–Railroad signals on the train or subway tracks.
–Shot of Kroenen’s syringe. Camera turns 360⁰ and then cuts!!
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 37A
–Huge [images of bullet cartridges] from the Samaritan
–There are idyllic photographs of Nazi youths in Kroenen’s room.
–Kroenen’s hand with flesh interface.
INTO THE FLESH
The hand is heavily adorned.
– Skull-faced mask. Room with asbestos modules.
–1920 industrial Gothic.
Ron Perlman posing as Hellboy with Big Baby in a publicity photo for Hellboy II.
GDT: Well, first of all, as you can read on the top left [opposite], one of the things that I wanted to do with the Samaritan was to create huge ammo for the revolver. Huge bullets. But originally I wanted it to be an automatic weapon that would eject the shells. And we couldn’t do it. I couldn’t find a way to design it properly. But we kept the idea of the shells being huge.
Ron is a big guy. He has a huge head and huge hands, so the gun looks normal, almost, in his hands. So I had to create the Big Baby in the second movie for it to look like a big gun, and the bullets of the Big Baby are the size of a baby’s bottle, and they have a baby bottle inside.
Then there is a Kroenen hand on this page, which is literally, if you go back to the earlier drawings of The Left Hand of Darkness, the Monte Cristo hand [see page 258]. And, again, it’s a matter of “I want that image. I don’t care where it comes from.” [laughs]
Then several designs for the mask, and the idea of him having no eyelids and no lips. I wanted him to be like the embodiment of S&M.
Then I wanted something that looked 1920s but high-tech, sort of like the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t do it.
Kroenen’s lair was designed to have a 1920s high-tech, Gothic feel, reminiscent of the Nautilus in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea .
BLUE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 150
Hearkens back to ideas del Toro explored for his semi-mechanical, lethal protagonist in an early, unmade project called The Left Hand of Darkness, an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo.
*Shootout in a henhouse for M.C.
*In exp./storeroom hens S.
Mechanical Prince model 2714591 Pat.Pend
(1) and (2) cavities ready for eye insertion.
See ref. manual for more.
(6) Sideways gear for head movement.
(3) Crystal electromagnetic cavity w/organ
(5) Gold-Plated thoraxic shell
* “Where have you Been?” / ”Ranging over THE EARTH, from end to end. “The Lord give and the Lord takes away” “Why is life given to those who find it so bitter, they long for death but it does not come . . .” Book of JOB.
GDT: Over here [opposite] is Kroenen coming out of the floor like a ghost. That was a very nice idea, but we couldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it, because he became physical. Originally I had this idea that he and Rasputin were able to come out of the shadows. And Rasputin does. If you watch the movie, in the mental asylum, the guard uses a flashlight, closes the door, and Rasputin comes out of the shadows.
MSZ: That’s very, very cool. And, again, you’re using very interesting palettes with the blacks punctuated by whites and reds.
GDT: Yeah. What is interesting with the pages in this notebook is that I started trying to do little compositions on each page. The blood helps now and then, as well as the little Lovecraftian symbols here and there.
MSZ: What’s this detail in the margin, underneath the blood splatter?
GDT: Those are little bells—glass bells that I saw in National Geographic or something. They are used to shoo away spirits. I thought the shape was beautiful. I drew them because I don’t like photographing stuff. That’s one thing that is very curious—I hate photographing. For many years my wife said, “Why don’t you take any family photos?” And I said to her—I know this sounds like an affectation, but it isn’t—I said, “I can’t just photograph something. I need to say what is in the frame, what is the color.” You know, contrary to Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was such a great photographer, and he found everything. I can’t. I have to fabricate everything in the image. So whenever I see a drawing, or I’m in a museum, and I see something I like, I could take a photograph, but I do a sketch in the notebook instead.
The design of Kroenen.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 37B
Glass bells for evil spirits.
