Haunted Hotel Part 1

The day before my birthday, I had a wonderful dream that kept me in bed until 2 pm . One of the last pieces of creative outputs that my 24 year mind could conjure up. The whole concept of this movie comes from a short moment where are hero climbs up the stares being harassed by the villain and her friend gives her salvation at the top.
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Millicent is a young homely woman who spent most of her life secluded and fearful of society. Being bullied most of her life she found comfort on the internet which allowed her to avoid much social contact. She had not known her father for most of her life she is shocked to learn that she receives the deed to a large hotel from her foreign uncle. After recently dieing of heart altercations she is the only person on that side of the family capable to receive it.

Being a recluse ment that she had to take a huge step to bring herself out in public and take a trip away from her safe shell at home. While on the plane she freaks out when the flight attendants start to touch and move her things around. The rest of the passengers all look at her funny and it doesn't help when she wraps her face up in blankets to avoid being seen.

In town she's yelled at by strange people for getting in the way or not being polite. She meets her uncle's attorney at the hotel during the day and explains to her right away that it's haunted. The Hotel was built in 1903 and 6 months after it's opening people have been murdered, committed suicide or killed accidentally. The most horrific case was that of a Mr. Grunder who was a man in an over coat and top hat who would push people down the stars and throw them out a 2nd story window. This would go on for several nights but he was never caught until the day he went on a shooting spree and took out many people in the hotel. He was taken out by the bartender at the top of the stares and was flung out the window to his death.

The attorney continues to show Milly(Millicent) around the hotel going up the stares, insisting to hold on to the banisters. She grabs onto the banister to look out the window and feels a lick at her wrist. She cringes and continues up. At the top of the stares there is a small bar stand that still has it's liquor dispensers and a large resting area that extends over the street (as if two whole room had been cleared out to make a small lounge area). The 2nd floor looks down onto the base floor. The main support beam is a giant chimney stack right in the middle of the building, with smaller beams at the corners and middle of the 2nd floor walkways, with wooden banisters protecting people from falling over.

The attorney explains that in the 1970s it was deemed a historical land mark and the city planned to have a huge revival of the hotel to improve their down town business. All of the electrical fixtures and plumbing is fairly new but every owner has either run out of screaming in terror, never to be heard from again, or died. Because of this major changes to the building had never been made, such as the stares needing to be replaced as so noone is to trip down them again. Milly asks the attorney how her uncle received the hotel.
"He won it at an auction, but he was smart enough never to enter the hotel. His heart complications was due to poor diet I'm afraid. Not of fear."

Milly sneered at the man thinking that he was challenging her to a sleep-in-the-spooky-hotel-all-night-and-win-the-fortune bet. Outside of that she didn't want to spend the night in some other dirty hotel. The attourny gives her his number just to make sure that she'll be ok the rest of the night and if she knows what she wants to do with it in the morning to make sure she notifies him 1st.

The man leaves the keys with Milly (which she leaves on the bar stand up stares) and they walk back down. Milly feels a grab at her legs and falls into the attorney. She assures him that she'll be the one to get these stairs fixed if she does anything worthwhile in her life.

Night grows closer and Milly already sees odd shapes moving through the hotel, but she figures it's the odd lighting. She stays in the managers room at the bottom of the stares and plugs in her computer to watch some movies. As she watches Dolamite she starts to hear odd noises come from her bedroom behind her. She gets up to investigate but sees nothing in the bed room, but hears noises in the bathroom. She opens the door to reveal a cloud of mist and a naked man in the shower. She gets scared an apologizes for entering but he yells at her in a hallow voice telling her it's his room. With a rush of wind she is pushed out of the room. The door slamming shut and won't budge.

