Ashley (Ash) Williams

Hail to the King baby, its Ash Williams Day! Ash Williams is one of those cult film icons where even if you don’t know where he’s from, you’ve seen him before in passing. His iconic chainsaw hand and devil-may-care attitude were both things I was trying to capture when doing this piece. While I think I captured his signature eye-brow lift quite nicely, the chainsaw definitely leaves a lot to be desired. It was hard trying to draw a chainsaw in ink with all its details, so I opted for a more silhouetted look. The detailing on his shirt was also a bit of a cop out, since his shirt in the reference photo was in tatters, so I ended up really accentuating the wrinkles of it. Finally, his arm and the lower half of his torso are things that I feel as if I could’ve done a bit better. The bottom of his torso shared same fate as his shirt (as in I copped out of it) and used marker to give the illusion that his bottom half was covered in shadow. For his chainsaw arm, the arm itself is a too low and that’s just because of trying to fit the chainsaw into the piece as much as possible. Quite a few criticisms from my point of view to levy against this piece but there is a silver-lining to this, and that is the use of red in this piece. Under the suggestion of my fiancé, Amber, I added the red to cover Ash and his chainsaw in blood because according to her, “How can you draw an Evil Dead piece and not have blood?” (A bit verbatim but basically what she said) This idea elevated a mediocre piece to something special. The bright red of the blood juxtaposed by the black and white of the piece really brought the whole thing together, and seeing Ash covered in blood with it dripping off the chainsaw, it fit so perfectly that I would incorporate this technique into the rest of Inktober work.

I remember first seeing the ‘Evil Dead 2’ VHS at my Dad’s place, I was horrified. The skull with eyeballs still in its sockets that looked directly at you made it feel like it was looking into my soul or as if it was going to reach out and drag me into whatever horrors laid inside the VHS itself. Mind you, I was (I think) only about 6 at the time but little did I know this experience would eventually come full circle into my adulthood. Like most cool and loving parents, my Dad introduced me to quite a few things that you probably shouldn’t show your 6 year old. The original Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat games, The Animatrix (it’s got some frightening stuff in there for a child) and his collection of horror films, quite a few which have, as previously mentioned, come full circle into my adult life. I remember on his VHS rack that he had in his den, seeing the original Tim Curry ‘IT’ which, you guessed it, I was completely frightened of seeing at the time but now I’ve not only watched it (ha-ha pun) but both the remake films that were released in the past few years as well. Maybe it’s the trauma or maybe it’s my father’s DNA in me that draws me to be interested the things that he liked. Maybe it’s this inherent wanting to know him that I’ve unconsciously ended up walking down a path he’s already trodden.

My father died when I was 10 years old and so unfortunately, I don’t have many memories of him. I have snippets here and there but that time in my life is mostly covered in a heavy fog that I have to strain to remember. Even then, I’m not sure if I’m remembering something that actually happened or if my brain is creating the scenarios that I am so desperate to see. However, it’s ironic that the things that scared me growing up are now the small, precious, true memories that I have of him, even if he’s all but been erased from my mind. Whenever I watch ‘Evil Dead’ I’m reminded of the times I would pick through his VHS collection and always stumble across his ‘Evil Dead 2’ copy or ‘It’ with Tim Curry waving his arm from one side of the VHS box, trying to trick you as he did the other children of Derry. In the end, these tales of horror are not nearly as scary as touching the lifeless body of a person you thought invincible.

Writing this now, I remember my father’s funeral well enough that the cold skin of the deceased is unnatural. The best thing it can be related to, is when your fingers or feet are cold during winter, but even then, the warmth of your blood flowing can be felt if you put your hands together or put on a pair of slippers. When the person isn’t even warming up at your touch and you wonder why they won’t get up, the shock of it makes you think that they’re playing some cruel practical joke. Even years later, the reality of losing a loved one never really hits you. In my case, sometimes I would catch myself waiting for a phone call, that’ll never happen, where my Dad is wondering how I’ve been doing these past 17 years. While this hasn’t happened in a long time, (thankfully the scars are faded and reality keeps fantasy at bay) for others it might not be the case. I don’t write this to seek pity or condolences, I’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime, but rather to outwardly express that while my father has long been dead and gone, I am his son, and somehow, whether subconsciously through this trauma, fate, or even because of his DNA (and maybe from his DNA his spirit), I love these films. I find a closeness with my Dad while watching these shoddy B-horror films and maybe it’s because he enjoyed them before me.