–We could open with a sequence in a “mini-mart” in which 3 or 4 monsters surround the cashier and Hellboy comes in and taunts them. Then he lights or puts out a cigarette with his fingers and saves it for later. Little daggers filled with holy water. Malaysan Revenants hungry for virgin’s blood
–You should date a little more.
–Galician forests are very much like those found in Arthur Machen
–A man is called upon to rebuild a stone labyrinth
–For Wind in the Willows: PICKLED TOAD
–The mini-mart was built on an ancient cemetery.
–The disorder inside the truck bothers Hellboy: I know it’s a Garbage truck, but . . .
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 13A
The Rasputin character differed markedly from the historic image of the man–a long-haired, bearded, almost ascetic monk–with which del Toro began the character design process.
–Butchered cattle for sale on M street. Blood flows down the sidewalk. Steam pours out of the coffee-roasting machines. Very hot, wet streets
–Small gas lamp used at street stalls during the eighteenth–nineteenth centuries
–Rasputin (1872–1916). His name means “crossroads.” In 1909, he becomes a member of the royal court. He travels in 1911 and sometime in 1912
–Alias “Guisha.” Letter to Ilsa. Beforehand
–Ride the body of a dead man so that he tells you his secrets
–Key for H’s glove.
–Ilsa is given a small diary In it is written eveything that will happen in the years to come. “The book of sand.”
–Photo of R.(6–1916)
–Facts are far more damaging than lies. Sometimes truth is the tool to use to bring a man down.
–Jackets for Monte Cristo.
The Rasputin character in Hellboy drawn by Simeon Wilkins.
Rasputin played by Karel Roden.
MSZ: So Rasputin, of course, had the long, black hair, but he’s bald in Hellboy.
GDT: Well, that comes from the comic. I think Mike did it because he wanted to purposely imply more of a reborn magician.
You know, I read every book on him. I found fascinating theories of how he resisted death. There’s one theory that says that Prince Yusupov, who was supposed to kill him, and supposedly tried to kill him for twenty minutes, was actually giving him a blowjob. So he came out and said, “I cannot kill him!” [laughs] Well, he was trying, but it was a very slow method. [laughs] It would take a long time. Another theory was that the cyanide in the food was a small dose. There was one book that literally explained, step-by-step, how it was just a really botched attempt at both a blowjob and an assassination.
But among the facts I found that were interesting was the fact that the explosion in Tunguska Forest, the famous explosion of an object that was never recovered, was like the equivalent of an X-File in tsarist Russia. I put that in the movie, in the director’s cut. The storm came from that explosion. I tried to come up with a great backstory for Rasputin, which is not in the movie. He’s a convert, and he really believes he’s bringing about the end of the world for good, because this world is too corrupt, and so on, and so forth.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 36A
Del Toro knew he wanted to include a spiked pit trap in Hellboy.
–Room in which Kroenen opens the trap in the floor, leaving HB hanging from a rope. Abe, or a rucksack, falls on the spikes below
–A hospital for children of the war. “Thousands of children came through these doors in the 1930s. Bad vibe”
&nb
sp; – Some of us are like this cylinder of wax. We can replay whatever happened.
–Open-air Chinese pharmacy with an anatomic model
–Patterns on the floors for the TOP-SHOT
– In HB’s room, the pick-up “bed” is where he saw Liz for the first time.
–Cartoons and movies are playing on HB’s televisions.
–The Baby Behemoth’s birth
–Tentacles emerge from his eye whenever anyone says “Hellboy” to him! “Child. . .” “Look what you have done”
The pit trap ended up claiming Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) as a victim.
GDT: There’s a piece of architecture on the top here [opposite] that I thought would be intriguing. We never made it on Hellboy.
