For those of you like me who grew up in the '80s watching He-Man and the Masters of the Universe on TV and playing with the toys, you'll appreciate this rad set of rare artwork for the franchise. These were created by Errol McCarthy, and here's little excerpt from an article written about the artist,
In 1981 Errol was brought onto the Masters of the Universe brand as a freelance artist by his friend Mark Taylor. His ability to produce a great deal of work in a short space of time resulted in him working at Mattel for many years. One of Errol’s most iconic illustrations was that of Castle Grayskull. The image was reused time and time again, and can be seen incorporated on numerous other MOTU illustrations, where Errol simply photocopied and pasted the castle in the backgrounds. In order to maintain the house style that Mattel were often aiming for Errol would utilize Fred Carrillo’s drawings of He-Man’s head on his own submissions. This way he knew that he would not be asked to redraw the face of the most powerful man in the universe!
The Power and The Honor Foundation is proud to house high quality scans featuring all of Errol’s artwork. Within Errol’s portfolio are the original cardback illustrations for the Powers of Grayskull line. Not only are He-Ro and Eldor included, but also a plethora of unnamed figures which took the parts reuse concept to an entirely different level!. At some point the Foundation will share all of these wonderful pieces with you!
To read more about the artist, click here. This was such an iconic series and toy line, and I can't wait for it to be resurrected on the big screen. Hopefully they can finally get things rolling on that live-action film project that seems to be sitting in limbo.
Here's a description of each of the images...
1. Skeletor card back illustration
2. Faker card back illustration
3. Extendar card back illustration
4. The good guys group shot - From the style guide
5. He-Ro - From the Style Guide
6. Man-E-Faces - From the Style Guide
7. The Evil Horde - From the Style Guide
8. Battle for the Crystal mini-comic Cover
9. Fisto vs. Jitsu - Illustration for Bates Nightwear, printed on fabric
10. A rare illustration for Bates Nightwear, with movie He-Man