Funny (not really) story about this one. I have a Jim Chappell album with this seriously awesome cover photo, and the second I saw it, I thought, "ERIK." [link]

That's because I'm WEIRD, see?

It was a great way for me to work on lighting, which I always feel is one of my weakest skills as an artist. I LOVE dramatically-lit pieces, though (it's my inner Caravaggio, I think. ), and I had so much fun with this that I was quite sad when it came to an end. Okay, not really sad, just you know, darn it. Coloring time is over.

Oh, who am I kidding? This is me procrastinating again. I'm really, really good at that. In any case, this past week was incredibly difficult, and I am bone-tired in every way possible, so this was a way to decelerate.

You know what's interesting? Most people decelerate by watching a movie or going to the spa or taking a nap. Me?

I calm down by drawing Erik's creepy, glowing zombie head.

Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

I just...I don't know. I LOVE drawing Erik's face. I love it. It's hideous, but that's what makes it so much fun. It's always so much fun for me, every single time, to try and portray the beauty in the grotesque. Because I do believe that beauty extends far beyond airbrushed notions of perfection. If you look at things through an artistic lens--in terms of light, shading, color, and form--suddenly, beauty can be found in the most unusual places. I suppose Erik just became my channel for that message, as ridiculous and lofty as that sounds. I try to preserve his dignity and beauty, in all its gruesome detail, when I draw his face. It's a challenge. Because in essence, Erik resembles the one thing that mankind reviles the most: death. It's horrific. It's abject. No wonder he was so feared; he was a living corpse, an embodiment of decay, so monstrously impossible to ponder that society cast him off, and he even cast HIMSELF off by hiding his face and walling himself up in a glorified tomb.

Therein lies the challenge every time I draw Erik: take something so despised and feared and, through an artistic lens, redeem it as best I can. He deserves it, at least. After all, we're still in love with this character 100 years after he first crashed that chandelier!

Part of me wants to say that I never used to like this sort of thing---the macabre, that is. But when I think about it, I realize that's totally not true. When the other kids were playing pirate ship on the playground, I was reading about the Ancient Egyptian mummification process and trying in vain to get my classmates to study the pictures of Rameses II with me.

That should have been some kind of warning. I mean, really.

The Phantom of the Opera © Gaston Leroux.