On the right is the sort of trap door with spikes that ended up in Kroenen’s lair. I just wanted to have that really pulpish feel. I love Sax Rohmer’s Fu Manchu. The great thing about the Fu Manchu novels is how inventive the traps are. To this day, my favorite trap in a Fu Manchu novel is, there is one where they say, “This is his deadliest weapon.” And they go, “Oh, my God,” and then they prepare the revolvers, and they go, “At the count of three, open the door,” and they open the door. They enter, and it’s an empty room. There’s nothing. And they go, “Nothing happened.” And then all of a sudden, a giant mushroom blooms from the mouth of one of them, and the other one starts screaming, and a mushroom blooms from their noses, mouths, eyes, and they realize the room is full of spores. I love that. Anyway, that’s the spikes.
And then at the bottom, you can see a thing that is ultimately in the movie, which is like a Cthulhu creature being birthed out of the midsection of Rasputin. [laughs]
BLUE NOTEBOOK, PAGE 44
Hellboy provided an opportunity to deploy a tentacled, Cthulhu-like creature the likes of which del Toro has been drawing for years.
–What are you reading? Words, words, words. What’s it about?. . . ? He tells him his own story.
–You can’t take anything from me hut my life.
–Ofelia returns the jack-in-the-box engagement ring to him.
* Careful: beyond this. He: You don’t love me. Marry someone handsome.
–With the pig’s head, after looking for him in its nostrils (to be or not. . .) the doubt
–The traitors R&G.
–I must be cruel only to be Kind.
+THE TRAP, the duel with his friend.
–The fly that accuses.
+Ernie’s farewell.
–Fight and bullets.
T* The face of daddy-God (without the shell.)
Storyboards by Simeon Wilkins.
As Hellboy moved closer to production, del Toro began to record ideas for specific scenes, including images of Hellboy silhouetted against the moon.
GDT: These illustrations [opposite] were done closer to production, but not yet in production. And, again, I knew that Mignola drew the shoulders more sloping, and I knew that there was no way to do that to a human silhouette, because the thing that determines how you do the architecture of monsters is the articulation points. That’s the only thing you cannot change in a human body. You have a joint, or you don’t have a joint. I didn’t know how to make the shoulders more like the drawing, so I came up with the idea of a Civil War–type of coat, with the little cape on the shoulders. And I was praying that it would work in leather, and it came out very well, I think. I was trying to see if it was still Hellboy with big boots and pants, because in the comic, again, he doesn’t wear boots—he has hooves—and he has short pants.
Then on the top right I knew I wanted him to rip off a sword, a sword from a statue, and use it to battle a tentacled monster. And that’s in the movie.
There’s some other stuff that didn’t make it into the movie, though. Some compositions—him silhouetted by the moon, certain roofs, and stuff like that.
MSZ: There’s these little arches again, these pointed arches.
GDT: Well, I always like architecture that frames the characters, if I can do it.
MSZ: Also, there are references to Wind in the Willows throughout these notes. Was that a project that you were working on?
GDT: Well, it’s a project that I wrote with Matthew Robbins for Disney, and I think it’s a really good screenplay. We tried to make it really, really as true to the book as possible, and then we went to Disney and they said, “Could you make Toad skateboard?” And I left the project.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 34B
– Hellboy uses a broken sword. It could be made of bronze and enormous enough for a statue
–In Wind in the Willows there could a duel between Toad and Weasel on the gable roof. There Toad [?] him in the face
–Chase through skylight valley. Hellboy.
–The lightning overexposes TOAD & WEASEL.
Attic in Toad’s mansion
Redesign Hellboy’s overcoat for the movie. . .
Embossed BPRD patch into the leather of the jacket.
Should the upper part be any darker??
–Collar kept standing up with TAPE.
–Military campaign–style cape helps give him a “Mignola” outline
–For the machine that opens the cosmic portal (the gyroscope), CGI needs to be used for realism.
Make it longer than in the comic to help the outline and hide the tail.
GOTHIC LINES
GOTHIC LINES
Del Toro named Hellboy’s gun “The Good Samaritan” and asked his art team to develop a series of studies, including those by Sergio Sandoval at DDT.
