Thanks to everyone who took the time to post a comment!
Chreecher: Special thanks for your critique! It's always interesting to me to learn how a fresh set of eyes perceive the individual elements that comprise the whole of an image. You've made some excellent observations!
The spider web in the Dracula image was a nod to the huge, omnipresent webs in his castle, and this poster, in particular:
Having the first few radials of the netting originate over his eye, is a bit of a cliché, I know, but it I wanted something for a foreground plane, to add some depth to the image. Plus, I thought it played into the Count's "Hyp-mo-tizig" powers. The "dark, flecky bits" are indeed supposed to be bats. The execution could probably have been better on both the bats and webbing.
The Frankenstein Monster's
electrodes (bad, Creecher!
) are supposed to be crackling with little arcs of electricity. Again, concept was there; Execition, maybe not so much. I actually toned down the pyrotechnics going on in the background, and the "mechanical" elements you mentioned are just some vague images of cables to tie-in with the electricity/lightning theme. It's interesting that you see "the sun shining, rising..." I considered a more neutral background, below, but went with the hot oranges and yellows because I felt it added a bit more excitement.
There
is some mist over Buffy, on my monitor, anyway. You're right about the weeds in the lower right corner corner of the image. They
are in front of Buffy and I did neglect to cut-back those two long stems disappearing behind her. I made the correction and also lowered the opacity of the weeds in front of and behind Angel and Spike. I think it helps separate the planes better and adds to the depth. Good call!
Sueworld: High praise coming from someone who turns out the
caliber of work you do!
Regarding the blood on Nosferatu, I usually shy away from gore and guts, but in this case, I thought it added some impact to the in-you-face nature of the composition.
"Blood brushes?" Are you saying there is a custom brush set out there for drawing blood? That would have been a time-saver!
Thanks, again, to everyone who commented and to the rest of you anonymous "viewers" for looking!
is my all-time favorite monster!
