LA WEEKLY MONSTER
Good morning. Thank you for coming to visit the Monsters, and a special welcome to those of you who just found out about this site from the L.A. Weekly. The Weekly is very kindly featuring one of the Daily Monsters on its cover this week, advertising an article on Making Fiends creator Amy Winfrey, and one on… ahem… well, they have one on me, too. Great thanks to La Vida writer Gendy Alimurung for giving a massive shout-out to our little Monster community, and to Joshua Bearman for making the initial introduction back in December.
I only found out that the article would be in this week’s issue last Thursday night, and I’ve been working on this pretty much non-stop since Saturday. I handed in the cover itself on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been working on the “Making of” video:
If you’re reading this on Amazon, please click here to watch the clip.
You may notice that the color scheme is a bit different than the final cover. I thought I’d show you the various iterations I went through before the Weekly’s art director Ryan Ward stepped in and laid down the chromatic law. Click on the image for a closer look:
When I draw the Monsters for you, I have a little code of honor: I won’t alter the drawing after I turn off the camera. I won’t fix mistakes in Photoshop. And I won’t change the colors I used on paper. In this case the Monster came through with a blue tongue and blue shoes. So I based the whole color scheme around that, which put me into a day-long orgy of minuscule adjustments that I haven’t had since art school days. 5% cyan? 7% cyan? Who will help me make these momentous decisions?! Oh, the pressure!!! My thanks to Ryan for discreetly taking the reigns while I was in the fever-grip of hue-mania.
Now, to celebrate the cover, I’ve finally got myself in gear to give you something you’ve been requesting for ages: Monster T-shirts! Thanks to the good people at Zazzle, you can order the L.A. Weekly Monster on a whole line of shirts and assorted goodies. Check it out at this link here, or by clicking on the store window in the sidebar on the right. (Special thanks to Robert at Zazzle for helping me set up the store in a matter of hours.)
So there you have it. As 200,000 Daily Monsters are being delivered to newspaper dispensers all over Los Angeles, I have to get cracking on a Monster Three of Hearts, which will be my contribution to an artist-powered deck of cards in Germany. I’ll post it for you here as soon as I get it done.
Also, please check back in during the week. I held a little monster casting call for the Weekly cover, and I’ll post a few of the audition tapes in the coming days.
For now, I hope you’ll have a lovely, mellow rest of the week.
I do hope you realize that 344 LOVES YOU
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Postscript: Here are a few photos of the actual paper!
Exciting stuff! (Oh come on! Be with me here!)
congratulations! like the playfulness of the cover
Another good interview…..they’re getting better all the time.
I always learn something new….for instance, I had no idea about the flamingos guarding the perimeter. *L*
I’ll have to wait til Sept. to shop for the new products, but shop I will.
Very cool! Love the photo shoot scene.
Another reason to miss LA as I sit here in Newfoundland listening to the wind blow.
Congrats on the cover – we love 344!
Suzy
I am sure you get this alot: you are AWESOME. What a talent!
I loved the videos and always like the process towards the finished creature. I wish i was in Cali to get a hold of all these wonderful pieces! Keep the success trail rollin’!!!
I just flew in to LA last night, im from Virginia, in town for the SIGGRAPH conference. Picked up LA weekly this morning and haven’t been able to stop looking at your monsters! How inspiring.
Congratulations Stefan! This put a big smile on my face!
I loved reading about the significance of 344 on the online article! Can’t wait to see the monsters movin’ and shakin’ on the boob-tube.
You’re pretty fantastic Stefan! Keep it up 🙂 Chicago loves Monsters.
Yea! More success for a hard working, way talented artist. Congrats!
Silly Stefan, how could we possibly forget that 344 loves us? After all, you take us with you everywhere you go! 🙂 What a terrific article. Now all I have to do is convince Zazzle to sell me something.
Now that he was actually here, onstage, getting ready to perform before the judges, Fizzit felt like his face would crack, his smile was so enormous. Last Comic Standing – what an opportunity! The competition in LA would be so difficult. Harder than anywhere but New York, maybe. Or Chicago. That was okay. He was ready. He was made for this – he was BORN for the spotlight.
And he was right, he killed. The judges, hardened veterans of the circuit themselves, agreed they’d never laughed so hard. When Fizzit left the stage, though, dreaming of glory, actually floating on air (he got his feet down as soon as he realized, before anyone noticed), the two judges discussed their giant reservation. “It’s a great mask, but the kid’s good enough to work without props.” They shrugged, and drew a line through his name.
Out on the street, surrounded by chortling groovemonsters, Fizzit was doing the bit about the artist and the peanut butter jar.
sorry i must be an idiot where do you get the open source blot please email me and let me know
I’ve made the Open Source Ink Blots a bit less visible, haven’t I? My apologies. I am reworking that whole section at the moment, so it’ll all be front-and-center again soon.
In the meantime, I’ve attached a few blot links for you.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Blot 23 | Blot 22 | Blot 21
Looking very awesome
I’ve searched all over the site including OPEN SOURCE MONSTERS. How does one sign in or join up. I wanted to post some monster pictures. Not that they’re good or anything but my 6 y/o (as well as myself)are fascinated by this site and are going to buy the book. But he wants to see our pictures on the site. If anyone can help…
hello
i love your illustrations, and i love to drawing by my slf, so i have a question: where can i buy the pens you are use in the videos? all your stuff is sooo nice 😉
Love Signe
Thank you for the compliment, Signe. I appreciate it! I use Faber-Castell
PITT artist pens, Prismacolor Premier pens, Staedtler pigment liners, Tombow
ABT pens, Sharpies (fine point and wedge tip), and Yasutomo Sumi ink blown
with compressed air from a duster can on regular old uncoated bond paper.
All of it you can get at your neighborhood art store, or online. :^)