 1999
The book Von Heiligen und Mördern, a collection of two loosely connected novellettes by Brian Hodge, was edited by Frank Festa as part of his Edition Metzengerstein and published by Blitz. Initially they were published within Poppy Z. Brite’s anthologies Love in Vain 1 (1994) und 2 (1995). The first novelette, “The Alchemy of the Throat” (Die Alchemie der Stimme), was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, the second,”The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins” (Von Heiligen und Mördern), for the World Fantasy Award.
I love both stories deeply, to work with them and to create these 13 drawings was pure joy.
The book cover was designed by Malte S. Sembten, based on two black-and-white, Celtic inspired initials that I painted with acrylic.
Cover: © Blitz
Illustrations for 1000 unerklärliche Phänomene (1000 Unexplainable Phenomenons) by Kai Hövelmann, 1998
The juvenile non-fiction book was published in 1999 by Loewe, illustrated with 49 interior drawings. A Czech translation was published in 2001 by Nava, a Slovenian translation in 2004 by Mladinska knjiga. As you can see, the book displayed a wide range of themes: from aliens to Tut Ankh Amun’s curse, from mysteriously vanished airplanes to the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation…