She tries to find the key for the door and remembers that she had left them at the top of the stares on the bar. She exists her office and a chill makes her stop. To her right in main hallway of the hotel a congregation of ghosts are roaming around the ground floor. A man with a white mustache and top hat reading a paper at a chair in the middle of the room. A lady and her boy friend dancing across the floor. Two kids playing with pop guns, and a few other gentlemen walking back and forth in a repeating pattern. Milly thinks that this is all a trick, and tries to enter the main hall but a large cackling laugh from the stares stops her.

She turns to see a man in a black coat and top hat at the middle rung of the stares, backlit by the moonlight. He has long white hair and long fingertips that end in needle points. His sunken red eyes glare at her while his fanged grin turns into his cheeks while he asks her to join him for a walk. She runs out of the hotel wanting to scream but can't as she lost her voice. Milly runs down the street and to a payphone to try to call the attorney ("I admit defeat. It's not worth a night in hell!") but he's not at his office. She starts to look in the phone book for other hotels too call and realizes that she has no idea where any of the streets are. Soon a drunk man starts to knock on the door of the phone booth and she panics and runs back to the hotel ("There are scary people out here too!").

She gathers up her strength and enters back into the hotel. Looking at the stares she sees that the ghost is not there but a few of the other ghosts are still in the main hall. She closes her eyes pretending she didn't see them. Milly grabs a blanket to protect her head, a feather duster and prepares to go up the stares for the keys. Slowly with each step she crawls up the stares, keeping an eye out for Grunder. She gets to the middle ledge in front of the window and he calls out hello to her in a cockney accent. She ducks to her knees and starts to crawl up the stares eyes closed, waving the feather duster in front of her. He starts to laugh around her head and asks why someone would leave their dirty laundry in his stairway.

Crawling up the 2nd row of steps to the 2nd ledge, she opens her eyes and his face is on the floor smiling back at her. She screams and stays covered holding onto the railing. He walks up to her placing the tips of his shoes under her face. His fingers start to poke through her blanket and onto her back. She yells out "Don't Touch me Mutha F**ka!", and waves the feather duster at him while booking it up the last flight of steps. His laughter echoes through the hotel.

Finally at the 2nd story she falls against the wall looking down the stares in fear, breathing heavily. She hears a soft voice chuckle and call out to her. She looks up and sees a man behind the bar counter cleaning a glass. He's got red hair that leads down to black muttonchops. He wears thin black rimmed glasses, a white pin stripped shirt with a black bow tie, and black pants. He gets out a martini glass and says, "You look like you need a drink." She gets up slowly but stops when she sees a ghost gentleman walk past her and up to the bar. There is a drunk bum sitting at the opposite end of the bar and a man reading a news paper in the sitting area. She gets up and looks over the edge of the railings to see just how many spooks are running around. She takes notice that a few of the ones she saw earlier are gone and some just loop the same action over and over again. Two brothel girls look at her and laugh from across the hotel on the 2nd story.

Still scared stiff, Milly stumbles over to the bar and up to the bartender. For a few long moments she just stares into space trying to make sure that she's not crazy. The gentleman comes up to the bar three times, ordering the same drink with the bar tender serving it, before the women takes notice. She looks at the bartender and he smiles and hands her the drink he made for her. She gulps and asks how does he know what she likes.
"It's a modest drink for a pretty lady."
"Thanks but I don't drink. I don't need to start seeing pink elephants too."
She looks around the bar and notices her keys at the other end. She looks back at the bartender to make sure he doesn't fallow her as she gets closer. The bum however looks at her as she gets closer and he grabs the keys before she notices he's watching her. She screams and swats him with the feather duster (it just swings right through him but he's taken back and annoyed). The bar keep yells at the bum to give them back and he agrees and staggers down the stares ("Don't think this is the place for me. The owners yelling at me in all.")

Milly looks at the bartender in confusion and asks why he can talk to her. He tells her his name is Russel, and he explains that he's a servant of the hotel and will assist it's owner in any way he can. She then asks if he can assist her in getting down the stares back to her office without having to deal with Grunder, seeing his red eyes and grin peeking from darkness of the stares. Russel is unfortunately tied to the bar table but tells her that she can stay in any of the other rooms until day time (Grunder will be less active with sunlight). He points to a room down the way but warns her not to sleep with her head outside the covers.

