Greg's creations

The Behemoth Painting

2005-03-29T00:15:00.000-08:00

The logo of the Polish Deathmetalband Behemoth.

The door in place

The logo's together measure 1.5 x 2 feet (width x height) and it took around 17 workinghours to complete. Things used were a ruler, pencils, calculator, fineliner, a razor, several feet of masking tape and around 1.5 litres of paint. And my hands.

The eagle was done from a small picture from the internet. I enlarged it big time, printed it out and in the end the final result was 25 times as large as the example I did it from; makes you wonder how many times larger the painting is than the original, hehe.

I'm pretty happy with the result; the new paint from another brand is a bit more expensive but does the job alot better. I'm progressing my skills now and the next painting projects (the backs of both the Behemoth and the Finntroll doors) will be one step further, going from a double color setup to a triple color setup.

Watch this space.

Alternative Book Cover: Coram Boy

2007-04-09T04:48:00.000-07:00

For a college assignment on the book 'Coram Boy' by Jamila Gavin, it was required to design an alternative cover for the book. The book tells the gripping story of Meshak, a son of travelling merchant that sells pots and pans. But the more sinister side to the story is that his father also bribes parents into selling him their babies claiming he will give them a better home. But in fact, he either sells the kids for money as slaves or prostitutes, or kills them.

I came up with the design below.

The explanation is pretty straightforward; the outside world knows nothing more than that their children are in good health and Meshak's father is a simple merchant, hence the daisy up top. The world likes the picturesque façade, and thinks nothing more of it than just that (the daisy seems nothing more than a simple daisy).
But the real truth is in fact that behind that façade, a gruesome, child-trading world corrupted by money is growing, hence the skull with dollar-signs as front teeth, and the fetus in place of the brain.

The Probeersel Painting

2005-04-26T11:02:00.000-07:00

This project is for the Comic Website Probeersel.com. It is to become a sign for their stand at the 2005 ClickBurg Webcomics Festival, the 1st of May later this week. Here's the final result.

An overview shot with its creator
An overview shot without its creator

A total of 18 working hours and alot of paint went into it. The final result measures 10 by 2.5 feet devided over 4 triplex panels of 2.5x2.5 feet each for good mobility. It's my first try on fresh, unmodified wood and once again, valuable lessons were learned. Among which the thing that the cans of primer contained primer for only 9 square feet instead of the 25 square feet they should've contained. The same day I found that out I sent the producers an email, to which they haven't responded yet.

Furthermore I tried doing a four-color gradient in the tailflame of the 'skullcomet'. The colors used are white, silver, steelblue (a lightish kind of metallic blue) and dark blue.

It was sold to the owner of Probeersel.com, René van Densen.

The Imperatör Designs

2007-03-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

Some designs I did for my own band, Imperatör.

On the left is the bandlogo I did. Arrows pointing to all directions underscore the mild 'explosive' feel of the music.

Then there's the 8-pointed Star , with the 'I' of Imperatör in the middle. The North, South, East and West arrows all contain a small sword with a knot, to symbolize the saying 'To cut the knot with the sword'.

Then there's the the 6-pointed spearhead, with an elephant's head in the middle as a reference to the band's 'themesong'. Both the star and the spearhead were done in a few hours.

Lastly there's the Ring. Again there's the Elephant's head, this time mixed up with the symbol of Tanit; the patron goddess of Carthage. This also is a reference to the band's 'themesong'.
Furthermore, if you look at it from further away, a woman's body appears.

Contact

2004-03-30T04:44:00.000-08:00

To contact me, send an Email to the following address:

gcathalina@gmail.com

I'll answer all Emails ASAP.

The Anthrax Mural

2007-01-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

The first actual wallpainting, as a tribute to my all-time favorite band Anthrax. I used the techniques I learned from the earlier paintings, and this was the result:

Facing the wall dead-on

A shot with yours truly

It measures over 8 feet in width, 5 feet in height, and took over 30 workinghours (spread in the timespan of 2 months) to complete. There are 4 spraypainted colors in there, and lots of details.
Apart from the Anthrax logo and pentagram, I designed the entire thing myself.

Behemoth Mural

2006-10-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

Once again, the logo of the Polish deathmetal band Behemoth.

The wall facing it straight up.

The entire piece is 3.5 feet wide and 5 feet high, and took 18 workinghours to complete. The drawing was a bit of a pain considering its a wall and such, but all in all I'm satisfied with the end result. I did the Behemothlogo from the A4-printout I also used for the Behemoth painting , and the twin eagle was done from a t-shirt.

