So by now, most of you should have seen Hellboy II by now. If not, go soon. Go now. Drop what yer doing and get ready for a super fun bonkers time at the theater! Mad props to Guillermo Del Toro for delivering such a sweet gift of goodness. Though I’ve never talked to the jolly genius, I sent him off a Hellboy drawing made for him after catching the first flick. Some might have seen this sketch somewhere in my various online galleries. Kind of a mix of Hellboy & the snake creature from the Barbarian Bros. movie!

So here we are a few years later & good ol’ Hellboy II has finally seen the light of day. The lead-up to the release saw some fun ad ploys, starting with a fan art contest on the main Hellboy movie website. Given my background in doing special Hellboy drawings, I figured that I might as well - especially if Guillermo & Dark Horse would get to take a peek at it. So I whipped up the little sucker that you’ll find below.

Pretty spiffy, huh? Below are some pics of the art in progress, starting with the pencil rough…

Next up, the final pencils inked, but with the blacks not yet filled in with Sharpee…

This is usually my favorite part of the drawing process. There’s something clean about the lines that gets lost when the rendering is finished.

But then again, there’s nothin’ quite as satisfying as seeing the final inked product…

Though I felt pretty good about it, I noticed some stuff when I threw it into the computer — namely that the suckers near the sword were confusing the design, so you’ll see them gone in the final version. Another change is Hellboy’s mouth, which ended up looking a whole lot better angling down rather than the slight smirk I threw on there.

So anyway, I finished this sucker & proceeded to upload it onto the main site — a process that bugged the shit out of me only because the damn thing wouldn’t take. For a few days I kept on trying to reupload it, but to no avail. It never showed up on the site. With one final hail mary, I did one final upload before saying fuggit. So imagine my surprise when the day after that, I got an e-mai saying that I randomly won the first leg of the contest! Yeah — say whaaa?

Soooo, my drawing never did hit the site, but there was some 10 buck prize heading my way. Funny enough, by the time it finally got to me a month & a half later, I’d almost given up hope. Now imagine my surprise when I sliced open the box only to reveal — A BPRD BELT BUCKLE, complete with a wicked Hellboy II leather belt.

Was it kismet that this sorta piece of gold was sent to me, namely a dude that prides himself on his belt buckle collection? Shit, I dunno. Either way, I’ve been rockin’ it ever since, including the midnight show last night! So what if Mignola & Co. weren’t able to see it on the main page’s gallery? & so what if this Marketing group didn’t really judge me on the craft of the work. Hell, maybe they were sick of me uploading it so many times. In the end, I can’t complain. I’m still the proud owner of a bodacious BPRD belt buckle — and that’s somethin’ I’ll never have to give up — no matter how big my ol’ gut gets in time.

For now, I’m happy to have such a great flick to dig into for years to come. & plus, it makes for a good story. Buy me a brew someday & I’ll tell you a few more. For now, see Hellboy II & check All Movie for my review come Monday. It’ll no doubt be a good one!