She thanks him and walks to the room he pointed to. Inside there is one large bed against wall with a small couch against the window. She waves good night to Russel from far away and he waves back (Grunder waving back to her as well). She gets under the covers and tries to sleep off the spooky feelings. In not much time however she feels a small lump sitting on her chest. She doesn't move or attempt to take off the covers to see what's on her. We see that it is a small boy sitting on her. He gets off a few moments later and rolls into the blankets on her side. She whimpers a bit but soon falls asleep.

New Birthday ID Image

So with a new year comes a new birthday. And I have here a new ID image. I took a photo of myself in my room then drew over it in photoshop. Some day I hope to start doing video posts and more reviews on art that I like. Please look at the all the other ID's I've made here.

I was also hoping to have a new look for my blog an DA journal with a few head icons I drew. I'd go for a new green look with more of my characters linking to important links. The blog though still looks fine and I'd have to draw a lot of new stuff and learn HTML to make it look just as nice as it is now. I might edits the colors at some point so it's readable but for now it'll stay.

ALSO: The night before I had a 5 minuet dream that really inspired me. I slept in till 1:30pm to work on it, and spent the rest of the day writing it out. It turned into a whole damn movie and I really like what I came up with. I'm going to post it in 5-6 parts here (don't want to make each part read like a huge novel). Just to give you an idea, it's called the Haunted Hotel, and I'll try to get some drawings to match up with in in time. When I post it please give it a read.

Graphic Inspiration from Star Wars

I have to detract from a series of original posts to blog about just good design. Taken from this blog post here an inspirational look at some star wars posters. Seeing Sky City make up Boba-Fett's eyes is a genius decision. FYI; I didn't make these but I enjoy them.

Headless Rokko

I've been thinking about what it takes to really kill a cartoon. Most people still think that only Dip, the toxic substance from the 1990 Roger Rabbit movie, is the only thing that can kill them. But I believe that depending on the type of cartoon you are, the type of injuries you substance will effect you differently. These "powers" are given to the toon by their creator. Superman can only be killed by kyrptonite, so would he still dissolve when dumped in Dip? Pokemon and Digimon don't die, but could you splash some paint thinner on them and they'd disappear forever? Plus there are plenty of times where a character is put in mortal danger and while we might assume that somehow they'll make it out alive, we hold our breaths when the character is hanging from the cliff at the end of episode. A toon needs to have a level of mortality cause if they didn't, then why should we be worried about their safe return next week?

The fallowing story is a play on that idea as well a cartoons ability to remove it's head. Rokko is a character constantly struggling to deal with his mortality; when ever he wants to die, he can't. When ever he needs to stay alive, he's in jeopardy of dieing. Warning! the blog is quite violent, dark, and contains mature subject matter.
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Rokko is being chased by a bunch of human thugs. We're not told what he did or why but they shoot guns off each other and run into a warehouse. One guy tackles Rokko to the ground and they roll around until Rokko is on top of the man. Rokko pushes the man's head into the ground trying to crush it but hesitates cause he doesn't want to kill him. The man brings up his gun to Rokko's head but he grabs the man's arm just before he shoots. The bullet ricochets off the walls behind him, into the back of Rokko's skull and doesn't pass all the way through. Rokko blacks out and falls over. The other men catch up to where Rokko lays and kick him around a bit. One guy takes out a huge knife and slices a huge cut around Rokko's neck and pulls his head off. They take the head and shove it in the box and laugh about the fight. Suddenly, the body gets up and starts flailing it's arms around and hitting a few of the thugs like rockets through the walls. They freak out and run away leaving the body to fall and trip over it's self.