The Doc Tribute

2005-08-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

Because of the passing of long-time Vader drummer Krzysztof "Docent" Raczkowski I felt obliged to alter the Vader wall.

The final result.
From another angle.

It took just about 5 hours to complete.

The Anthrax Wall

2004-10-23T07:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the logo of the American Thrashmetalband Anthrax, which I did on a wall only using a red marker for the finishing up. Again, I used a ruler and pencil to line the logo up correctly.

The Final Result

The people I first showed it to wondered if I used some sort of template or anything. But the only thing I used to help me was the ruler to draw 4 long lines (3 horizontal, 1 vertical in the middle) in order to get the logo properly lined up . The rest of the logo (the characters and all that) was all done by hand.

Ambigrams

2004-12-11T19:58:00.000-08:00

Two ambigrams. Ambigrams are logo's that are the same once you put them upside down. I did one of the word 'Heresy' and one of the Dutch word 'Arabieren'.

"Heresy"
"Arabieren"

The Anthrax Painting

2005-04-09T23:37:00.000-07:00

Yet another one with the logo of the American Thrashmetalband Anthrax.

The drawing of it was challenging, the cutting was even harder to do and took alot more time, the painting was also challenging with the planned colortransition but I'm still pleased with the endresult.

So, without any further adue, let me present to you: The Anthrax painting.

The door in place
The door whilst the final transparent coating is drying

The final result measures 8 feet in height, 2 feet in width and took 23 working hours to complete. I had to use this picture to do the skull from and because of its small size, I had to enhance it. The endresult was around 30 times as large as the enlarged picture I did it from.

It's the first one to actually have more than two colors or to have a colortransition. Personally I'm not that happy with the silver-black colortransition in the Anthrax logo, so that's something that needs a little more practicing.

The Vader Wall

2004-10-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

Removing a shitload of posters from a wall revealed a big, empty white wall right beside my bed. After careful consideration, I decided to do the logo of the Deathmetalband Vader on it with two markers. It ook just under 6 workinghours to complete.

The final result

The logo is not that big, just 1 x 2 feet (not counting the two stripes at either end). However, the thingy I did it from was tiny; 0.7 by 1.5 inches. Anyone interested in calculating how many times bigger the logo on the wall is? :)

The Anthrax Phone

2004-11-14T23:54:00.000-08:00

Here's another one with the logo of the American Thrashmetalband Anthrax, this time on my cellullar.

I first cleaned the original lightgray cover with nailpolishremover (there wasn't any aceton at the ready...), then spraypainted it silver and then applied the Anthrax logo solely by hand with a black marker. And this was the result.

The back of the phone

The reason I still use this 3210 is quite simple; because of the interchangeable covers. I can unleash my creatvity on the thing without worrying about jacking up the entire phone. You try doing that with those state-of-the-art phones of today (one other thing is that I only use my cellular for communicativity when I'm off to e.g. a concert - not for the internet or taking pictures that are too small)...

The Children of Bodom Wall

2004-10-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

The logo of the Finnish Deathmetalband Children of Bodom.

The Final Result

It's been the largest one upon this point; the logo measures 8 feet and a bit in length, 1.5 feet in height and is 7 feet from the ground. That alone made it a very hard job to do.

There were again very important lessons learned which probably will help me next time I do one of this size.

The Ensiferum Curtain

2004-12-21T20:56:00.000-08:00

The logo of Vikingmetalband Ensiferum.

The curtain in place

Around 12 hours of work went into this. The logo first needed to be measured, aligned, drawn and then inked. It's rather small (just about 3 foot in length and 2.5 feet in height) but it was a very demanding one, this one being white on black rather than black on white. The two dogs were an own idea.

The Finntroll Painting

2005-02-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

The logo of the Finnish Vikingmetalband Finntroll:

The door in place

Valuable lessons were learned once again but the most important one has to be that I still can do what I do best. I drew the logo on this door from a 2.5 inch by 1.5 inch example and the eventual drawn logo on the masking looked perfect. The painting was another thing though; the silverpaint wuldn't adhere all that well on the black paint. I still managed to salvage the thing you can see above.

The most frustrating about the whole paint thing is that it is something I couldn't have foreseen. If I just use markers like with the Anthrax, CoB, Vader and Ensiferum logo's, everything goes exactly like I want it to be. Painting a logo on a door requires alot more preparation and above all, money. To then find out that there's one another thing you overlooked (with the new Finntroll logo it was the thing that the silver paint just ripped the black paint underneath it away, crinkling the surface) is just frustrating.

But at least I won't make this mistake in the future. Oh well.