Category: Artwork & Creative

Illustrations, paintings and other artistic endeavours involving werewolves.

“Werewolves Versus: Music” available for preorder, comes with advance MP3

wv03-advance-mp3The third issue of the digital “werewolves battle everything” magazine I edit, Werewolves Versus, is now available for pre-order! WEREWOLVES VERSUS MUSIC comes out on Tuesday, August 30th. It features over 150 pages of brand-new, never-before-seen werewolf stories, comics, art and essays, and a killer cover by Lew “Viergacht” Delport.

Like every WV issue before and after it, it’ll be pay-what-you-want, including $0, but right now I’m trying something new: if you pre-order it now for a minimum price of $1, you get an instant advance download of “As the Sun Sets”, the song my friend Colin Janz wrote as a contribution. Here’s how Colin describes the song:

This song is based on a character who built himself while I was writing. Every full moon, he transforms; however, he never remembers anything about his transformation, only that it happens. On full moon nights he travels to a grassy hill above his forested town, far away from people, to watch the light fade. But instead of succumbing to a torturous, violent experience, everything becomes hazy, peaceful and quiet, as if he was falling asleep to the sound of wind and morning songbirds.

Check out WEREWOLVES VERSUS MUSIC, or the previous two issues! All paid purchases of Werewolves Versus directly benefit its contributors and support the creation of future issues.

Aug. 26th 2016

When you’re Rick Baker even your “unfinished sketch” of a werewolf makes fans like me lose their minds

Yesterday creature effects legend Rick Baker tweeted what he referred to as an “unfinished sketch” of a werewolf rendered in a style reminiscent of his 2010 Wolfman lycanthropes. Is this Larry Talbot posing with his own tombstone? I like dapper snarly werewolves and this fellow wrecked my damn shop.

Then today Rick followed the sketch up with a self-effacing note expressing surprise at the positive response it got. He “almost didn’t post it because it is so un dynamic”, he wrote.

The person who’s taken home two (2) Academy Awards for his Werewolf Work is sandbagging his own artwork online. The dude responsible for some of the most iconic werewolves of the past 35 years is surprised that fans like me want more. MORE! Your modesty becomes you, Rick, but come on – I could write an entire blog post about that gnarly badass clawed hand alone! RICK. You don’t elongate a palm like that by accident!

Rick’s tweets are embedded below. Follow him on Twitter at @TheRickBaker just in case he posts more of these “unfinished sketches” and you want to get your brain’s werewolf zone obliterated directly by the man himself.

https://twitter.com/TheRickBaker/status/719698309518987266

https://twitter.com/TheRickBaker/status/720025654226333696

Apr. 12th 2016

Sonja Langskjaer animates a stylish, skin-shredding werewolf transformation

Via @Somnilux comes this dress- and skin-shredding werewolf transformation by animator Sonja Langskjaer (YouTube – Instagram). It’s “only 8 seconds” long but it’s animated so well that you’ll probably end up watching it five or six (or a dozen) times to catch all the details.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sonja Langskjaer (@panimated)

 

This nameless lady is a pharmaceutical executive who’s gone from hosting a high-rise penthouse cocktail party celebrating her company’s successful Q2 to preparing to annihilate the Treadstone-style assassins who are enacting some espionage shenanigans in the sub-level laboratories.

Okay, I made that up. But what’s undeniably true is that when she’s done transforming, this werewolf is still wearing her own skin as a stylish belt. You don’t mess with that.

Apr. 7th 2016

You got werewolves in my creepypasta: “Bite of the Werewolf”

Creepypasta (essentially, spooky stories passed around on the Internet like urban legends) is a huge sub-genre of horror, with web sites, wikis and Reddit forums dedicated to its creation, dissemination and discussion.

My experience with creepypasta begins and ends with Kris Straub, who wrote the legendary, often-ripped-off story Candle Cove, and whose work in prose, comics and criticism has had more influence on me than any other creator in the horror space.

There are even YouTube channels dedicated to creepypasta, like Don’t Turn Around, created by Paul (writer) and Eddie (narrator). Paul and Eddie recently emailed me about their narrated story video “Bite of the Werewolf“, which I’m happy to share. The gist:

Jake lives in a castle in the middle of nowhere. He has been told to keep all the doors locked at night, especially on a full moon.

I wouldn’t call “Bite of the Werewolf” a great story, but from what little I know about creepypasta, it seems like a great example of the genre – simple set-up, something scary happens, then a twist ending. I posted a mini-review of it on Twitter last week:

More werewolves in all media, please, including broad, not-too-deep Internet-centric areas like creepypasta.

Apr. 5th 2016

Meet artist Pierre-Alexandre Comtois

For today’s #WerewolfWednesday post I’d like to direct your attention to Pierre-Alexandre Comtois, a Vancouver-based traditional and digital artist of 15+ years and designer of some Paul Kidby-level charismatic creatures. His work often delves into the fantasy/alien zones, and werewolves frequently occur.

Pierre-Alexandre Comtois WerewolfI first saw Alex’s art by creeping on him while we were sitting across from each other on a train last autumn. Over the course of 45 minutes I surreptitiously watched as a staff-wielding winged gargoyle/alien materialized in his sketchbook. We had a short conversation right before we went separate ways at our stop, and he gave me his details on a scrap of paper that’s been on my desk ever since. I’m happy to have an excuse to share his work today.