After a few hours, Rokko's body is left in the warehouse bleeding black ink all over the floor. Crikkit then scuttles up from the darkness and pushes Rokko around to see if he's still alive. The bug lifts the body up and it starts to move on it's own, punching the wind and falling over without balance. It stands up completely and then takes off running strait into the wall and falls over, spewing out stomach acid and more ink. Crikkit then grabs it's arm to take it back to Rokko's apartment. His pants fall off as the two of them run and along the way, the body fights Crikkit's pulling, thinking it's an enemy.

Back with the human thugs, they talk about how they should try to get more money for the head. If the man who paid for them to axe it off wanted it so bad, then it's possible that other people wanted it twice as bad. One man opens the box in the back of the car and the head has filled the box with ink and it spills onto the floor. They pull over to find a place to hose it off.

Crikkit finally gets Rokko back to the apartment where Rokko's two roommates are. They freak out over the headless body, not sure it's even worth keeping him around. Crikkit just starts to make a meal while they drill the bug about the people who did this to Rokko. Crikkit doesn't respond much other then to ask for salt, pepper and for a table to be set. The Coyote pokes the body a few times and it punches the wall next to it. He laughs, glad it missed. The Capybara thinks about a few times he saw other toons loose their head. It's different each time he's seen it and that the longest time he's seen a toon without it's head was 3 hours...but then notes that Rokko is not normal. The Coyote says that he's actually nicer without his head, they should leave him that way (as the body starts to shake the Coyote's hand and pat his head).

Crikkit tells them last he remembers was there was a man stalking Rokko earlier in the week. He remembers the face and draws it on the table in steak sauce. The man only confronted Rokko once telling him how interesting he was, asking about touching his skin and flashed a 100$ bill. Rokko said "fuck off" and kicked the car over. Both the Coyote and Capybara don't remember seeing a man like that on their own time, and they get up to start making calls to other toons about a man in a black car wanting to touch them. Crikkit starts to feed Rokko by shoving food down the open hole in his neck.
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The human thugs arrive at the house of the mysterious man. He looks surprisingly at the box, and they take it out showing him the head. He yells at the thugs saying that they should've brought the body with them. They yell back saying that he didn't mention a thing about the body and that he should've paid more cause the fight with this creature was not worth what they were promised. The mystery man tells them to go back to hunt down the body and they'll get twice what they were promised. They inform him about how the body still fought back but the man tells them to go back anyway. Two of the thugs head back to the warehouse while two stay with the head back at the mansion to make sure they still have head in their possession. Rokko's head moves and opens it's eyes slightly to see what's going on, but doesn't make a sound.
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By late that night the Capybara had found out about the mystery man's plan to pick up old cartoons to turn into hunting trophies. With no clear direction about where to find this man, Crikkit says they should let the body hunt down the head like a blood hound, it might know where it's head is. The body falls over and squirms like a caterpillar across the floor. Shaking their head with disbelief the Coyote and Capybara pick up the body and put it in the car.

For most of the night the thugs and the toons cross passes upset that neither can find the missing body part they're looking for. Rokko's body leads the toons into the oddest places like bike shops, gyms, pharmacies, and the sides of busy streets where it throws stuff at passing cars. When the thugs find out that the body is gone, they set the warehouse on fire in frustration, which catches the attention of the toons and they fallow the trail back to the toon hunter's house.
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In the house the hunter shows the two other thugs his collection. He doesn't hunt for sport or just to have something rare, but things that feel good. Often times he's shot something that he thought would feel nice but it turned out coarse and rough. When he met his 1st toon he shook it's hand and the feeling that came over him was cold but warming. Not that the toon wasn't warm-blooded but being around it was so uplifting. His last wife left him cause of his past hunting habbits, so he slowly has been getting rid of his real animal pelts and replacing them with toon pelts, that being around them would be more uplifting. No more depression.

All the while the hunter is talking Rokko's head is sniffing the air and moving it's lips. The eyes open and close at irregular intervals, and it opens it's mouth is slowly and clamps down hard on the air.