Here, del Toro instructs Ron Perlman (Hellboy) on how to point the massive gun, which somehow looked the right size in Perlman’s large hands.
TyRuben Ellingson came up with the final design.
GDT: Well, one of the gags here [opposite] is in the movie, which is Hellboy sliding. I wanted him sliding and shooting backward.
Above him is a really early design of the Samaritan, and this is the page where I came up with the name “The Good Samaritan” for the gun. People think it’s in the comic. It’s never been.
The bottom was something that I wanted to do that is not there. It was like a Jacques Tourneur moment in which you see Sammael’s shadow in the foreground.
Then in the middle, I like to play with the flashlights. We did some of that, but not to that degree.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 36B
–He grinds his teeth so hard when he smiles that one of his front teeth breaks. With push in.
–We need to give the pistol a name
–Ellipses with fluttering of moth wings.
–Hellboy falls down a ventilation shaft while fighting with Sammy
–Even though it’s a revolver, the pistol should eject cartridges like an automatic. The silencer might retract
The Good Samaritan.
–When the underground dwellers are killed, hobos warn them about Sammael and his enormous appetite.
FLASHLIGHTS
–Shadow and bone noises in the museum.
–Hellboy gets punched but manages to land well. He breaks the tiles in a straight line as he slides across them.
–Kroenen should listen to his Wagner records with a refined, absolute delight.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 41A
was inspired by a Japanese mask del Toro recorded in his notebook.
–Kodo drum ensemble, but without techno elements.
–Trip to Japan with Lorenza, Marianne, and in- laws courtesy of Blade II. I hope the movie is a hit in this country. I want to take my girls to Ghibli Museum to see Miyazaki’s stuff.
Hellboy sets a booby trap filled with barbs. He’s the one who sets it off: “Trigger” in the floor
Yellow light.
–Concrete tunnel in Tokyo.
–Dessert: NATAREKOKO.
LANDMINE sends barbs flying when it explodes.
NATAREKOKO
Scarlet
Kroenen’s mask. Made of white porcelain or black leather with a bright red device that fits over his mouth
r /> Sergio Sandoval at DDT did numerous conceptual iterations of Kroenen’s face and mask.
NOTEBOOK 3, PAGE 41B
–Push in and follow HB as he backs away.
–There should be some Oriental influence on the design of Kroenen’s Nazi uniform. Flags with [swastika]
–Amaniga moves his creatures really quickly despite the fact that they’re so large.
–Sammael’s voice should be made by fusing three voices played backward that alternate pronouncing letters:
–We left the hotel early and ate sushi in the street—a disaster.
Amber light illuminates Sammael as he eats a guard.
The smoke from a blackout heightens the backlight.
–Paint job a la Z II on his face.
–The world’s greatest paranormal detective. He doesn’t really detect that much. He’s a bit of supernatural bouncer.
–For the set’s metallic finish refer to Chichone.
–Sammael attacks Left-Right and then vice-versa, in serious ass-kicking mode.
–He stabs his arm.
The final design.
GDT: This page [opposite] is from a visit to Japan to promote Blade II, with my daughter and my wife. I love those concrete shapes in the tunnel. They ended up being in the BPRD in Hellboy.
Then I saw a Japanese mask that had no bottom, and I thought, “Wouldn’t it be great to give Kroenen a mask like that, but full of tubes that are red in the bottom, maybe kind of gory?” And he basically has the mask.
On the right is a sculptural detail, and in the middle is a Japanese sign that says “natarekoko,” which is a dessert that I was eating at the time.
Then on the right-hand page [above], in the middle, I wanted Sammael to stab Hellboy, and I didn’t do it—PG-13.
On the top, I wanted Sammael to be eating a corpse, backlit against the steam of the intestines of the corpse. But at the end of the day, two things prevented that: PG-13 and the fact that the horns and the protruding bones in the shoulder blades had to go. Backlighting the silhouette we ended up with would have been very boring, so I hung him upside down instead.