Moebius Frankenstein: color question

By the way, the first photo is not from the original 1931 film.  It's actually from the sequel, "The Bride of Frankenstein."  The giveaway is the short, scorched, hair on the monster's head, reflecting the fire he had gone through at the climax of the original film.

Universal's makeup man at that time was Jack Pierce.  Jack stated in a television interview that he had a special greasepaint created by Max Factor for him, a gray-green that photographed like dead flesh.  This green shade was later used by Don Post to create the green-looking Frankenstein Monster Masks we all recognize.  The book has the monster with a yellow-ish skin with veins showing through.  Certainly you are free to interpret the monster in any way you choose, but you'd be accurate in recreating the greenish coloring as long as you are modeling the creature as shown in the original films.

Judging from your jubilation, I take it you will be painting him the way the make-up artist had him presented for b/w filming and not how Frankenstein was to be perceived by the audience?

regards,

Jack

Tom! You are my hero! Those are absolutely fantastic pics! Looks like I've got some colors to go mix up....

Full 1931 costume:

And 1939 costume:

Boris Karloff goofing off during the production of Son of Frankenstein.

The still is taken from a color 16mm Kodachrome home movie and shows that the monster’s make-up was colored green.

Headless Hearsemans data base.

That diorama uses the Bernie Wrightson / Sideshow kit.

From my reading about it the floor is a real nightmare to work with.

                                WOW, some work went into that dio..

                                                  Greg"Detailfreak"Rowley

Here’s an interesting interpretation of Frankenstein and his “monster” that was displayed at he Long Island Show in November:

According to Wikipedia,  "...green greasepaint, (designed to look pale on black and white film) was applied to his face and hands."

From a different forum on the subject:

"For black and white photography, designers would use whatever color photographed correctly for their purposes. The Monster's "green" fleshtone, for example, is derived from the makeup Jack Pierce used--variously described as "blue green", "gray green", and "yellow green", Pierce chose this color so that it would photograph as pale flesh to give The Monster a "death pallor". Chocolate syrup was often used for blood."

Also found this colour segment of Karloff as the monster:  Youtube

regards,

Jack