Here’s Monstrosity death growler and deviant Visual Darkness artist Mike Hrubovcac to tell us about what he’s up to and how he put together the grisly art for Mortician’s 2005 album Re-Animated Dead Flesh. Click “more” for the compete lowdown and some pretty rad pics.
I recently just got back from a month long U.S. tour with Monstrosity, Vital Remains and Forever In Terror, so unfortunately it has been a while since the last “Nightmare Visions” feature.
I’ve been too busy drinking and thrashing out, and haven’t really had the time to submit any new artwork. But during the hiatus, I thought I’d give you all a little sneak peak of what went into the now well known Mortician cover I did a couple years back.
Apart from the original digital sketch I received from the band (shown above), I decided to also pull out some “before and after” shots. Few people realize that some of my good friends actually modeled for the background zombies in this picture. I was asked to get this illustration done in a week, so I had to cram. It just so happened that my friend “Pissboy” was having a party that night, so I figured I’d take my camera and get some zombie reference shots while everyone was in a drunken stupor. Featured zombies in the back from left to right are my friends Spike, Mollboy from “Rumpelstiltskin Grinder”, Pissboy, Globe and KW.
I was going to show some “before” shots of the zombie bitch on the table, but seeing as they’re nude photos of my ex-girlfriend, I thought I’d refrain. Although, now that I think about it, having her model for a shredded, gutted corpse seems pretty fitting.
The doctor on the left was actually airbrushed totally from scratch and pieced together
from random medical reference shots I had collected, and took the most time to finagle. Many people have noted the “Day of the Dead” influence here and they are correct. I had spent several nights watching that movie while working on this illustration in an attempt to get my head totally submerged in the horror of such a scenario. Its great to hear feedback that those feelings actually came through.
