Gloom of the Damned: Poster Art Project

How It Started

This project helped kick off a new era of my work and inspired the idea for this website. I was really into the Eat Me Drink Me era of Marilyn Manson at the time. The visuals, tone, and mood from that period had a haunting beauty that I wanted to explore in my own way. Using that as a foundation, I created a poster that felt dark, emotional, and cinematic.

Sketches of flowers and leaves with handwritten notes and instructions for drawing and coloring, including editing petals, making the flower more colorful, and fixing the eyes to look better.

EARLY SKETCHES AND IDEAS

Sometimes work slows down and I take the chance to create personal projects. These pieces help me experiment with new styles and ideas that I might use for future clients. For this project, I wanted to revisit the darker imagery I first started drawing and painting years ago.

Artists like Stephen Gammell and the Goosebumps series shaped a lot of my imagination when I was younger. Their eerie and playful style always pulled me in, especially on summer days spent in the library. I wanted to bring some of that nostalgia into this poster while also exploring a more mature, cinematic approach to dark visuals.

A person's hand drawing a small, white outline of a map on a pink and white graffiti-style wall with black borders.
Close-up of a person using a stylus to draw or write on a digital tablet screen displaying part of a large, bold, white text.
Close-up of a person drawing or writing on a digital screen with a black stylus, focusing on the person's fingers and the stylus, with a colorful abstract design on the screen.
A person drawing a rose on a digital tablet with a stylus.

the chosen concept

I decided to focus on a concept that combined dark fantasy with a sense of emotion and storytelling. The final poster has a mysterious and surreal feeling, almost like a scene pulled from a forgotten gothic story. I included flowers inspired by a Marilyn Manson painting, adding both beauty and distortion to the piece. I edited my hand-drawn sketches digitally to create the final composition, making sure the lighting, colors, and shapes all worked together to capture the mood I wanted.

Design Goals

I wanted the poster to:

  • Capture the emotion and atmosphere of the Eat Me Drink Me era

  • Show a balance between darkness and elegance

  • Blend hand-drawn elements with digital editing to create a cinematic, polished final image

final thoughts

Working on this project reminded me why I love exploring darker imagery. It was a chance to create something personal and experimental while also refining skills I can use for future clients. This poster connects me back to my early days as an artist and reminds me how powerful storytelling can be when combined with strong visuals.

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