"You must know that I am made entirely of death, from head to foot, and that it's a corpse that loves you, and will never leave you! Never!"--
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
My apologies for the Phantom of the Opera inundation lately... unless you're enjoying it, in which case, you're welcome! :D
(I swear, there WILL be more birds and koi and bunnies and owls, and all of my usual things, coming soon! Some are on my easel right now, nearly ready. Meanwhile...)
There are so many lousy adaptations of the Phantom story, in film and other forms, that the original novel's phantom, Erik, gets lost in translation. We wind up with mopey emo Gerard Butler, instead of the terrifying mad genius we're SUPPOSED to get. The terrifying mad genius... who is supposed to look like the walking dead. Which, c'mon, is far more fun to draw!
Here's the character as he is ACTUALLY described in the original novel by Gaston Leroux. Corpse-like face, hole where a nose should be, sunken yellow eyes that glow, sparse, lank, black hair, "lipless mouth". Not some unforgivably hot, weepy Scottish guy.
(Click to enlarge.)
Image: 11" x 13", pencil on Canson watercolour paper (which was an incredibly fun and forgiving surface, which I will be using again). A hint of yellow added to the eyes in Photoshop, but otherwise, fully traditional media.
