Ornamental Creature Head Designs

These drawings developed from an unusual and cool job request. I was asked to help sketch out some ideas for gargoyle/creature heads that would be used on a frame housing a portrait of The Addams Family, for a poster advertising the Addams Family Chicago and Broadway Musical, which opens next year.

The sketches were to resemble a creature, but be done in such a way that you'd have to look twice to fully see the face, in an ornamental style. From my pencil sketches, my collaborator and client on the project developed rendered ornamental motifs for the four 'clock positions' on the frame. My drawings tended to steer more to the tribal sort of angluar style, rather than a floral, flowery kind of approach, but they still worked out all right. When the final project is done, I'll post a link. The ad is scheduled to run in the New York Times in November, and then be a billboard in Times Square.

The 12:00 and 6:00 positions on the frame were to have frontal views and at 9:00 and 3:00, profiles. For the frontal ones, I drew a line on my paper and drew only on the left side. I scanned that in and in Photoshop, copied that and flipped it, creating the mirror image. I did a little over forty designs in total.