"The Shadow Knows". Illustration. Poster. Illustrator

Here is "The Shadow" in another version. He knows the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. Evildoers beware, The Shadow, 'Lamont Cranston' will seek you out and make you pay.
He was more of an avenging angel than a hero and I find him a more interesting character for that, not a corny square jawed hero, but a flawed anti-hero, walking the line between good and evil. I may do some more of the shadow and other pulp heroes like Doc Savage. It's nice to pay homage to what was a golden age, possibly a more simple and naive era [are we really so sophisticated?] but an era that says a lot to us today. I still have some way to go with this work and I want to capture a feel of the era without resorting to copying the originals [which I know are better] I'm not there yet and I'm enjoying myself and there's more to do.
So don't forget that "the weed of crime bears bitter fruit, crime does not pay! ", The Shadow Knows. . . . . .

Blokkhed

www.blokkhed.com

The Shadow. Radio. Mystery. Illustration. Poster 1930s.

"The Shadow knows the evil that lurks in the minds of men" The Shadow started as a radio announcer for Detective Story Hour, he became more popular than the stories he was introducing and became the main character. Written by Walter B Gibson and played by Orson Welles on radio [only for a year]. As well as the radio plays which ran from 1931 to 1954, The Shadow appeared in pulp magazines, serials and movies.
The character has that air of weirdness and mystery that I find really interesting, he had the ability to "cloud mens minds" to make himself invisible. There is a mixture of fantasy as well as detective mystery here that has similarities to Fantomas and Doc Savage, these characters are not super-heroes' but do have unnatural powers. They are prototype super-heroes and Lester Dent [writing as Kenneth Robeson] who created Doc Savage [to cash in on The Shadows success] could be said to have started the super-hero. I want to do more on both The Shadow and Doc Savage, so that gives me more projects to work on. I wasn't intending doing so much on the 1930s but its nice when ideas come and you just have to go with it don't you?

Blokkhed
www.blokkhed.com

Robot. Gort. Cinema 4D. 3D. Blokkhed

This is the 3D design for my Robot, I've shown the mesh and the final colours and lighting, he's only got three fingers and a thumb [well three was enough for Mickey]. He started as an experiment in using Cinema 4D, which I have found to be an excellent tool. Its intuitive and you can work quickly and get results. It was certainly a learning curve working in 3D. Working out joints and modeling and materials and lighting all are fascinating. It might look like it was inspired by Iron Man, actually he wasn't, if anything Gort from "The Day the Earth Stood Still" was a [sub-conscious] inspiration. This work got me into looking at Japanese Gundam, which I had never seen before [or really taken much notice of]. This was an eye opener to see just how much there is going on in that Mecha world. I've even bought a number of the kits, from Orbital Manga and Gundammad [something I hadn't touched for 30 yrs] which have been fun to work with. I'll be posting more of this "BlokkBot" as he is known in my house. I haven't worked on him for a while because of the more recent work, but there's actually a lot more to look at so it will be good to put it out here. July and August saw me producing completely new work [see previous] and its good to have all these styles on the go, even if some things get put to one side a little too often..

Blokkhed

www.blokkhed.com

The Blue Lotus. Shanghai. 1930s.

The Blue Lotus was a real opium den in old Shanghai [as well as being a TinTin book of course]. With these pictures I'm trying to evoke the world of the pre-war thirties, there's more to do and lots of themes to pursue, travel, exotica, Catalina planes, steamships, shady ports at dead of night, adventure and mystery.

Blokkhed