Nosferatu ATC

Encore Posts

Projects which made their first appearances elsewhere for Design Team duties or Guest Designer opportunities, but which only had a sneak peek here, are being gathered together in the pages of my virtual scrapbook.  I'm calling them "Encore" posts and they're formatted differently (all the way down the centre), so you can spot them easily.

Please don't feel that you have to comment all over again!

Yes, it's another Encore, and this one is making its appearance more than two years after its original performance over at the Calico Craft Parts blog.  I think he's a suitably creepy presence to let loose on you all for this All Hallows' Eve... looming large even though he's only in a tiny ATC.  Here's what I wrote over at Calico back in September 2015.

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Hello again!  After my massive spooktacular He's Behind You, I'm back with a much shorter post but - in my opinion - a more genuinely spine-tingling creation today.  The Spooky Shrine had a sort of Scooby Doo pantomime scare-factor.  Today's ATC taps in to genuine creepiness, leaning heavily on the amazing 1922 film, Nosferatu - the original vampire thriller... perhaps all the more eerie for being a silent black and white film.

Max Schreck plays Count Orlof, and the lighting, the ambience, the sheer creepiness of Schreck as the vampire has stayed with me ever since I was lucky enough to see it on a large screen at the NFT in my twenties.  There are images and scenes which have haunted my imagination ever since, and Calico Craft Parts have designed a piece which captures exactly one of those images.

How he looms over you there from the deck of the ship... with those claws of hands ready to reach for you...  Meet the Nosferatu Wood Vampire Shape.

I didn't feel I needed to do much - just a crackle background - DecoArt Crackle Paste on one of the ATC Blanks, the moon masked off while I added Prussian Blue Hue and Paynes Grey...

I just used a circular punch and some self-adhesive paper, and then peeled it away when I was done, leaving a ghostly penumbra which glows palely around the figure of Count Orlof once he's stuck in place.

Nosferatu himself has also been very simply tinted with Paynes Grey and Prussian Blue Hue for extra shading.

If you're still not quite in the Halloween mood, do check out the rest of the amazing spooky designs in the Calico Craft Parts Halloween sections - from owls perched on branches, to Haunted Houses, to the skeletons and zombies you met in my Spooky Shrine, to fabulous Gothic words to put on pages and layouts.  I promise there's something for everyone.

That's pretty much it for today.  Sleep well won't you!

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And a happy All Hallows' Eve to all of you. If you celebrate it, I hope you have fun, and if you don't I hope you are left in peace by the sprites and hobgoblins. Tomorrow is All Saints and, of course, the beginning of a new month so I'll be back to haunt you then with some fresh Design Team inspiration. Good night all!

Nosferatu. Does this word not sound like the midnight call of the Bird of Death? Do not utter it, or the images of life will fade - into pale shadows and ghostly dreams will rise from your heart and feed your Blood.

Title card from the 1922 silent film, Nosferatu