A Cyclonic Cavalcade of Witches and Rockets

Okay, so "cyclonic cavalcade" was taken from a trailer for the old Godzilla movie full of similar styled hype... but as I was writing the copy for tonight's ebay listing - I could hear that same excited voice in my head as I was writing an over the top intro for The Space Witches lantern, and it went a little something lie this: Blast-off to a retro-kitsch sci-fi galaxy where UFO aliens collide into the earthly other-realm of Halloween witches who with their black cat familiars terrorize space in light-speed rockets!!!

Well, all that soul-groaning copy aside, style #4 in the Bindlegrim hex lantern series did make it live tonight, and here is the link by which to set your space ship's navigation controls: 12 side WITCH ROCKETS CATS retro vintage style HALLOWEEN lantern #5/5 BINDLEGRIM

Here are some new photos from the listing, or see the previous blog entry for even more:

And here is a direct excerpt of the ebay listing with general information on the listing:

Spooky Vintage Style Lantern - #4 - The Space Witches 

12 Eerie Visions of Creeps and Chills, Glow for HALLOWE'EN Thrills!

This newest offering in limited edition Bindlegrim hex lanterns merges the cartoon camp of 1950's imagery with the spooky elegance of 1920s vintage paper lanterns. 

Lantern #4 - (Edition #5/5):
This vintage style lantern comes from a series created in limited edition batches, with each different batch containing distinctive pane imagery from the others. This particular style has only 5 made with this particular imagery. And any lantern produced is identified inside the frame - this lantern reads:  "The Space Witches" (#5/5) 2012 Bindlegrim with the artist's Halloween signature.

The frame is created with acid-free museum board. The pieces were Made in the USA and hand assembled by the artist. Each work is packaged in a cellophane bag and also labeled with its number in the edition. The images are laser-prints on vellum for durability. The orange looks great with an orange battery operated candle or a 3 watt flicker bulb. Small holes in the top piece are present for hanging the lantern with soft wire or strong thread if you prefer a battery operated candle.

The Space Witches:
The imagery for this lantern was based on classic candy containers that combined the imagery of witches and rockets. Bindlegrim expanded this idea to create original pane designs, 12 different ones in all, that take the journey into outer space with these witches and their black cats, to see what happens, encountering aliens and other problems - like white mice running loose inside your space helmet - or what if your cat gets stuck on the moon?! Witches and aliens terrorize each other! Cats and mice take their earthly battle into space! Other mischievous witches speed about in helmets and goggles..., they poke the moon in the eye with their broom..., and they crash on dark planetoids!

Space Witches (Halloween Lantern #4)

An unexpected visit came today from a host of 1950s retro-kitsch black cats and witches riding space rockets, (and some not-so-happy aliens), making an appearance at the Bindlegrim studios. This is style #4 vintage-style lantern (imagery with a ton of tiny details) that will have a possible listing this weekend...!

The gallery widget above examines each of the 12 panes (which are each different from one another) in closer detail... and here are a half-dozen photos showing the imagery in the round...

Also...  a short side note to stay tuned for a couple of Bindlegrim bagatelles. Here is some imagery from the second one under development..

There seems to be a bit of a jazz theme happening here. What started out at first as a grumpy moon covering his ears from the sound of raucous skeletons, instead transformed into a high-spirited band leader directing his quartet of band musicians.  I would hazard a guess that "Rumble Bones" is picking on a selection of tunes found on Bindlegrim's vintage Halloween music radio:

A Brief History of The Pumpkin Dream (Part 5) - Monsters from the Id

A continuation from A Brief History of The Pumpkin Dream (Part 4)

So after realizing that Adobe products were going to be out of my reach (without the dream possibility of upgrading toward a full suite in inexpensive increments), I decided to look around further, and this was actually very informative. It got me to consider my next trial download which was Corel Painter 11 which is great fun with the Wacom tablet!

With Corel Draw you can get very expressive, because there are a huge number of pen and brush styles that combine fantastically with the pressure sensitivity of the tablet. Whereas Illustrator seemed more exacting and strict, Corel Draw was great for free-form expression. Without trying to recreate any of my sketches just yet, I just doodled around with the settings of the charcoal and pens to create this bit of weirdness:

This, I admit, took me on a bit of tangent, exploring how sculptural I could get with the sensitivity and shading. And continuing with my doodles, created this bit of alien-esque fantasy. (Having no anatomical guidance or backdrop for the first, I realize it's a bit off, so I took the first into Photoshop and just played with a bit of mirroring on the latter two)... 

I really hope to explore this program more in future, but my end goal was to create a total of 37 illustrations, and quickly. I didn't see how I could do that with this program... And, honestly, I just didn't have a big budget, so when someone finally suggested freeware - I skeptically decided I might as well take the time to investigate the options... and that was when I found a good link that lists these: 15 freeware graphic programs.

I decided to download InkScape, which seemed more inline with my vector needs, to create simply-designed, repeatable graphic characters that I could tweak from one image to the next.

I'll continue that story in Part 6.