Salmonster VS Hungerbot

Every few holidays, I'll make Sallie a comic or picture instead of getting a card.

We've had a bunch of old paintings and canvases sitting around the house, so I got the bright idea to raise the bar. I was going to paint a picture. Now the thing you need to know is I'm terrible at painting. I'm really bad at figuring out which colors go together and staying in the lines. I'm terrible with brush strokes. I basically don't like moving outside of drawing. So I knew this would be quite the undertaking.

I started back in May. The concept stages. Sal and I have this joke that the only time we fight is when she's hungry or I'm tired. In fact, she has a persona for when she's hungry. She's SALMONSTER!

So I thought about how much I love old sci-fi and horror movie posters and decided my topic. I would create Salmonster vs Hungerbot in the style of an old Godzilla movie poster. Specifically, the one below was a huge inspiration.

So I started on this journey. I didn't know how I was going to pull this off without ruining the surprise.

So I started with some concept art, this one being the one that made it. I actually drew this sitting on the same couch as Sal, but she was getting deep into the internet on our tablet, so I knew I was safe from her seeing. I took one of the paintings we already had and agreed that we didn't want to hang it on our wall, I painted primer over it and then did this nice orange and red.

I got a little cavalier next, painted the frames for the buildings and then without any outline, went ahead and did some lettering. Not only did it not line up very well, but days later I realized I forgot the "S" in Monster.

I then added the beginnings of Sal in my favorite dress of hers and the robot. I'm a little creeped out that Sal has no eyes or hair, but I have to wait for the paint to dry before doing anything else. I also start painting over the lettering that I screwed up.

Now this was starting to look like something. I redid the lettering across the bottom, put some hair and glasses on Sal, as well as her dragon breath, and paint a pretty sweet St. Louis skyline. If you look in the top left corner, you'll notice it looks a bit different. I again messed up some lettering, but this is Slider's fault this time.

I was doing the "NEVER BEFORE SEEN..." lettering and I had paints out. The dummy decided to lay right on top of the plate I was using to mix colors. Now my back was turned during this initial thing, but I believe he probably felt wetness, sat up, licked it, and then spazzed out when he tasted paint.

All I see is a gray blob come flying around my "L" shaped desk, jumping off of my drawing table, and then shooting upstairs. I look at the paint and see hair stuck in it.

I start to chase this already panicked cat around the house, he's foaming out of his mouth, getting paint everywhere.

I catch him, put him in the bath to wash all the paint off and then make him throw up.

A day later, while Sal is eating dinner, I notice a bunch of cat painted paw prints near the piano on the floor and stealthily clean them up.

Disaster averted.

Then I had Rosie come over and do a little touching up. She put on the perfect accents to make it look a little more professional. So, after a good ten weeks of working on this for 30 minutes at a time, here is the final product.