You can can find his galleries of character concepts, digital illustrations and storyboards on Behance, Instagram and his portfolio site. He also very recently (as in Monday) resurrected his Twitter account. If you like his work (or if you have work for him), let him know!

Mar. 16th 2016

Get this Snarlbucks Coffee mug

You need a new coffee mug.

Or tea mug. I don’t care how many you have already. Yes, I know all about the dusty ones at the back of your cupboard that you never get a chance to use because you rinse and refill the same one for three days straight. That’s gross. Put that crusty thing in the sink and get a fresh new one.

Oh, you “don’t drink caffeinated beverages”? Doesn’t matter. Somewhere in your house or office you’ve got at least one mug full of pencils, paintbrushes and highlighters, and I’m going to come in there in the night and knock it onto the floor like a giant cat, and it’s going to break. You’re going to walk in and see your scissors and nail files on the floor in a halo of shattered ceramic and you’re going to say “AQ was right to tell me I need a new coffee mug”.

Because you do. And you should make it this Snarlbucks Coffee mug by Cassandra Aponte, aka TeknicolorTiger, because the design is an excellent werewolf-themed improvement on the muddled character in the original, and Cassandra is a great artist who deserves the two bucks or whatever cut Redbubble gives her on this.

Important addendum: You can get this mug or anything else in her store for 20% off with the code GIMME20.

Mar. 15th 2016

Blood, beheadings, beasts & bar brawls: “Werewolves Versus Romance” is out now!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day / Horny Werewolf Day (née Lupercalia) / “Eat a lot of chocolate and watch Netflix” day, here comes WEREWOLVES VERSUS ROMANCE! This is the second issue of the “werewolves + everything” magazine I make in collaboration with rad contributors, and I’m very excited and proud to share it with you.

In the first issue, we spent 84 pages visiting the 1990s. This new issue is over twice the size – 176 sweet pages of gory / violent / funny / sad / disturbing werewolf short stories, illustrations and comics, all on the theme of “what happens when you love and trust a fur-covered killing machine?”

Nineteen contributors worked incredibly hard for countless hours to make this issue a reality, and now you can download it for free or for whatever price you name. If you do pay, whether it’s $1 or $10,000, all proceeds go to the contributors and to producing future issues.

Thanks for your patience over the last few months as I worked to put this together – my posting schedule here on Werewolf News definitely suffered, but I think you’ll agree it was worth it. Check out Werewolves Versus Romance, and if you like it, let me, my collaborators, (and your friends) know!

WV02 Cover

Feb. 2nd 2016

Awesome Crystumes Costumes werewolf mask: what articulated ears you have!

The werewolf mask photo in this Crystumes Costumes tweet has been open in one of my browser tabs since Wednesday, and the accompanying video shows off the mask’s phenomenal design and articulations (those ears!).

This pulls me in two directions: vague regret that I abandoned the creature FX career path before I’d even really started down it, giddy delight that people like Crystumes (aka Crystal Michelle) are making such amazing stuff in their own homes.

Crystumes is not currently taking commissions, but you can see her works in progress on Patreon. She’s here in the Pacific Northwest so I have my fingers crossed that she might be at HowlCon next year so I can check out her work in person.

Nov. 28th 2015

Here are your “WEREWOLVES VERSUS: Romance” contributors!

The werewolf-centric ‘zine I edit, WEREWOLVES VERSUS, is coming out with a second issue in early 2016. The theme this time is “romance”, a subject so broad and cliché that it’s just begging to get fucked up by monsters. That’s the point of WV! Check out the first issue, The 1990s, for an 80+ page demonstration.

To be notified when issue 2 is available for download, follow Argyle Werewolf on Gumroad, follow the Werewolves Versus Tumblr, or keep reading Werewolf News here or on Twitter.

Below is a handy index of issue 2 contributors, each of whom has whispered in my ear an excellent idea for a story, comic or illustration on the theme of “WEREWOLVES VERSUS: Romance”.

http://werewolvesversus.tumblr.com/post/132942197291/werewolves-versus-romance-contributors

Nov. 24th 2015

John Keogh’s werewolf vs. wrestler poster for The Mountain Goats now on sale

Remember this stunning tour poster John Keogh did for The Mountain Goats? I think of it often, because the song that inspired it gets shuffled into my earbuds on the regular, and because a print of it hangs in my office. Now, it can hang in your designated art area too.

Previously, there were only four ways to obtain this poster:

  1. be a member of The Mountain Goats. Hard to do if you’re not already there.
  2. be John Keogh. Also tough to manage if you’re just starting now.
  3. run a “werewolf stuff” blog and be publicly excited about the poster and lucky and be prepated when someone nice who also has access to a test print and the Topatoco shipping facilities DMs you on Twitter. Easier than the first two, but availability is limited.
  4. purchase it directly from The Mountain Goats merch table at a live show during the spring and summer of 2015. This was the easiest way, but it required advance planning, so if you didn’t already do it, sorry.

Except I’m not sorry! I’m excited – excited to tell you that this poster is now available to purchase directly from The Mountain Goats, in Spring and Summer configurations, for a mere $20. Go get it, friends!

Nov. 19th 2015