Clowning Around With Scooby Doo
Scary clowns have been around for a long time. Grimaldi. The Joker. Pennywise. So it would’ve been odd if Scooby-Doo, a cartoon that prided itself on introducing monsters to impressionable young minds, didn’t include that particular ghoul in its rogues gallery. And it did. In the tenth episode of season one they introduced a ghost clown that’s been creeping kids out for the last 55 years. This week, in a misguided effort to fix what was never broken, I decided to redesign that monster.
The original clown from Bedlam In The Big Top was likely designed by Iwao Takomodo, an animator and director who handled many of the original Scooby-Doo designs. His clown design is tight, and has a recognizable silhouette with nothing unnecessary bogging it down. I, however, took all of those lessons in smart design and threw them out the window in favor of going for a bigger scare.
I figured this clown might look more terrifying if, instead of black makeup around the eyes, I portrayed his eyes as literal holes in a skull, with glowing orbs of light floating in the darkness. To match that, I gave his whole head a more gaunt, skull-like shape, even withering the skin to resemble that of a desiccated corpse. A mouthful of scary teeth and some lank hair and he was done. Except — I didn’t like it. It just seemed like an overripe Joker, or a cross between the Green Goblin and the Crypt Keeper. So I ditched it.
After a few more false starts, I finally decided on sort of a gelatinous blob monster with razor teeth. Rows and rows of them. Something almost alien, but human enough to occupy that uncanny valley between the real and the fantastic. And I went back to the idea of him wearing make-up because, as frightening as a monster like this can be, it’s twice as scary to imagine him standing in front of a mirror and smearing greasepaint over his features in a twisted mockery of humor right before heading out to find a new victim.
When the YouTube channel started, part of the idea was to use it as a very public display of my journey to improve my traditional inking. Those early videos were basically just me, inking a monster, and talking about it with Michelle. So this week’s Ghost Clown video seemed like a real return to form. As such, I collected my pens, brushes, and inks, and got to work.
I mix my wash with distilled water and India ink. More often than not, it’s Dr.Ph Martin’s Black Star ink. But any waterproof ink will do. I use distilled water to reduce the possibility of any biological impurities making their way into the illustration. Monster art or no, I don’t need microbes from unfiltered tap water crawling over my inks like a zombie infestation.
Keeping in mind the Ghost Clown is caked in white facepaint, I just brushed the wash into the hollows under his eyes, in the creases of flesh hanging from his neck and chin, and in the deep, cavernous abyss of his hungry maw.
Once I was finished with the wash, I figured I’d go the rest of the way and lay down some watercolors. And that’s why using waterproof inks are a must. That way, when the sometimes very heavy, very wet Daniel Smith colors were laid over them, the inks stayed right where I put them.
That blood spatter on his belly was a last-minute decision. He looked pretty menacing without it, but the evidence of past carnage staining his shiny clown outfit made him seem more unhinged.
Unexpected Consequence
Inking all these monsters was a fun way to help me sharpen my skills (and still is), but it also had a surprising side-effect: It got Michelle, who does not draw or ink, into the art and technique of inking. So much so, she wanted to try it out herself.
She’s been participating in our ridiculous and semi-regular video segment, Ink It or Stink It, for a while now and I feel like she’s progressed right alongside me. In this week’s video she inks my sketch of the original Takamodo Ghost Clown design.
If you’re in the mood to hear a couple of Scooby-Doo dorks discuss a 55-year old cartoon and take a run at inking different versions of a ghost clown, the video is linked below.