Time for another redesign! I had a blast working on the Critter and had a lot of great responses from those posts. So, after finishing up some 9 to 5 artwork, I decided to work on another. I went searching through the 50’s era of monster movies (which I love!) and decided to play around with THE CYCLOPS from 1957. This is one of the many great sci-fi B movies of the fifties and sixties. With sketchbook in hand, I sat down to watch it and came up with my own take on the Cyclops.
I have to tell you that this movie is true B-movie sci-fi fun! This era of creature-features was chock full of absurd ideas to come up with the craziest movie monsters! And I’ve always loved the first shot of the Cyclops. A true “booga-booga” goofy moment in cinema history!
For my design I knew that I was going to post the image of the Cyclops from the movie above as reference here, so I thought I would do a straight on shot of my own. I wanted to keep it fairly similar. I kept the wounded face as is for the most part, but added more to it. I also kept the remaining eye large, but not as ‘bug-eyed.’ The idea that the Cyclops was actually a giant monster that lost one eye was a unique idea since most of us think of a cyclops with one eye neatly centered in the head ala greek mythology. The idea that radiation melted half the creature’s face and left him with one bug-eye was fun – well, not so much for him I guess.
And there you have it. My take on the Cyclops. In case you’re wondering why I called it Redesign #2, it’s because my first one here on my blog was of the Critter: Part One
I’m not sure what I’ll do as my next redesign. There are so many creature feature movies from that era to choose from…”The Beast with a Million Eyes”? or “Attack of the Crab Monsters”? or “Frankenstein Meets the Space-Monster”? or maybe “Creature from the Haunted Sea”? There are plenty of good ones with crazy monsters to choose from! I remember watching these as a kid or in college with friends. Redesigning them is a real treat.
Josh Hagen 