The man continues in saying that he stalked this toon (Rokko) a while back cause at a store they bumped into each other and the skin didn't feel like fur but he looked furry. If all other old cartoons felt this way he could start a new type of fur clothing line. Gilt free furs; the toons he took them from can't die and it wasn't real fur. The thugs look at the head on the table and pet it, and they mention how it feels like wet hair, being covered in ink.

The hunter looks in confusions and goes over the pick up the head. He too notices that it's hairy and starts to think they played a trick on him. They demand for the head back but he pulls out a gun on them and they drop theirs in a panic. He yells at them to get out, and once the other thugs bring back the body none of them will get a dime. The Thugs back into a corner swearing this is the real head but the hunter grabs it anyway saying that they brought a fake head without the body to fool him.
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Outside the thugs talk about going into the mansion guns a blazing and take what ever they can fine but are stopped at gun point by the Coyote. The thug who nearly had his head crushed by Rokko, runs out of the car screaming in terror (fearing that another toon would be just as strong) and runs right into Rokko's body who grabs onto the thugs head again and smashes it like a melon. The Thug in the driver's seat pushes the door open to knock over the Coyote, and shoots.

The Capybara takes cover back in their car with Rokko's body, while Crikkit rushes into the Thugs car and starts the engine. Crikkit steps on the gas making the Driver Thug fall out of the car while it takes off and falls to the side of the road. The Coyote and the thug have a wrestle match on the ground, he takes a sharp bite out of the thugs arm and the thug shoots the coyote through the nose. The Capybara lets Rokko's body go, telling him to kick the soccer ball, and he rushes over to the Thug who's about to shoot again. Rokko's leg rears back and kicks the thug's head clean off so it lands through the window of the hunter's house right next to his feet.

All of the people inside stare at the new head on the floor in fear. The hunter looks up and grins and shoots the two thugs anyway. He looks out the window to see the toons coming up through the front door. He's happy to see he's got three new pelts, and mentions how he might be making some human leather hand bags as well (yeah he's a sick fuck, sorry). With Rokko's head under his arms he goes to his hunting closet where he picks out a shot gun and loads it. Crikkit is the 1st one to enter the room but stays hidden watching the man load the gun. He notices Rokko's eyes are open looking around like wild spirals but the hunter does not.

With the head still under his arm the hunter sets up to shoot anything that's going to come in. Trying to stay hidden, Crikkit waves to Rokko to get his attention but he can hear the foot steps of the toons coming up the stares. Ready and waiting the hunter grins big but the head drops to the floor. He sees Crikkit pulling at the nose but the hunter steps on Rokko's ear with his foot. The head starts to chomp up and down (soundless except for gashing) and Crikkit freaks out and runs away. The hunter picks up the head by the ear but the head finds a way to grab onto his arm and chomp it off.

The Toons stopped at the mid way point up the stares when they hear the hunter screaming. The head then slithers out of the door and down the stares not aware it passed it's body. The Coyote grabs for it and picks it up. It starts gashing at the air again. He shakes it like a piggy bank and the bullet that was stuck in his head falls out of the mouth. The Capybara stops the Coyote from putting the head and the body back together saying that Rokko might be even angrier if he had his head on strait. This allows the Capybara to go up and do clean up work on all the humans. The two thugs that were shot by the hunter weren't injured bad but they tell the Capybara that they'll deal with the Hunter in a legal way ("No more of this mobster shit for me. I thought it'd be hookers and free cocaine.")
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Back at the home stead, Rokko sits on the sofa with his head back on wrapped in bandages. He laughs and thanks the other guys for helping him out and tells the story about how his middle child could do the most amazing things with his detached head. He isn't sure if it's a family trait but that boy didn't need his head to get things done.
Rokko thinks about the men his body killed without his conscious mind to hold his self back. Figures he's got a pretty good head on his shoulders after all.