Leah Lucci's Uploads

Working on a tattoo for myself that's based on the Disney Magic Kingdom's Haunted Mansion. The Tightrope Girl is part of the expanding elevator in the beginning of the ride. I changed the shape of the original painting to a coffin; simplified everything down; and added some flourishing. I'm not great at flourishing yet.

Ain't no narwhal like a sexy narwhal, because a sexy narwhal don't stop.

I painted HP Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe in order to spook up Halloween. I'll probably do Stephen King, too, at some point, and maybe Shirley Jackson. Anyone have any other favorite horror novelists?

When I was a teen, my grandfather had alzheimers, a failing heart, and half of one lung. He was covered with scars and sometimes muttered at walls. I was asked to keep an eye on him, briefly, one afternoon, while my grandmother did something else. While I was alone with him, he looked at an empty space right next to me, and whispered: "Mom? Dad? Is that you?" With the exception of getting hit by a car, that was the most terrifying moment of my life.

Like a moldy bridge, the Internet has trolls lurking underneath. Reddit: Unpopular Opinions is a particularly fetid spot for these mouth-breathers. It’s simmering with people ready to spew their most bigoted thoughts in the name of edginess/independence from the norm. ((follow-up note: for some reason, one of the images doubled. for all 5, visit: http://leahlucci.com/starling/2018/06/14/5-unpopular-opinions-illustrated/ ))

Sometimes I like to draw things in the reverse (filling in the light areas, leaving the dark areas bare) and then flip them to see how I did. Today's warmups turned out pretty well. My favorite is the kid on the top, whose head & hair echo the strawberry shape. I wish I'd distinguished the girl's legs from the dog's body on the left more, but overall, not bad.

I watercolored Mathilda's Ms Trunchbull as well as Bride of Frankenstein. I originally painted Lady Frankenstein in green, but it turns out she's a human-skinned person, so I had to change that in Photoshop.

I'm sad that Oompa Loompas aren't real -- but if they were, I'd probably be terrified of them.

There's a moment in Black Panther where Michael B Jordan's character steals an African mask from a museum. When the other character with him asks why, he says "I'm just feelin' it." The mask he grabbed was VERY cool, and I kind of wanted one, too. But, short of stealing things out of museums, I guess I'll have to draw them. If you click on the image, you'll see a full spread of them.

He's thirsty for children's blood. I mean, uh, a nice cuppa? -- I drew this with a brush pen, very slowly, no pencil first.

I think Taco Bell Bear's mama might have drank a little too much Dew while he was in the womb. The theme of this page is "giant heads and the horrible birth experiences they yield."

I drew a sweaty kaiju on the Bullet Journal spread that had my workouts. The subsequent creatures are based on vintage Japanese toys.

There was a royal lineage in Europe that was so inbred that their jaws started getting really distended and weird. Like Jay Leno, but inbred. (I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt.) Feel free to look up the Hapsburgs. I'll wait. The second picture is a Fiji mermaid and a merman. I think I want a merman tattoo. SMOLDER.

The Molting Man first appeared on my Red Spread (see second image); I refined him for the green spread (first). This bizarre Icarus deserves some kind of short story about him. I'm not sure what the plot would be. It's probably tragic.

After my high school boyfriend and I broke up, I went to prom with a group of single friends. While I was in the bathroom, I overheard someone saying, "Leah Budin put in no effort at all." Ouch.

I feel like my drawings got a lot more dimensional and interesting once I was able to achieve variable line width. I love loading different colors into the pen and going HAM on paper that totally can't handle it. My sketchbooks crackle when I turn the pages. They buckle and heave and are exhausted from their tribulations.

Sometimes I like to take ink splats and try to figure out what they are. Could there possibly be anything better than "crab dab"?

This sketchbook spread comes with a free tea review. (I'm also a Sororitea Sister. That's a real thing. Feel free to look it up.) My favorite feature is Edgar Allan Poe in the lower right, though.

Is there anyone out there that likes Robin?

I was a teenage goth.

We wrapped up our trip with South of the Border, the schlockiest, most-borderline-offensive Mexican-themed South Carolina rest stop of all time. Then we hit Raleigh's art museum, and went home. The last few sketches of my sketchbook were me flipping through my photos and drawing a few favorite things I hadn't gotten to drawing yet. Thanks for traveling with me!