Day 171

It's actually a wonder that it took me so long to make a self-portrait that looks like this. While I can't claim to be a fanatic, I really love old horror movies from the 1930s and 1940s. Unlike today's movies, the special effects back then were obviously pretty elementary.

Most of the time, the viewer could see the strings holding up a spaceship as it flew across the screen.

"Monsters" were just actors dressed up in a costume, as opposed to today's creatures who are often made solely with computer animation technology.

And in order to create a threatening or ominous feeling, characters were lit with extreme lighting (often times from below) to make them appear even more villanous. And this is the effect I was going for this time. In order to achieve the lighting that I was after, I sat in a dark room with two candles on my right side. Apparently two candles were not enough, so I added a couple more and found myself pleased with the shadows.

#171  April 9, 2001,  Ink
Sounds: Incubus, A Crow Left Of The Murder